The holes in JioMart’s pitch

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Editor's note: There are many aspects to Facebook Inc.’s $5.7 billion minority investment into Jio Platforms, the parent company of India’s biggest telecom operator. In our note on the day the transaction went public, we noted that the partnership “needs to complete the elusive triad of community, commerce and payments”. With an unmatched number of users compared to anywhere else in the world, it makes sense for both Facebook and Reliance/Jio to bet on e-commerce. For Facebook it can serve as a proof of concept that WhatsApp can be monetized; for Reliance it is a natural progression as its retail arm is already the biggest in India and it continues to move from the high-margin refining and petrochemicals business to lower-margin, high-valuation consumer tech businesses. Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd, confirmed as much when he said that “JioMart – Jio’s digital new commerce platform, and WhatsApp – will empower nearly 3 crore small Indian Kirana shops to digitally transact with every customer in their neighbourhood”. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the partnership and the …