Reliance Industries will kick off its online retail foray starting with grocery. Mukesh Ambani’s plan to move a part of Reliance Industries’ retail division into the e-commerce space has been known for a long time. The company plans to offer express deliveries of fresh fruit and vegetables to homes in Mumbai, making it the first such bid to bridge the last-mile connect by a large retailer. This is just the first step by India’s largest private sector company to expand into a highly competitive space that’s been dominated by a couple of entities for a long time. The potential of e-commerce combined with the network of physical store locations will therefore offer choice and convenience at a great value to the consumers.
The idea to start an online store in not new; in fact, Reliance had been testing out this exact thing at its corporate office in Navi Mumbai for some time. Over the past year or so, its 10,000 employees there have been buying home care, personal and pharmaceutical products along with food through the Reliance Fresh-Project Direct website. Over the course of time, Reliance will start selling consumer electronics including mobile phones online.
RIL is working on a few specialised e-commerce ventures and a comprehensive marketplace model. Grocery, electronics and apparel will be the specialised sites. Separate online teams are working on specialised verticals in close tandem with those who look after brick-and-mortar stores, said the person cited above.