Offline stores to go online on Paytm Mall

Paytm Mall, the ecommerce platform of leading digital wallet firm Paytm, has launched an online-to-offline (O2O) commerce platform based on QR codes for organised retail players, small merchants and brands to go online.

The platform will give an online presence and catalogue to these stores so that their customers can directly buy from the stores.

The Paytm Mall QR code that these stores will have would be different from the payment-based QR code channel, and will also help customers order specific products if they are out of stock online.

For ease of business, the O2O strategy will be applicable for orders within a specific city so that logistics can be directly managed by the company's logistics partners or the merchants.

In turn, sellers will pay a fixed fee similar to that of online sellers on the Paytm marketplace.

A similar strategy was pursued by Alibaba's Tmall platform in China, which brings registered stores and sellers on a single platform.

Alibaba is one of the earliest investors of Paytm.

As of now, the feature focuses on merchants and brands dealing in mobiles, electrical appliances, fashion segments, and packaged fast moving consumer goods.