MUMBAI: India's ubiquitous neighbourhood kirana stores are not only on the minds of consumers, given the lockdown, but have also caught attention of billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Mark Zukerberg.
On Wednesday, the companies signed a commercial pact to accelerate Reliance Retail's JioMart platform by connecting nearby kirana shops to customers.
The covid-19-induced lockdown has, ironically, given the mom-and-pop stores a new lease of life while hitting e-commerce platforms.
The two companies now want these small merchants and kirana stores to provide their products and services to end consumers, which number in billions, by transacting through Reliance's JioMart using Facebook's WhatsApp. “Our focus will be India’s 60 million micro, small