Flipkart Wholesale Goes Live: One Similarity and One Difference from JioMart

Flipkart Wholesale, owned by Flipkart Group, launched its operations starting with services for fashion retailers, especially footwear and apparel, in Gurugram, Delhi and Bengaluru. The platform soon plans to expand to Mumbai as well. Although Flipkart Wholesale as a product may seem similar to JioMart in terms of tapping Indian Kiranas and MSMEs and following an online-to-offline model, there is one main difference between the two.

Flipkart Wholesale aims to be a B2B digital platform, whereas JioMart is more of a B2C initiative. Flipkart Wholesale customers, who are most-likely business owners who purchase in bulk, will have access to an easy credit facility to manage cash flow, Flipkart assured quality products, convenient order returns and speedy product delivery directly to their shops with an easy order tracking facility.

By this year-end, Flipkart Wholesale also plans to expand to 20 more cities and in categories such as Home & Kitchen and Grocery. The B2B digital platform that is accessible to retailers via the app on Google Play Store, aims to rope in over 300 strategic partners and have over 2 lakh listings in 2 months. Additionally, the platform will enable the onboarding of 50 brands and over 250 local manufacturers in the coming days.

JioMart on the other hand, through its partnership with WhatsApp, aims at servicing the end consumer through their hand-held devices. Furthermore, JioMart is currently only dealing with grocery items. However, according to reports, JioMart will soon expand into other categories like fashion, electronics, pharmaceuticals and so on.

JioMart aims at making wider inroads into the Indian Kiranas and MSMEs ecosystem through partnerships with millions of small merchants and Kirana shops to empower them to better serve the needs of Indian consumers. WhatsApp and Reliance Industries are working closely to ensure that consumers are able to access the nearest Kiranas who can provide products and services to their homes by transacting with JioMart using WhatsApp.