The ecommerce market is grinding up for the forthcoming festivals. On one side where Flipkart and Amazon are battling on discounts, Paytm Mall, run by Paytm E-commerce is readying a war chest to expand its offline merchant network.
Paytm Mall is planning to invest around Rs 32 crores ($5 million) to enable its offline retailers set up online stores. In this, through its retailer inclusion programme, Paytm Mall will set up a team of 500 personnel to address the needs of offline retailers and help their transition online.
“We aim to bring on-board around 50,000 shopkeepers in the first year of the programme, educate them on technology and provide various kinds of awareness programmes and learning facilities which will help them in their business,” chief operating officer of Paytm Mall, Amit Sinha, told ET.
The shopkeepers will be equipped with digital catalogues, showcasing them on Paytm Mall and enabling QR code transactions through their stores. “We will help shopkeepers with access to working capital, which is a tough ask for small retailers.The kind of support we provide will also evolve beyond technology and capital as we go along,” said Sinha.
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Through this inclusion programme, the e-commerce player is also looking to solve the pain point of working capital access for small retailers. Paytm Mall will partner with external financial organisations to enable working capital loans ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 25 lakh for these retailers.