PayTM, the revolutionary online mobile payment service provider, is now jumping into the M-commerce bandwagon with the launch of its new M-Commerce marketplace. The new platform will allow small business owners and individuals to list their products. However, what’s special about PayTm’s latest marketplace, is company’s zero commission model.
This marketplace model is similar to that of Alibaba Group’s Taobao, and that similarity is pretty obvious, considering that Alibaba is indirectly a major shareholder in PayTm’s parent company, One 97. PayTm currently has over 30K merchants on its platform and is eyeing to triple its merchants base to more than 100K by the end of this year.
It will also allow merchants to stock their own inventory and do deliveries by themselves. For providing more convenient logistic deals to the merchants, the company will tie up with major logistics service providers so as to partner with them. However, the amount of the payment will be held into an escrow account until the merchant’s time-period of exchange and return gets over.
PayTm claims to have marketplace revenues to the north of $500 million, though the company is yet to get into profits. The revenue is now estimated to surpass $2 billion mark with half of its run rate coming from the M-commerce marketplace.
It has about 8.5 million products on its marketplace and is planning to increase the product listing to more than 100 million by the end of 2015.
Given the zero commission model, the company is expected to fullfilll its goal of increasing its merchants base to more than one lakh. And even though this model may increase the amount of time PayTm takes to come into profits, it will still give the company an edge over other marketplace e-commerce stores like Flipkart, Snapdeal, who charge anywhere between 10-20% as commission.
PayTm’s growth in the mobile segment has been phenomenal. The brand operates one of the very few RBI approved mobile wallet platforms in the country, which is already seeing use within popular brands like Uber. PayTm has already announced plans to go international with its mobile wallet platform, targeting Singapore as the first non-Indian market it plans to expand to.
The company also recently launched a new IMPS money transferring system, which could quite possibly be the revolution which India’s out-dated banking system so desperately needs.
Recently, PayTM announced its entry into hyper-local market with the launch of its online grocery service in Bangalore. Amazon has also launched its new service of B2B eCommerce portal for small and medium sized business to buy wholesale products.
