Reliance Industries Puts Ecommerce Marketplace Plans On Hold

Reliance Industries has reportedly put its plans to have an ecommerce platform for third-party sellers on hold as the government delays its ecommerce policy.

The conglomerate has integrated thousands of independent sellers into its existing platform JioMart, according to an ET report. Reliance is now building JioMart as a marketplace to compete with the Amazons and Flipkarts of the world.

It has shifted its focus from pivoting JioMart and building JioMarket to solely building JioMart to the scale of Amazon and Flipkart. According to the sources cited in the ET report, building and scaling two platforms would have been difficult for the company.

In August, reports emerged that the conglomerate was building a separate online marketplace called JioMarket, onboarding third-party sellers to the platform. Further, this would have allowed Reliance to comply with the draft ecommerce policy. 

One of the key aspects of the draft ecommerce policy is that it prohibits marketplace operators from having related parties as sellers on their platforms. However, reportedly, the draft ecommerce policy has been put on hold due to differences among different ministries.

JioMarket would have served 30,000 pin codes and featured more than one million products on its platform. Reliance had even roped in former Amazon executive Sandeep Varaganti to head JioMarket. Varaganti is already heading JioMart at Reliance as the marketplace’s CEO.

Varaganti was brought in from the erstwhile Prione Business Services, a joint venture between Amazon India and Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures. Prione used to run Cloudtail, Amazon’s largest seller which was dissolved earlier this year following intervention from the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

Since Reliance has shifted its focus to JioMart, it has onboarded around 15,000 independent sellers and D2C brands. These brands were initially roped in by Reliance Retail for JioMarket. Entities such as Reliance Smart, Reliance Digital, Trends and other acquired entities were the only sellers on JioMart.

Reliance already owns a marketplace, AJIO, which competes directly with Myntra. The conglomerate has also been exploring its chances at a super app to compete with Tata Digital’s Tata Neu. The conglomerate has acquired or invested in 29 Indian startups, including the likes of Dunzo, Glance, Urban Ladder, Grab and Fynd.

To compete with Amazon and Flipkart, JioMart is also running deals and discounts matching those of the two ecommerce giants. Speaking of the ongoing festive season, ecommerce platforms in India notched up sales of INR 24,500 Cr ($3.5 Bn) during the first four days, according to consulting firm Redseer.