Unstructured category focused Paytm Bazaar reaches 100K orders a day, fashion contributes 50% to overall volume

Alibaba backed Paytm has made significant inroads in unstructured goods category with Paytm Bazaar. The company claims to process over 100,000 transactions on a daily basis. The category created to cater to the unstructured goods market primarily consists of fashion, home décor, toys and electronic accessories products.

This milestone has come on the heels of reports that Alibaba is launching its marketplace in India soon.

Paytm claims to have over 90 per cent merchants on its Bazaar platform from Indian SMEs. The items sold at the platform range from Rs. 15 to Rs. 800. According to the company, fashion contributes about 50 per cent of Bazaar transaction. Paytm recently created an online mall format for its commerce platform where brands and sellers can create their pages

The Bazaar comprises of products sold offline with a high demand reflected in the tier II and III markets. More than 50 per cent orders for Bazaar are sourced from these regions.

Sudhanshu Gupta, Vice President, Paytm believes that shopping in India is a lot more than brands which constitute a small share of overall products sold. He says,

Our objective as a true commerce platform is to connect all types of segments of buyers and sellers and unstructured goods play a very important role in that. This is also validated with the stupendous growth witnessed by Bazaar, which is to the tune of 50% q-o-q. We will continue to enable more and more sellers and help them grow via Bazaar. We expect bazaar to grow 3 to 4 times by the next year.

Noida based e-commerce behemoth Paytm is also hiving off its marketplace as a separate entity. YourStory earlier reported that Paytm’s marketplace Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) had slipped over 60 per cent. The company used to do about Rs 700 crore GMV in January-February this year, however, last month it did less than Rs 200 crore GMV.

Meanwhile, Paytm denied any slump in the GMV of marketplace. So far, Paytm has raised over $700 million from Alibaba and reportedly raising another $400 million to build payments bank business.

Growth of unstructured category is a good news for Paytm but high return rate is a huge concern while selling unstructured goods. According to industry estimate, unstructured category (primarily fashion and accessories) often witnesses high return rate in range of 35 to 60 per cent. Paytm Bazaar primarily competes with ShopClues and AskMeBazaar among a few others.