Kirana stores to help Reliance in fulfilling orders of JioMart

Reliance retail has changed its strategy by roping in kirana stores as its franchise partners. These franchise partners will sell products for reliance and help the company fulfill their orders.

Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance retail has planned to exit from the direct sale of packaged food, grocery and FMCG products. In order to do so the company is set to rope in local kirana stores as their partners.  The kirana stores will be a franchise partner of reliance and will help the company to sell their  products to consumers in their localities. The orders that will be placed on the ecommerce platform of reliance , JioMart will be fulfilled by these kirana stores.

A report by The Economic Times said, “This marks a shift in strategy that differentiates it from other big e-grocery platforms such as BigBasket, Amazon and Grofers,”

The report further stated that reliance will continue to sell perishable items like fruits and vegetables, on its own but other items will be sold through the kiranas. If these stores are short of any product, they will source goods from reliance. Reliance will supply it to them and margins will be shared equally.  If in any case the products are not available in reliance as well, the stores can source it from elsewhere to fulfil the orders on JioMart.

Moreover reliance will shelve its B2B cash-and-carry store format and turn Reliance Market into B2B delivery of products to kirana stores. The customers can easily place their order online and the deliveries will be made to their outlet.

Approximately 56,000 kiranas from 30 cities have been signed to pilot this system of direct sale to customers in the June quarter. Sources said , the company is planning to to enrol kirana stores in over 100 cities by april. Eventually the company will implement this format in the areas where JioMart has operations.

According to analysts, this strategy will help reliance retail in the long run to fulfil customer orders placed on JioMart faster than competition and will also help it in achieving higher volume.