Reliance Retail ‘Re-Pivots’ To 30-Minute Delivery Model

Amid the intensifying competition in the 10-minute delivery space, Reliance Retail plans to stick to its “under 30 minute” delivery model. 

Speaking during the company’s post-earnings call, the retail conglomerate’s chief financial officer (CFO) Dinesh Taluja said that the retail conglomerate has now completely re-pivoted its model to under “30 minutes delivery” on the back of its 2,000+ stores, spanning 4,000 pincodes. 

The Reliance Retail CFO also claimed that the retail major was not seeing any “impact” due to quick commerce platforms “either in metro or in any other city”.

Responding to a question whether Reliance Retail plans to foray into 10 minute delivery space, Taluja, without clearly answering the question, said that the company is looking to ramp up its hyperlocal deliveries using its existing store network. He, however, added that the conglomerate plans to supplement its store network with dark stores when required. 

“… We are using our store network, delivering within a three kilometer radius. So most of our areas, most of the pin codes get covered. We have 4,000 pin codes where we are able to cover within that. There are some dark pockets where we will set up dark stores also, wherever there is a genuine requirement, there is enough volume and we cannot service it within 30 minutes, we may set up some dark stores as well,” added Taluja. 

For the uninitiated, JioMart broadly operates three offerings under its “quick service” vertical – under 30 minute delivery, scheduled delivery and a subscription service (users get delivery early morning). Taluja claimed that all three offerings were “picking up very well”, with average daily orders rising 62% on a year-on-year (YoY) basis in the fourth quarter (Q4) of the fiscal year 2024-25 (FY25). 

He also claimed that the company’s hyperlocal delivery stores, on a standalone basis, were witnessing “double digits like for like growths for (the) last several quarters”, adding that the company’s stores were growing in a “pretty healthy manner” in metro cities.

Meanwhile, Taluja claimed that Reliance Retail’s existing store infrastructure was helping the company offer customer deliveries in a profitable manner with very strong unit economics. 

“The big advantage that we have in this segment is compared to other people who have to set up dedicated store infrastructure. For us, we are only leveraging the infrastructure that we already have. My fixed cost is already being taken care of by my store sales. This is all incremental sales and it is only incremental cost that I have to incur to deliver these orders. So we are doing this model in a profitable manner with a very strong unit economics,” added Taluja. 

He also said that the number of third-party logistics players on JioMart grew 22% YoY in Q4 FY25. 

This comes days after Reliance Retail released its financial results for the fourth quarter (Q4) of the fiscal year 2024-25 (FY25). The retail juggernaut’s operating revenue jumped 16.3% to INR 78,622 Cr during the quarter under review from INR 67,610 Cr in the year-ago period. Meanwhile, net profit rose 29.1% to INR 3,545 Cr in Q4 FY25 from INR 2,746 Cr in Q4 FY24.

The comments come at a time when the likes of Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto have aggressively scaled up their 10 minute delivery proposition. Flush with billions of dollars in capital, the three platforms have rapidly scaled up their SKUs and dark store network to cater to customers. 

Meanwhile, piggybacking on the growing band of consumers looking for quick deliveries, the Indian quick commerce segment is projected to become a $40 Bn market by 2030, as per Inc42 data.