Paytm Launches Fast Expert Delivery, Eyes $617 Mn Additional Revenue

This Diwali seems to be a special one as all the ecommerce marketplaces are gearing up to attract more customers. While  Flipkart and Amazon are running heavy discount, Snapdeal is promising faster delivery. In pursuit of capitalizing on this Diwali windfall, Paytm has launched Expert delivery service to ensure delivery  within two hours of placing the order.

As PTI reported, the ecommerce platform that recently shifted its base to Bangalore is expecting to fetch $617.5 Mn additional revenue from this ‘Fastest Expert Delivery’ feature. Paytm will invest  over $50 Mn in next six months.

“We are starting Fastest Expert Delivery (FED) program with MobileStore under which we will get mobile devices delivered to customer through an expert of the product, within two hour of getting the order on our platform,”  Paytm associate vice president Amit Bagaria told PTI. “The expert delivering the product will also be able to demonstrate the features of the product purchased.”

MobileStore, currently, has over 550 outlets across 100 cities in India. Basing on the success of this service, Paytm will extend this service to other product categories like washing machine, refrigerator and air conditioners.

Paytm has been looking at bringing the offline and online world together. This year in February, it had announced to to set up 30,000 to 50,000 offline retail outlets to help people for a cashless exchange and provide basic customer care.

Paytm started in 2010 under One97 Communication, by Vijay Shekhar Sharma as a mobile and utility recharge portal which today is a leading digital wallet, and holds RBI license for Payment bank. It recently announced that it has over 100Mn users and more than 80,000 merchants and sellers. In June, it clocked a whopping $1.5 Bn GMV run rate, with roughly 75Mn transaction every month. It plans to reach GMV of $3-4 Bn by the end of March next year.

The five-year-old company recently raised funding $680Mn from Chinese ecommerce major Alibaba for 20% stake. Prior to this, Ant Financial had invested in Paytm in February 2015 and Alibaba and Singapore-based Temasek Holdings  invested more than $500 Mn a month before. Alibaba now holds 30% stake in the company with an investment of $830Mn.

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