Talking at a recent event, Rahul saini VP for Product design at PayTM and PayTM founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma told us a lot of things about PayTM and also about why guys at PayTM do things the way they do.
Amongst the main things talked about the PayTM app were these features:
- Dumbed down design for lowest denominator.
- Designed for use.
- Paytm superapp, one and only application for everything and no more separate PayTM wallet app.
- Shopping has separate section/interface (shopping mall gets its own landing page).
- App now supports Hindi language too.
Personally we felt that the app has a very clean minimalistic design with subtle shades of colours and homepage has been optimized for fast loading.
Why PayTM? Changes in app.
The app has now been streamlined for making payments through various methods which are the following:
- scan code
- show code (bar code scanner etc.)
- mobile no.
- share otp ( works even offline)
- payment request (within app notifications )
Paytm’s core business of making payments is same. Current user profile is being upgraded and UI etc. has been changed and new features have been added exp: upcoming events.
PayTM automatic is present which automates payments which won’t be needed to be done recurringly by coming online.
iOS upgrade is coming soon in next few days with all of the new changes. 1 and a half months is the approximate timeline for full roll-out of all the features including iOS app, Android app, and the website itself.
Paytm is now killing the wallet app and a single app coming now with Paytm name and all of the features.
Now let’s talk some facts about PayTM itself:
80 million targeted users were present in 2015. 1/3 recharge bill payment 1/3 shopping eCommerce
and offline payments etc. are showing signs of growth and that’s where PayTM has been focussing now.
How will the discount model be pushed forward?
1.) Cashback culture was built by PayTM. A large wallet user base uses PayTM wallets. PayTM keeps fair selling price and they include cash-backs and no reward points rather cash. This works because it’s fastest redeemable loyalty program.
2.) Incentivize overall shopping experience. No future for first retailer model for PayTM. No conflict with sellers ever, and never change the price point of sellers. Only offer incentives with cashback and no real deduction in price of seller.
P.S. The success of PayTM is built upon this.
20,000+ sellers are receiving an order on PayTM now monthly. Largest seller isn’t even contributing to more than 2% of value. They have a very distributed model now which eliminates risk or over reliance on a single seller.
Who is giving Cashback and how does it work?
Marketing fee by PayTM is something that they use for Cash-backs. Ultimately consumers get cash-backs from merchants.
2 lakhs order a day and yet PayTM is break even and not in loss and this is an amazing business model. They are market place and everybody else is an online retailer right now and this gives them a lead over others.
Tax element: ?
If you spend more than 50000 rupees then you have to file it in tax returns. They have to show cash-back in IT returns but it’s a tax neutral offering.
If a seller is selling on many platforms then why is he doing cashback only on PayTM?
PayTM always want sellers to win and not in conflict. Every online retailer followed GMV model but PayTm took the long route and ended up being more profitable than others.
Can every product listed on PayTM have cashback?
Yes
Does every product have so?
No
PayTm partenered with 3rd party apps like Delhivery and a lot more for logistics.
PayTm was profitable last year but now it’s not as they are spending aggressively now.
Some of the products that are featured don’t have a warranty?
Authorised brand warranty on many products. You can’t sell a gadget unless you are authorized to sell on PayTM.
Localized sellers in 50 cities present now.
No affiliate till now because when they did people tried to game the system.
Why not COD on promo codes?
0.4% right now using COD even on being available for few things, so that’s why this feature isn’t too requested.
Biggest challenge for PayTM?
Team, investor, customer no one understood cashback at first. So that’s why it took so much time for PayTM to gain some real traction.
Government of India has made full KYC etc. compulsory for more than 10K INR transactions on wallet. So this is something that has to be kept in mind while using PayTM.
So go sign up for PayTM today and start living a cash free life. PayTM karo!
