Reliance Retail partners with Kirana stores for online delivery

It has tied up with nearly 60,000 kiranas, and has plans to enroll more by April.

Reliance Retail’s e-commerce platform JioMart will soon use Kirana stores as franchise partners to deliver non-perishable grocery items in India, departing from its previous strategy of directly selling packaged grocery products, IGD reported.

JioMart will utilise the existing inventory of Kirana, which typically sell the most popular items in the neighbourhoods. And in case there are non-perishable products ordered online which are not in stock with the Kiranas, Reliance Retail will supply them and the margins will be shared equally among the parties involved.

JioMart has started to partner close to 60,000 Kirana stores from 30 cities to pilot this system of selling to consumers. It is planning to enroll more Kirana stores in over 100 cities by April.

This pivot in its strategy is expected to help Reliance Retail fulfill orders placed by shoppers on JioMart at a faster pace than competition, giving it an advantage over other e-commerce rivals such as Big Basket and Grofers.

“Although JioMart only started operations in December 2019 and an official rollout in May 2020, it has already overtaken Big Basket and Grofers based on daily active users. This partnership with Kiranas will further cement its dominance in e-grocery in India,” said Francis Ramos, IGD’s senior retail analyst.