Big battle of Reliance vs Amazon set to begin? Mukesh Ambani reveals his plans - Top details in 10 points

Reliance will be launching a new e-commerce platform for about 1.2 million retailers and store owners in Gujarat, catering them the online retail business services. The plan is to create a nation's largest retail-based network by bringing both offline and online chains on a single turf.  As per experts, the move is direct competition to e-commerce giants like Walmart Inc.-controlled Flipkart, Amazon.com Inc, and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd-funded Paytm Mall. Photo: Reuters

The platform will be a combined product by Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail, creating a base for online and offline retail services. The company will use the power of both Jio' consumers and Reliance Retail's national reach to fuel the new vision. “Jio and Reliance Retail will launch a unique new commerce platform to empower and enrich our 12 lakh small retailers and shopkeepers in Gujarat,” the Reliance chairman said at the event in the state on Friday. Photo: Reuters

The platform will start from Gujarat, this will likely to help Reliance's new e-commerce venture as the state has a huge community of traders and retailers. “Our new commerce platform will empower small traders, shopkeepers, store runners in Gujarat, which are part of the over 3 crore community in India," Ambani said. Photo: PTI

Reliance Jio is a huge success. It has over 4,000 outlets nationwide, which will be scaled up to 10,000 over a period of time. Jio currently has 280 million telecom subscribers. The base will be highly productive for creating a new retail chain. Photo: Reuters

RIL has a massive retail space in the country with over 10,000 Reliance Retail stores across more than 6,500 Indian cities and towns and about 50 warehouses. The company’s wholesale stores will help stock the small and daily run retail stores. The small store and daily shop owners have about 90 percent of India’s retail landscape. The platform will use the base as the delivery based network pan India. Photo: Reuters

Reliance is focusing on next-generation technology to form its new online platform. Ambani revealed some details of his plans in e-commerce in July 2018, where he said the new platform would use augmented reality, holographs and virtual reality to create an “immersive shopping experience.” Photo: Reuters

Under the new e-commerce policy, firms in India will from February 1st not be able to sell products via companies in which they have an equity interest or push sellers to sell exclusively on their platforms. The rules are likely to affect the business of Amazon as well as its rival Walmart and some other similar companies. However, the move could benefit the local upcoming player, Reliance. Photo: Reuters

E-commerce is highly dependent on user data. The online retail chains do target the data to generate sales online. The base of over 280 million Jio users will be highly beneficial for the creation of this channel. “In this new world, data is the new oil. Data is a new wealth. India’s data must be controlled and owned by Indian people and not by corporate, especially global corporations," Ambani said. “For India to succeed in this data-driven revolution, we will have to migrate the control and ownership of Indian data back to India, in other words, Indian wealth back to every Indian," he said. Photo: Pixabay

The online retail businesses are running on the basis of two types of retail selling, i.e B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer). Large chains like Amazon, Flipkart, Alibaba, Paytm etc work on the same platform. They operate a single turf to cater consumers and traders, willing to purchase online. “E-commerce is not about products. If you look at Amazon’s success, it is more about B2B than B2C. Using Reliance Jio, RIL has already created a superhighway. Now they have to ride on this to create online e-commerce," said Piyush Kumar Sinha, a retail expert and director of CRI Advisory and Research. Photo: PTI

The Indian government has been highly pro-active on digitalisation pan India. Promotion of cashless India, providing internet connections, increasing use of smartphones, rising digital literacy is at peak. Therefore, the digital transformation can do wonders for Reliance to make its e-commerce setup, a huge success. Photo: Pixabay