Reliance Retail, the country’s largest organised retailer, has not given up on its q-commerce ambitions despite facing initial hiccups in the segment. The retailer, which has a network of nearly 19,000 stores in the country, has begun trial or pilot runs of 30-minute delivery services under JioMart in key cities within states such as Maharashtra and Karnataka. This is part of a larger gameplan to re-enter the q-commerce or hyperlocal delivery services market, sources have told FE.
Customers who shop on JioMart for grocery and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) will see order fulfillment happen from Reliance Retail stores as well as kirana partners who are attached to JioMart’s merchant partner programme, persons in the know said.
The plan is to steadily ramp up hyperlocal delivery coverage to about 20-30 cities by October-November before taking it to about 100 cities by the middle of next year, sources in the know said. A mail sent to Reliance Retail elicited no response at the time of going to press.
But Reliance Retail is expected to assess its performance at every stage of the phased rollout to understand consumer response to its new initiative under JioMart. The possibility of crunching delivery timelines to under 30 minutes may not be ruled out as well, sources said, though the company is unlikely to directly compete with players such as Zomato-owned Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart, who promise delivery in 10 minutes, and have a network of dark stores for order fulfilment. The possibility of adding more categories such as fashion, lifestyle and electronic products is also being assessed, though it is likely to happen later, sources said.
If Reliance does get the model right, it will be third-time lucky after previous two attempts in q-commerce were unsuccessful. In 2021, the retailer launched JioMart Express in Navi Mumbai, but discontinued the service in two years. In 2022, it picked up an over 25% stake in hyperlocal delivery firm Dunzo, but that investment has gone nowhere as the latter has struggled with both financial performance and critical funding over the last two years.
“Quick commerce is exciting but gets tricky since it is agile by nature and needs a well-tuned logistics network. Reliance has built a strong ecosystem wherein all parts of their retail operations are interlinked with one another, but quick commerce is another beast altogether,” Navin Honagudi, managing partner, Elev8 Venture Partners, said.
Some analysts also say that Reliance didn’t expect quick commerce penetration to take off so aggressively, something that players such as Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto have capitalised over the last few years. Interestingly, just like Reliance Retail, e-commerce giants and rivals Amazon and Flipkart also miscalculated the potential of the segment. While Walmart-owned Flipkart has finally made a foray with Flipkart Minutes, despite the race heating up among incumbent players, Amazon is eyeing a q-commerce entry in India by 2025.
From: financialexpress
Financial News
