Buying groceries from online stores is much easier than purchasing the same from a shop nearby you. Why is this so? Websites have a cart feature. Once you have added items to the cart, you can see the overall cart value with just one click of a button. If you’re at a shop, you will know the overall price of the items only while checking out. Offline stores (for example Dmart) are very large. You will have to move around the place, and pick up items one by one. Another advantage of buying groceries online is that you can check the price of a thing on various websites in a few minutes. The only way to know the price of a grocery product offline is to visit a nearby retail, wholesale, or mega store.
You will find many grocery-selling websites on Google. According to the search engine, JioMart and BigBasket are among the top three sites in India in the “grocery” category. Let’s find out which site among the two sells daily-use products such as ghee, cooking oil, lentils, etc at a cheaper price, delivers the goods faster, etc.
Big Basket is one of the several companies owned by India’s leading business house, the Tata group. It was an independent eCommerce company until the Tata group acquired it in 2021. JIOMart is owned by Reliance Industries. Although it was introduced 8 years after its counterpart BB was launched, it is a part of Reliance Retail. The Retail division of Reliance Industries was founded in 2006. It is one of the largest retail companies in India.
Products: Bigbasket and JioMart sell every household and grocery product available in India. The products available on these two platforms are grouped into several categories. To explore the category, you just have to move the mouse cursor on the menu and select the menu option displayed by the website.
There’s also a search box on the two websites. If you don’t want to use the category menu, you can enter the product name and click the enter button. JioMart and BigBasket search box is auto-complete enabled. When you enter a few letters, the two sites will show all grocery/household items containing the letters you have entered.
Reviews: You cannot rate any item on JioMart. Each thing available for purchase on BigBasket is ratable. BB lets you write a review of the product you’ve bought. You can also rate the item by clicking on an appropriate “star”.
Delivery: While placing an order on BigBasket, you’ll be asked to choose the time frame in which you want the products to be delivered. When the Reliance executive is out for delivery, you will be notified via SMS. JioMart doesn’t allow users to select a delivery time slot. It offers free delivery of items to new customers (for a few orders only). On BB, your cart value should be 600 if you don’t want to pay a delivery fee.
Offers: Apart from free delivery, “discount” is another reason why people buy groceries online. Like brick-and-mortar stores such as Dmart, Reliance Fresh, Bigbasket, and JioMart partner with mobile wallet apps, and banks to offer discounts on purchases of certain Rupees. JioMart allows users to get an additional discount by using payment services that let users redeem their reward points.
This year, JioMart has launched a WhatsApp payment offer wherein you will get an instant discount of up to 90 Rs on orders placed via the messaging application.
Cancellation and refund: If you’ve ordered something from one of the two sites and found the same product available elsewhere at a cheaper rate, you can cancel the order. The refund will be processed within a week.
If you want to return an item because of some reason, you should first check whether an item is returnable or not. The two grocery websites have classified goods they sell as returnable or non-returnable. If the item is returnable, you can request the company to arrange a delivery executive to pick up the same from your home/office. The refund would be initiated when the executive has collected the item.
BigBasket and JioMart are trustworthy companies. They sell original products at a good price.
