Paytm Mall to add offline sellers to boost its O2O model

By

Maverick Martins

Published
Aug 9, 2017

Digital payments company Paytm’s e-commerce business Paytm Mall is planning to onboard offline sellers, brands to remain competitive in India’s e-commerce market ahead of the festive season and give its online-to-offline (O2O) model a push.

Paytm Mall, which is banking on quality sellers to drive sales, did a massive cleanup recently delisting over 85,000 sellers and their products from the 140,000 sellers on its platform, which failed to meet its strict quality standards.
 
It also delisted 6 out of its 14 logistic partners and 30 courier aggregation centres, as they were unable to offer a consistently superior consumer experience.

Paytm Mall is trying to make inroads and gain a large chunk of the market especially in the fashion and electronics space, which is currently dominated by Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal.
 
With an aim to grow the share of online-to-offline (O2O) shopping Paytm has stepped up its efforts to enrol businesses and brands so that orders are fulfilled by the retailers and brands directly.
 
"I believe in the long term this will be about how we helped Indian retailers win against large monolithic online retailers. Many organised and unorganised retailers have also setup their stores on our platform. We will continue to expand our dominance across mobiles and accessories, electronics, appliances and fashion," Amit Sinha, chief operating officer at Paytm Mall was quoted as saying by the Economic Times.
 
Paytm Mall, backed by Alibaba, is trying to replicate the Alibaba’s China O2O model. It is already live in more than 30 cities including tier-II and tier-III towns such as Shillong, Allahabad, Varanasi and Ludhiana.
 
Paytm Mall had also recently formed a team of agents to reach out to shopkeepers who’ll be able to connect with shopkeepers and put their catalogues online thereby further enhancing their O2O model.