JioMart set to become largest e-grocer; cross 5 lakh orders by Sep

Within a few days of its launch, Reliance Retail-owned JioMart app has been catching up faster and has crossed the one million downloads mark on the Google Play Store and is one of the top three apps in the ‘Shopping’ category.  

The beta platform jiomart.com was launched simultaneously in nearly 200 cities and towns across the country towards the end of March. The app, which is now available for iOS devices, has been ranked second on App Store by mobile data and analytics platform, App Annie.

Since its launch, JioMart has expanded its wings into smaller cities and recently crossed 250K daily orders. According to two Entrackr sources, the platform will become the largest e-grocer in a few weeks from now. “JioMart will cross Bigbasket’s volume by the end of August,” said one of the top executives at an offline grocery retail chain. “JioMart is likely to reach 5 lakh daily orders by September.”

As per sources, Bigbasket with micro delivery platform does about 250-300K orders a day while Grofers and Amazon Pantry do over 1 lakh orders a day.

JioMart took less than two months to cross the 250K orders mark. Besides its website and apps, JioMart also takes orders through WhatsApp in Mumbai. “WhatsApp will play a significant role in capturing orders from users who look at quick fulfilment from neighbourhood retailers. Soon, the feature will be live across major cities,” said another person aware of the company’s plan.

According to the person quoted above, JioMart would add medicine, electronics and fashion verticals before Diwali. “Upcoming festival period drives a major chunk of electronic items and apparels and JioMart has been busy ramping up the supply chain for these verticals,” the person added.

Entrackr’s queries to JioMart remained unanswered till the publication of this story. We will update the post as and when they respond.

While JioMart has gained momentum in quick time, its operations need to be streamlined as users complain about restrictions. For instance, one can only order 4 SKUs of many products. It is not clear whether this is to curb fake orders or for other reasons.

At present, JioMart has close to 12,000 kirana stores on its platform and this number is likely to reach 30,000 before festive season, according to the aforementioned sources.

A recent report by Goldman Sachs also said that RIL's partnership with Facebook could result in the company becoming a market leader in the online grocery space, with more than 50% share by 2024.

JioMart has been scaling at a quick pace and it’s posing a great threat to incumbents - BigBasket, Grofers and Amazon. Flipkart’s grocery play is still in early stage. While analysts and observers often outline the massive potential of e-commerce in grocery with scope to thrive for every player, fundraising for e-grocers won’t be easy after JioMart.

“Raising capital for incumbents won’t be the same as it used to be. SoftBank, Tiger Global and Alibaba that have invested in grocery space are unlikely to cut large cheques because of several reasons. SoftBank isn’t in position to support Grofers while tension between India and China would keep Alibaba away from putting more money in BigBasket,” said one of the venture capitals on condition of anonymity. “JioMart may trigger BigBasket and Grofers to merge as together they would be in a better position to compete and raise capital.”

The online grocery space has become hyper competitive and interesting with the entry of JioMart. It would be exciting to watch how incumbents respond to Ambani’s aggressive push to win grocery and dominate the overall e-commerce market in India that is slated to touch $99 billion by 2024.