Reliance’s second “pilot” is here, for businesses

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

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.

About 85% of Jijeesh’s customers pay in cash. The others pay through debit/credit cards or digital wallets like Paytm* or PhonePe.

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.

View Full Profile

Others tell you what. We tell you the ‘So What?’

Read articles that decode the most significant shifts happening around business, technology, startups and healthcare. 1000+ articles for subscribers of the India edition. 150+ articles for subscribers of the Southeast Asia edition. Plus premium newsletters that help you make sense of the world around you.

So much journalism in India is superficial.

Articles are generic, almost cookie-cutter in their approach. And they don’t provide enough context on the issues they cover. The Ken is different. I don’t always agree with everything they say but I appreciate their commitment to publishing deeply reported narratives and investigations. Their reporters find new ways to analyze tech among other industries. And that’s always worth a read.

Sid Talwar / Co-Founder and Partner / Lightbox Venture Capital

As entrepreneurs, we thrive on being in the know at all times.

A personal subscription to The Ken was a no brainer. But as startup founders, this isn't enough. Team members also need to be in the know, for everyone handles customer-facing responsibilities and an ecosystem change that impacts customers also impacts us

Kiran Jonnalagadda / Co-founder / HasGeek and Internet Freedom Foundation