RIL starts using WhatsApp for grocery supply

New Delhi, April 27

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries (RIL) has started limited test use of WhatsApp to connect customers to grocery stores, days after Facebook decided to invest $5.7 billion in digital assets controlled by the company.

JioMart, an e-commerce venture of Reliance Retail, “has already started interacting with customers on WhatsApp for grocery orders” in Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan, Credit Suisse said in a report.

“The customer initiates the interaction on WhatsApp, checks out the grocery order on JioMart webpage, gets connected with a retail store on WhatsApp and then customer picks up the order from kirana and pays in cash,” it said, adding the model is likely on delivery and completion of the transaction on one app.

The Facebook deal will help Ambani set up a digital platform to take on Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart in an e-commerce market that KPMG says is likely to grow to $200 billion by 2027.

The deal benefits Facebook via “partnership with the largest retail player in India, where partnership starts with grocery, and later could be extended to medicine distribution, fashion and lifestyle stores, food delivery, etc,” Credit Suisse said in a report. Also, Reliance Jio, with its 388 million users, could provide infrastructure for various Facebook’s solutions, it said. — PTI