Trojan alert

Reliance’s second “pilot” is here, for retail this time

With Amazon and Walmart-Flipkart tied up in regulatory knots, the thin end of Reliance’s Jio wedge into 12 million kirana stores is here

Arundhati Ramanathan, 13 Feb 2019

Jio's PoS devices are a Trojan Horse meant to seize various aspects of Kiranas, ultimately leading up to a hyperlocal grocery play

Jio has already reduced PoS to a commodity just like it did with voice-calling in telephony

But to nail grocery it needs to be able to get kiranas to digitise inventory

Jio has been an infrastructure firm, not an experience-focused company. So conquering grocery will be a challenge

It is 7 PM, and Jijeesh V has no time to chat. The wiry owner of Brothers Store, a kirana store in Indira Nagar, Bengaluru, sees 500 customers walk into his store every day. There are anywhere between 12-14 million such shops across India, together accounting for over 90% of food and grocery retail in the country. The ones in larger cities, such as Brothers, make around Rs 4-12 lakhs ($5,700-$17,000) in revenue each month.

AUTHOR

Arundhati Ramanathan

Arundhati is Bengaluru-based. She is interested in how people use money in the digital age and how new economies will take shape based on that interaction. She has spent over 10 years reporting and writing on various subjects. Previous stints were at Mint, Outlook Business and Reuters.

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Reliance’s second “pilot” is here, for retail this time