Reliance Retail is all set to roll out its New Commerce platform with the aim to become one of the top 20 retailers globally.

“Our beta trials with thousands of merchants across multiple locations in the country established the premise of New Commerce with significant increase in sales and improvement in margins for the participating merchants. We are now getting ready to roll out the platform at a larger scale,” Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of RIL, said.

New Commerce is a massive new business opportunity of $700 billion. “The main purpose of New Commerce is to completely transform the unorganised retail market, which accounts for 90 per cent of India’s retail industry. The 3 crore merchants and kirana shop owners, who generate direct and indirect livelihoods for over 20 crore people, form the backbone of India’s commerce ecosystem. These highly energetic and self-motivated entrepreneurs have suffered in recent years because of their inability to invest in technology and infrastructure,” Ambani said.

Under Reliance’s plan, the company is deploying blockchain, IOT, AI and other new technologies on a pan-India basis. This tech-enabled partnership will link producers, traders, small merchants, consumer brands and consumers.

“This user-friendly digital platform is designed for inventory management, customer relationship management, financial services and other services. This will modernise even the smallest neighbourhood kirana shop to become a future-ready digitised store,” Ambani said.