Online shopping may never be same again in India. Imagine browsing the products, adding products to cart and making payment all within WhatsApp, which is the most popular platform in India. This is becoming a reality in India with Jio Platforms and Meta announcing the launch of the first-ever end-to-end shopping experience on WhatsApp, where consumers can shop from JioMart right within their WhatsApp chat.
This is touted by the company as a global first as the idea is to make WhatsApp the platform that brings together buyers, delivery partners and sellers.
Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Meta, said in a Facebook post, "Excited to launch our partnership with JioMart in India. This is our first-ever end-to-end shopping experience on WhatsApp -- people can now buy groceries from JioMart right in a chat. Business messaging is an area with real momentum and chat-based experiences like this will be the go-to way people and businesses communicate in the years to come."
How to shop on JioMart via WhatsApp
Two years back, when Facebook announced an investment of Rs 43, 574 crores ($5.7 billion) for a 9.99% stake in Reliance Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, TechRadar wrote: "The speculation is that the social networking giant wants to bring JioMart — Jio's small business platform — to WhatsApp, enabling users to connect with businesses directly. With over 400 million users, India is WhatsApp's largest market by some margin, and Facebook is now looking to use that scale to turn the platform into an e-commerce destination."
So today's announcement is not unexpected. It is just that it seems a bit delayed.
Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries, said, "when Jio platforms and Meta announced our partnership in 2020, Mark and I shared a vision of bringing more people and businesses online and creating truly innovative solutions that will add convenience to the daily lives of every Indian. One example of an innovative customer experience that we are proud of developing is the first ever end-to-end shopping experience with JioMart on WhatsApp."
The JioMart on WhatsApp experience furthers our commitment of enabling a simple and convenient way of online shopping to millions of Indians, he added.
The JioMart on WhatsApp can be a game-changer for the way millions of businesses across the country connect with their consumers while bringing simplicity and convenience to people’s shopping experience.
Consumers can start shopping on JioMart via WhatsApp by simply sending ‘Hi’ to the JioMart number (+917977079770) on WhatsApp.
