In a strive to strengthen its offline base in India, Gurgaon-based ShopClues launched a series of e-commerce enablement initiatives. With these initiatives, the company aims to attract 1 lakh merchants by the end of 2018. Integrated payment solutions like the mobile point-of-sale system, QR code-enabled digital payments, and business credit card are all part of the launch and will be together called as ‘Saarthi’.
These offerings will focus on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) helping them in scaling their online presence while also aiding in seamless payments. The fresh tech-development is open to all merchants even if they belong outside the ShopClues network. While the mobile point-of-sale system credits to the Momoe acquisition by ShopClues in July 2016, the business credit card service is being generated in association with RBL Bank. To ease the access to capital for business transactions, the platform has also developed a co-branded credit card.
Speaking about the latest PoS system, Ganesh Balakrishnan, Associate VP of merchant services at ShopClues said,
The Reach PoS has multiple payment options including wallets, credit and debit cards, netbanking and others. In case the merchant does not have a smartphone, we provide them with a QR code through which customers can pay.
However, ShopClues will charge a certain fee from the merchants desiring to utilize these services. The solutions have been rolled out in 15 cities eyeing the SMEs, such as Kanpur, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Kanchipuram, Thirupur among others.
The company has further postponed its IPO plans till the first quarter of 2018.The company reasons out the government’s decision of discarding high-value notes out of the system to deaccelerate growth plans by about three months. Till the company goes public, it will be engaged in talks to grab fresh capital from prominent investors in the coming weeks. Considering the slowdown in growth of IPOs in the country, investment banks have advised ShopClues that the best time for an IPO would be Q1 2018.
