Paytm Mall Designed As a Potential Target for Alibaba
Paytm has launched a brand new online shopping site called Paytm Mall. It is a massive marketplace that has more than 68 million products offered by more than 14,000 sellers around the world. This site is available as an application on mobile devices. It is available on Android devices now with plans to get a new iOS version coming in the future.
There are possibly plans for Paytm to expand the Paytm Mall to a traditional website. This comes as the .com and .in domains for the Paytm Mall have been registered with One97 Communications, the parent company of Paytm. A separate Twitter account has also been established for the Paytm Mall. Whether or not this means the site will start functioning in the future is uncertain.
What makes this especially important is that there is a chance that this could be done as a means of competing with Alibaba. The prominent online marketplace is expected to expand into India in the near future. Paytm Mall could make a real run for it when it comes to Alibaba trying to make a name for itself in India. Of course, there is the potential for Paytm Mall to be acquired by Alibaba in the future.
This would be critical as Paytm could partner with Alibaba for its eventual entry into India. It would compete with Flipkart and Amazon for the money of tens of millions of people around the country. This could be a very profitable and intriguing move depending on what might develop in the process.
What Paytm Mall Will Offer
There are many aspects of Paytm Mall worth looking at:
- Numerous products are to be made available in a variety of categories. There will be an emphasis on electronics and apparel among other common products.
- A variety of brands are being highlighted on the site. These include brands from India and a variety of options from outside the country.
- The site also has strong rules with regards to how retailers are to be listed. These include strict limits as to who can and cannot get on the site and what quality standards must be met to sell products here. This is to protect all customers who are on the site.
Extra Infrastructure Support
The added infrastructure support that will be included entails many points dedicated to serving the needs of consumers:
- There will be seventeen fulfillment centers all around the country. These will handle the processes needed for managing shipments.
- Forty different courier partners are also listed with the service. This helps with getting items delivered into specific urban and rural parts of the country.
- The Paytm wallet system for digital transactions is also supported on the site. This improves upon how money is transferred. It makes it easier for people to pay for items while also securing their information as payments are to be made.
Alibaba’s Target
Alibaba has been aiming to expand to many parts of the world. However, the online marketplace service has not gotten into India yet. While there could be plans for Alibaba to launch its services in India, there is always the possibility that it could acquire Paytm Mall.
Much of this is thanks to how Paytm Mall is designed with the same backbone as what is used for the T Mall. This is a mobile-based system Alibaba uses for handling online transactions. This development could be a sign that Paytm is aiming to get its own ecommerce system out with the intention of Alibaba using it as a part of its potential entry into India.
T Mall is especially important to Alibaba. This system runs about half the market share in China. This creates a standard system that Alibaba is comfortable with. It could potentially impact how future transactions work with this specific target mind.
The fact that Paytm Mall is only on Android devices at this moment is important to see as well. Alibaba is also designed to focus on Android devices. This makes for another chance for Android devices to work with Alibaba within India in the near future.
The chances for Alibaba to take advantage of the Paytm Wallet system are a big plus too. Paytm has nearly 150 million wallet users that handled about a billion transactions last year. These wallets are used on Paytm Mall by default. Alibaba can use these for payment handling purposes in particular.
It is clear that by launching Paytm Mall that Paytm is aiming to get a new venture going by offering products to people all around the country. However, there is also the concern of how well Alibaba can work with Paytm in the future. This is an intriguing move that could end up making a real difference in the market in the near future.
Other Articles
Leave a Reply