JioMart-WhatsApp will revolutionise e-commerce biz: Akash Ambani

The JioMart-WhatsApp collaboration resulted in a revolution in consumer ease, according to Akash Ambani, Director & Head of Strategy, Jio Platforms. WhatsApp's easy-to-use, intuitive interface helped remove customer inhibitions and overcame barriers to technology encouraging more and more customer participation. "Digital shopping is now just an extension of messaging via WhatsApp to JioMart," he added.

"We believe that small businesses are the bedrock of our country's economic backbone. The pandemic really brought home the truth that small merchant shops, retailers, and small businesses urgently needed to convert their physical brick and mortar stores to digital storefronts," mentioned Isha Ambani, Director, Reliance Retail and Jio Platforms, underlining the motivation behind JioMart's collaboration with WhatsApp as pandemic broke to support small businesses through e-commerce solutions Isha Ambani, Director, Reliance Retail and Jio Platforms, and Akash Ambani, Director & Head of Strategy, Jio Platforms were speaking with Marne Levine, Chief Business Officer, Meta at the Fuel For India 2021 event, on how India's small business owners and entrepreneurs have taken the pandemic as a challenge to reinvent themselves, Bizz Buzz is reproducing the interaction here.

Marne Levine: Among Reliance Jio's many contributions to India, it has made affordable internet access available to millions of Indians today. And that has been truly revolutionary - both for people and for businesses. It's part of the reason our company has been so thrilled to partner closely together with you, because we both share a vision of empowering small businesses and entrepreneurs. And so first I want to talk about the future of retail in India. How do you think our partnership has been able to deliver on our shared goals, particularly in the midst of the pandemic?

Isha: We believe that small businesses are the bedrock of our country's economic backbone. The pandemic really brought home the truth that small merchant shops, retailers, and small businesses urgently needed to convert their physical brick and mortar stores to digital storefronts

For us, it meant an acceleration of delivering our responsibility to enable them digitally. We're glad that through the power of our partnership we could decide to quickly leverage the strength of the WhatsApp platform that provides access to over 400 million people.

With an equal number of Jio subscribers it seemed like a natural progression for us to be able to support these businesses not only through a digital connection with their customers online, but also to quickly develop and build very specific digital-commerce solutions.

Akash: Just to put some numbers, we currently have over half a million retailers and the count is growing day by day. We were very clear that the JioMart's unmatched network -both in online and offline retail should be leveraged optimally, given the size of the opportunity.

We continue to be so excited about our partnership with Meta and in collaboration with the WhatsApp team, we intend to build out native features that will not only help users shop seamlessly on WhatsApp but will also help retailers increase stock assortments, improve margins and get them closer to perhaps a larger base of customers, like never before. They will be able to get new orders in addition to keeping their relationships with their regular user base intact.

Isha: For Akash and I personally, this has great personal significance, because it means that we are moving closer to my father's vision of enabling millions of small retailers to become digital first via Jio and JioMart… which for us is a really motivating factor.

It is such an inspiring vision! JioMart is not only adding value to businesses but also having material socio-economic impact. Small merchants - or kiranas - have been the backbone of India's economy for ages. And as more and more of them join the world of e-commerce, how has this transformed the shopping experience for consumers?

Akash: The JioMart experience through WhatsApp is actually, very simply put - 'conversational' in nature. WhatsApp is extremely simple and easy to use; so there's no customer inhibition when ordering for supplies. It's extremely intuitive - so there are no barriers to technology. And digital shopping is now just an extension of messaging via WhatsApp to JioMart, it's all taken care of in a couple of steps effortlessly. Really, it is a revolution in consumer ease.

Isha: All a customer needs to do is to just order away on JioMart. Bread, butter, vegetables, beverages, everything that you need in your household that day or that week…Look up a product, set up a subscription for a regular buy if that's what you want, or get personalized recommendations based on your past purchase history, it's all there.

Payments through WhatsApp are now live on the UPI platform. And I feel like the JioMobile recharge process could become even simpler for people as a result. Is that your thinking as well?

Isha: Yes, it makes it very simple for anybody to adopt. For example, for older citizens who at times may find it difficult to head outside, this Jio recharge feature through WhatsApp is so helpful! And payments on WhatsApp adds to that ease!

Akash: It is really exciting how the end-to-end experience for Recharge through WhatsApp along with the ability to make payments can potentially make the lives of millions of Jio subscribers much more convenient.