Paytm Mall plans to take over Amazon and Flipkart’s best category, introduces new features 

Paytm Mall will now provide no-cost EMI, device insurance, easy exchange, and extended warranty across the O2O channel.

After receiving $450 million in funding from Alibaba and SoftBank, Paytm Mall – the ecommerce arm of Paytm – is launching new initiatives for its customers. Paytm Mall shoppers can now avail no-cost EMI, device insurance, extended warranty and easy exchange both online and through its offline partner stores.

In a press release, the company has said that it aims to drive over 25 percent growth in gross revenue for its partner retail stores. By the end of this fiscal, they want a “dominating market share” in categories like smartphones, appliances and consumer electronics categories –in which both Flipkart and Amazon claim leadership now.

To this end, Paytm Mall is disbursing no-cost EMIs worth Rs 1,000 crore across two million products by the end of next quarter. It is partnering with 13 banks and financial institutions for this move.

Besides, they have announced Easy Exchange offer across 7000 pincodes. They are also providing device insurance and extended warranty services starting from Rs 199 now.

Experimenting with retail

The latest announcement follows Paytm Mall’s experiments with retail, which started with adopting the omnichannel model at its inception. It recently introduced PoS to manage store inventory on the cloud with complete visibility of required stock, pending and serviced orders, instant customer payments, new offers, etc.

In February this year, Paytm Mall adapted Alibaba’s New Retail model by tying up with fashion brand Red Tape. Through this service, all the products in RedTape physical stores are equipped with Paytm Mall QR codes, and the app will tell the customer details about the product by scanning the code. The customer can place the order instantly, and get it delivered at home in four to six hours through Paytm Mall’s courier partners, or pick up from the store itself.

The new initiatives are meant to empower retail stores which otherwise have limited capacity to offer such benefits to customers.

Amit Sinha, COO, Paytm Mall, said in the press statement, “We all have a trusted store in our neighbourhood that delivers goods to our home and is always available. We clear our dues when we get some money in hand and feel free to ask small favours like exchange. We want to leverage retail technology to recreate the same convenience and trust at scale and make shopping truly affordable for the Indian masses… I am confident these services have the potential to disrupt the offline retail economy by democratising access to technology and helping trusted retailers offer more value at the same price.”