Dark stores drive Reliance Retail quick commerce push, with profitability and unit economics in focus

Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd. (RRVL) said it is expanding dark stores and pushing faster deliveries. The company is also growing in smaller cities. A senior official said profitability and unit economics remain central. Reliance Retail CFO Dinesh Taluja spoke during an earnings call on Friday. Taluja said investments are being planned to support sustainable growth.

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Taluja said the company is building scale in online and quick commerce with careful economics. "We are investing right now to build scale in online businesses,\" Taluja said. Taluja added, \"we are investing in capabilities to improve our availability, improve the speed of delivery, improve reliability.\" The company said margins should add to profits from the next financial year.

Reliance Retail dark store network and profitability focus

Reliance Retail said it is closing large stores that do not perform well. The company is still adding dark stores to support online orders. It added 303 new stores to its sales network. After closures, the network fell by 222 stores on a net basis. Taluja described \"a ruthless focus on profitability with shut down on non performing large footprint stores\".

Taluja said growth will not be driven by headline order numbers alone. \"The focus will be on unit economics and not just the number of orders vanity or the reach vanity metrics.\" Taluja added, \"The growth will be disciplined with the economics making sense.\" Taluja also said, \"Wherever the economics dont make sense, we will not grow, and well continue to expand our dark store network\".

Reliance Retail quick commerce and smaller cities expansion

Taluja said Reliance Retail is scaling quick commerce and building a hyperlocal system. The work covers supply chain and technology. The company said it can use its physical stores for online fulfilment. Taluja said some rivals are spending heavily to build separate infrastructure. Reliance Retail said its existing network helps keep incremental costs lower.

The company said it runs more than 5,000 stores across over 1,000 cities. Taluja said this helps beyond the top 100 cities. \"We are growing pretty rapidly in the smaller cities as well.\" Taluja also said, \"There is no competition... Their consumer demand is there, and for us, the incremental costs are much lower\".

Taluja said demand for online grocery in smaller cities is still under-served. Reliance Retail said its store base reduces the need for fresh infrastructure there. The company also reported better operating measures. \"Our average order values have gone up meaningfully.\" Taluja added, \"Our fully fulfilled orders have; the percentage has gone up.\"

Taluja said delivery times are improving over multiple quarters. \"The average delivery time has gone down substantially over the last four quarters.\" Taluja added, \"So its all moving in the right direction and with the investment being a credit to the bottom line as well,\". Reliance Retail said it has made solid progress against its three-year roadmap.

Reliance Retail JioMart omnichannel network and online grocery growth

Taluja said JioMart and the broader omnichannel plan are showing results. \"If you look at growing our JioMart and Omnichannel, we operate the largest Omnichannel network in the country, and that is reflecting in the numbers.\" Taluja added, \"We had 42 per cent growth in the online grocery business.\" The company said hyperlocal gains are visible in the mix.

Reliance Retail said online revenue in grocery rose 42 per cent in Q2/FY27. Taluja also said, \"B2C grocery market, the share contribution of online has grown to 70 basis points,\". The company said it is improving availability while building a reliable fulfilment system. It added that growth is being managed alongside margins.

Reliance Retail quick commerce competition and margin investments

Taluja said quick commerce remains crowded, with six players active. The company said this drives price pressure and higher customer acquisition spending. \"Our share has grown up by 100 basis points and we operate the largest network of stores.\" Taluja added, \"See, if you look at our competition, the next guy is somewhere around 2,500 dark stores,\".

Reliance Retail said it is making selective margin moves, mainly in metros. The company said it wants to stay competitive and retain customers. \"The good part is, compared to other players who are actually making a loss, we have a profitable core, and we are using that to fund the growth engines, which is the online growth engine, and were still making money,\" Taluja said.

The company said it is also working to use existing assets more efficiently. Reliance Retail said it prefers scale-led margin improvement over discount-heavy expansion. Taluja said unit economics will guide decisions across formats. The company said this approach supports a steadier path for online and quick-commerce growth.

Reliance Retail said FY27 will focus on building JioMart scale across platforms. The company said it will work on availability, speed, and delivery reliability. Reliance Retail said FY28 and FY29 will shift towards profitability and value creation. It plans to lift repeat purchases, basket sizes, and customer lifetime value as monetisation improves.

With inputs from PTI