SUMMARY
RIL is targeting the upcoming festive season to begin operations and is currently onboarding sellers and D2C brands
JioMarket will serve 30,000 pin codes and will feature more than one million products on its platform
Reliance has hired two former Amazon executives to build JioMarket
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is all set to launch its marketplace called JioMarket and has started onboarding independent sellers and D2C brands for the same.
An ET report citing sources said that RIL is targeting the upcoming festive season to begin operations.
Reliance’s second attempt at a marketplace after JioMart, JioMarket will serve 30,000 pin codes and will feature more than one million products on its platform.
A communication sent to the onboarded sellers read, “With this, Reliance is aiming to disrupt the ecommerce marketplace ecosystem in the same way Jio disrupted telecom or JioMart disrupted e-grocery.”
The internal work on JioMarket is complete and Reliance is working to start with a high number of sellers to get the ball rolling. The Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate will then start roping in more sellers. Reliance is also set to leverage Dunzo and Grab, the two logistics startups it has acquired, to help sellers deliver products to the customers.
According to sources cited by the ET report, former Amazon executive Sandeep Varaganti is heading JioMarket.
Incidentally, Varaganti used to head Prione Business Services, the parent company of Cloudtail. Cloudtail was a joint venture between Amazon and Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures and was one of the largest sellers on Amazon.
Incidentally, Cloudtail was shut down following the new ecommerce rules, which do not allow a company or a group of companies to own a stake or have control over a seller on its marketplace.
Another former Amazon executive, Samir Ratanjankar was also picked up by RIL to build JioMarket.
Reliance’s first attempt at a marketplace, JioMart is still known for grocery delivery service, even though the service is limited to big cities right now and JioMart has added other categories such as consumer electronics.
Given that JioMart has been focused on a select few categories, RIL hopes to bring more categories with JioMarket to take on the Amazons and Flipkarts of the world.
It is prudent to mention here that Reliance already owns a marketplace, AJIO, that primarily competes with Myntra in the fashion and lifestyle segment. However, AJIO does not come close to the diversity that Reliance is aiming for with the JioMarket.
Reliance’s move comes as big Indian conglomerates are joining the ecommerce party with super apps and marketplaces. Earlier this year, Tata launched its super app, TataNeu, bundling experiences from the brands it has acquired, including BigBasket and 1mg.
The Mumbai-based conglomerate recently reported that its retail arm, Reliance Retail, saw a growth of 2X in digital and new commerce businesses. Reliance Retail added that the digital commerce arm contributed to 19% of its total revenue in Q1 FY23.
