PhonePe to Digitize 25 Million Small Merchants across 5500 Talukas in India

The company will also create over 10,000 jobs across the country

PhonePe, India’s leading digital payments platform today announced that it will enable digital payments for over 25 million small merchants across India in the next one year. The company will also onboard these kiranas on its PhonePe for Business app, offering them end-to-end control of the payment process including instant payment confirmations, receipts and reconciliations. It plans to reach 5,500 talukas via its merchant acquisition team that will lead to over 10,000 jobs being created in semi urban and rural areas.

Despite the rapid penetration of digital payments, kiranas across India still rely on cash. Kirana owners have smartphones, data and the aspiration to adopt newer technology, but there are no services that match their aspirations. Kiranas are looking to acquire customers and forge deeper relationships with them. Customers on the other hand are looking for safety and convenience, while continuing to access their local trusted neighbourhood merchant.

PhonePe with its multiple offerings is all set to bridge this gap. It offers its merchant partners a personalized store page on the PhonePe app allowing them to list their store timings, share their product catalogue and promote home delivery options, thereby reaching out to a much wider customer base. Customers have the convenience of discovering local stores in their vicinity and connecting with the merchants using the call or chat feature to place their orders, and pay remotely via the stores tab on the PhonePe app. PhonePe is bringing these offerings to merchants in semi-urban and rural areas to help them digitize and grow their business.

Commenting on the announcement, Vivek Lohcheb, Vice President - Offline Business Development, PhonePe said, “Kiranas and merchants across small villages and towns are striving to progress and prosper. We are really excited to partner with them in this journey and take digital payments to the last mile of India across every village and town. This is also in line with our brand ethos of ''Karte Ja. Badhte Ja'' which reflects the role played by PhonePe in India’s progress, helping bridge the digital divide while empowering merchant partners across Bharat."

About PhonePe:

PhonePe is India’s leading digital payments platform with over 230 million registered users. Using PhonePe, users can send and receive money, recharge mobile, DTH, data cards, pay at stores, make utility payments, buy gold and make investments. PhonePe forayed into financial services in 2017 with the launch of digital gold providing users with a safe and convenient option to buy 24-karat gold securely on its platform. PhonePe has since launched Mutual funds and Insurance financial products like tax-saving funds, liquid funds, international travel insurance and Corona Care, a dedicated insurance product for the COVID-19 pandemic. PhonePe also launched its Switch platform in 2018, and today its customers can place orders on over 200 apps including Ola, Myntra, IRCTC, Goibibo, RedBus, Oyo etc. directly from within the PhonePe mobile app. PhonePe is accepted at over 11 million merchant outlets across 500 cities nationally.

GetMeAShop Partners with PayPal to Enable Small Merchants to Access International Markets

GetMeAShop, a Times Internet backed e-commerce platform announced that it will enable small and medium merchant’s sell their products in the international market with the help of the PayPal payment system.

GetMeAShop develops 360 degree platforms and solutions that are easy and affordable for people, enabling them to sell their products online through internet and mobile mediums. Currently, GetMeAShop has more than 8000 registered merchants. According to a survey done internally, more than 30% clients wanted to sell internationally; hence GetMeAShop team solidified these partnerships. Through this partnership GetMeAShop will be able to do merchant onboarding with PayPal.

Pushkal Srivastava, Founder and Business Head GetMeAShop is quite enthusiastic about enabling merchants to sell internationally, “We are excited to partner with PayPal to help all our GetMeAShop merchants accept payments internationally. Along with our market leading omni channel technology ecosystem to help them in running their business offline and online;and by making the process completely hassle free, we can now enable and back them for a global footprint. With a deep technology integration and partnership, we will enable paperless on-boarding on the international payment gateway and are confident our existing merchants will make the most of this association while we welcome other businesses to go online with GetMeAShop.com right away!”

Along with enabling payments in a safer & more secure manner, PayPal offers Seller Protection which will protect the merchants online sales, minimize claims and chargebacks and help prevent merchant fraud . This is particularly important for small merchants selling in the global marketplace.

Speaking on the partnership, Himanshu Rajpal, Director Paypal, Small & Medium Business said, “Our partnership with GetMeAShop is in line with our vision to enable small businesses to sell globally. PayPal, backed by a strong risk and security infrastructure, presence across 200+ markets and a base of 192 million active consumer accounts is uniquely positioned to play a pivotal role in enabling these merchants access international markets and transact in a safe & secure manner.

GetMeAShop is striving to live by the vision “Technology for Everyone”. Also, after the government’s demonetization move, merchants are showing an increased interest towards setting up online stores to increase consumer interest towards digital payments. GetMeAShop has seen a 100% increase in the number of merchant queries every day, and all of them want to setup an online store and receive digital payments.

GetMeAShop will not only help its merchants accept domestic payments but also international payments with the assistance of PayPal. Presently, they are also working on developing some cutting edge sales solutions for the online retail industry. Logistics is an important component of the eCommerce ecosystem thus to enable logistics GetMeAShop have integrated one-click technology integration to schedule shipments and pickups.

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