In the last decade, the world has witnessed a paradigm shift in grocery shopping, with a big push on digital engagement. In 2010, there was hardly an online grocery startup, and even, the customers won’t place their trust in buying groceries digitally.
With increasing mobile penetration, trust in e-commerce, and improved comfort needs, online grocery shopping picked up the speed steadily, and its market value gets doubled from 2016 to 2018.
Now, online grocery startups account for 40 per cent of total e-commerce funding in India that amounts to nearly US$665.70 million.
The research has projected that India’s online food and grocery retail is likely to touch US$10.5 billion by 2023.
The recent corona outbreak has made it come true with the tremendous growth in mobile grocery apps download such as Instacart, Walmart, Shipt, and others, and the sales.
There is a sad story behind e-grocery shopping
The people who are sitting at home and trying to buy the grocery online, they are constantly struggling to find a delivery slot even for the essential items. That’s why people resorted to the Kirana store (mom-and-pop shops) in the next lane to meet the grocery needs. This time the power of small stores is realised, and established players started making the mom and pop stores a part of the digital network.
However, the commercial biggie Reliance identified the opportunity in 2017 and piloted the Jiomart project. The new venture lies at the intersection of data and technology capabilities of telecom business Jio and B2B cash-and-carry infrastructure.
Harnessing the power of Reliance’s two consumer-facing businesses, the new grocery shopping e-commerce platform was launched in the suburbs of Mumbai in January 2019.
The POS machines with integrated billing applications are provided to the registered small stores that enable transactions, promotions, and supply chain management.
Also Read: E-commerce trends: What to expect in 2020
As Asia’s richest man and owner of Jio, Mukesh Ambani’s strategy is to build a new homegrown venture that helps small retailers to grow and increase sales while maintaining social distancing. After a couple of days, when Reliance allowed the Kirana stores to sign up and started taking orders on WhatsApp, Amazon plunges into the race with a plan of partnering with Kirana stores and allowed them to register and start selling the products through Amazon.
The attempt of grabbing a pie of Kirana shops has brought gala changes in the online grocery shopping space. With continuous changes, post-COVID-19 outbreak, a lot is expected to come with breaking news. Meanwhile, take a glance at how daily grocery shopping habits will get transformed.
Creating and managing the Kirana store’s chain
At RIL’s 42nd Annual General Meeting Ambani said that 30 million neighbourhood stores, which are nearly 90 per cent of India’s retail sector are unorganised, which will be connected through technology. It will empower and enrich the small retailers who have suffered a ton post-online purchase has become a norm. The Kirana store already has an army of loyal customers in the vicinity, which alleviates the need to build a network of courier services from scratch.
Connecting Kirana store’s to customers
The COVID-19 crisis has helped people testing the power of small stores when the commercial biggies are not able to deliver the essentials on-time even after investing billions of dollars to ramp up the e-grocery strategy.
This opportunity is spotted by reliance quite earlier, the Facebook deal has not only helped in creating a digital platform, and making the partnership with India’s largest retailers but getting access to a large user base of WhatsApp, that’s around 400 million users.
When the customers sign up with Jiomart, they need to add WhatsApp number on the Jiomart platform from where they can order through WhatsApp chat. Once, the order is placed, it’s redirected to local Kirana stores to complete the order as last-mile delivery.
Grocery shopping through WhatsApp
The orders which can be collected by the customers or delivered by the Kirana shops are not restricted to cash payment; instead POS machines are provided to encourage Kirana stores to manage the inventory and payment.
However, WhatsApp is also testing its payment service. WhatsApp Pay in India and waiting for the approval from the government to roll out the payment system, which will benefit Jiomart as ordering and payment system will be taken care of by WhatsApp.
Track customer’s behaviour
It’s expected that a mini-app concept will exist under the Jiomart platform where both Reliance and Facebook will have access to the customer’s data, which can be utilised to target the users accordingly. Facebook giant already had rich experience in monetising the data through advertising, which will help Jiomart in targeted advertising and grow the revenue by manifolds.
Furthermore, Credit Suisse said, the partnership between Reliance and Facebook that begins with grocery will later extend to medicine, fashion, food delivery, and lifestyle, which will further improve the chances of cross-targeting and selling.
On an ending note, the Jiomart initiative will bring local stores to the fore, reinvent the grocery shopping with WhatsApp, and targeted advertising will change the way people shop online and offline. The online to offline model is projected to gain momentum, but quality lapse and lower prices may pops-up the issues in the future, which Reliance should take care of proactively.
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