Paytm has introduced Hindi interface on its seller app to expand seller base in tier-II and III cities. The interface will also help the marketplace scale-up its online-to-offline business for shipping large appliances and electronics beyond the current base of 10 cities.
“The top-10 cities of seller-app usage include metros as well as cities like Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur and others. These sellers usually deal in unstructured categories such as fashion, home and lifestyle products, and the demand to develop a local-language interface has come from the seller meetings,” said Sudhanshu Gupta, Vice-President of Business at Paytm.
The Hindi interface launched two weeks ago has seen an increase in engagement time and number of active users on the app. The sellers can access data on their performance in the local language.
The launch is keeping on par with the target of on-boarding 5-lakh sellers by the end of 2016. The company currently has 1.5-lakh sellers on-board, while SoftBank-backed rival Snapdeal has 2.5-lakh sellers and Flipkart has more than 85,000 merchants on the platform.
“We will be adding more local languages over the next quarter as we have seen increasing number of sellers in the age group of 20-30 years using the app from Hubli, Rourkela and other cities,” added Gupta.
The move to increase the seller base has seen multiple marketplace initiatives being launched by the ecommerce platforms. There have been multiple tie-ups to provide capital, digital and marketing solutions to the seller base through third party vendors.
Source: The Economic Times
Image Courtesy: Economic Times
