Alert for Amazon, Flipkart! Mukesh Ambani makes big announcement for Reliance e-commerce venture

Mukesh Ambani on Thursday said that Jio along with Reliance Retail will shortly launch a new e-commerce platform which will give a boost to 3 crore small shopkeepers in India.

Reliance will bring a win-win benefit to consumers, small retailers and producers. (Image: PTI)

Kolkata: One of the country’s richest businessmen Mukesh Ambani on Thursday said that Jio along with Reliance Retail will shortly launch a new e-commerce platform which will give a significant boost to as many as 3 crore small shopkeepers in India. Ambani made this announcement of foraying into the online retail space while speaking at the Bengal Global Business Summit. Ambani said that his upcoming venture, just like Reliance Jio, will bring a win-win benefit to consumers, small retailers and producers. This was not the first time that Ambani spoke about his new e-commerce venture. Even last month during an event in Gujarat, the Managing Director and Chairperson of Reliance announced that, “Jio and Reliance Retail will launch a unique new commerce platform to empower and enrich our 12 lakh small retailers and shopkeepers in Gujarat.” Currently, Reliance has a significant dominance in the brick-and-mortar retail space with as many as 10,000 outlets in over 6,000 cities of the country. Just in West Bengal, Reliance Retail has as many as 500 operational stores and 46 Petro Retail Outlets across 400 cities and towns of the state. Various market analysts predict that entry of Reliance in the Indian e-commerce space which is largely dominated by foreign players such as Walmart, Amazon and others will a significant disruption and a third player in the market. “We at Reliance operate nearly 3 Million Square Feet of Warehouses in Bengal and with our New Commerce initiative, this will increase manifold in the next 24 months,” Ambani said. Reportedly, over 36 countries are participating in the two-day Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) which gets underway from Thursday. Ambani further mentioned that the company has also set up Jio Points, which are direct distribution channels that will cater to the growing rural market. There are already 350 Jio Points in Bengal, which the company is targeting to increase to 1,000 by the end of the year. Last year, the summit bagged around 10 lakh investment proposals out of which over 50 per cent have been implemented which is a record among all other business meetings in the country, claimed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.