Paytm has many users. They are spread across various services as sellers, buyers, phone rechargers, bill payers, wallet users (senders and acceptors) and some others. With a large user base Paytm can evolve and get into new services. The new services could be Business Information provider like JustDial and Product/Service provider Nearby like Cab provider Uber.
Paytm overtime has promoted its wallet product to offline sellers and buyers. It has represented Wallet as a product to accept payments digitally without any additional cost. There are many benefits of accepting money digitally like money is secure, easily transferring to bank account etc. Many sellers have come on board to accept payments via Paytm wallet. It could be seen at big shops in malls, neighbourhood grocery shop, vegetable hawker, saloon, milk booths, stationery shops, medical shops, service providers and many more. One can see stickers put around them as Paytm is accepted here. It has made a big database of such sellers and service providers. This data could be used to provide new services to web users.
First taking the Business Information Provider
There are many web portals now which lists business along with keywords, tags, services, products, address and contact details. Some are popular and others are new. Many of them don’t have complete information and some doesn’t have accurate information. It is difficult to cover all such entities, to maintain complete and accurate information as with such large number of entities across various cities and states details changes overtime.
There should be a way to keep data updated and accurate. Generally data is gathered initially by manual data collection from individual entities, entities provide data themselves online, users provide data about entities they have visited or know, copied from other portals etc. How one would know whether data is correct or not. This data generally doesn’t cover very small entities like vendors, hawkers, self employed service providers (plumber, electrician), small grocery shop, the tea shop under tree, the momos wala, the golgappa wala etc.
Paytm would have gathered data for large and small shops, vendors and service providers whether big or small to a large extent when they have registered these sellers for Paytm Wallet and provided them with stickers and other promotional material. This large set of mostly accurate and complete data (of an entity) can be used as a new business product like Justdial or web portals with business information. Added advantage to Paytm would be that it is covering small entities and big ones. Issue with such big data as mentioned above is that it is not accurate overtime, entity may have closed, contact numbers, products, address changed. So, how to have such data updated, accurate over time? It would be a bit easier in case of Paytm.
Such entities would be using Paytm wallet and other services over time. They can keep their entity details up to date themselves. If some entity has stopped using Paytm then after some time frame instead or removing such entities those could be shown with some tag/colour that data may not be correct/updated. Why would an entity use Paytm? An entity could use Paytm if it is getting free listing. If some entities are using Paytm and users are finding relevant entity information on portal/app then to get on Paytm for an entity is beneficial. More Paytm an entity uses in its business, better ranking (priority listing) it could get. It is a win win situation for Paytm, Entity and User.
As the product becomes mature. Entity should be able to add offers which users can view.
Now taking up next product, Product/Service Nearby
Like Uber and Ola provides booking services for real time cab booking and manage payments for the same. Paytm with such large data base can also provide such services which won’t be limited to cab booking but for product sellers and service providers.
A dropdown option in app to select what you are looking for will open a map with nearby service providers. Let us go with an example. Some vegetable hawkers roaming in your area in some other lanes. You go to app, select Daily Needs > Hawkers > Vegetable. A map opens which shows nearby Vegetable hawkers. Now multiple things can be done. Request hawker to come to your location, place order from app, go to hawkers location. Same could be useful for Shoemaker, Car Garage (in case puncture, car not working etc.), Plumber, Electrician etc. It will create more job opportunities, better services and competitive prices. Other than service providers it could be used for shops, small and big entities. You are new to an area or going some where. Just check out what is where. You want to order food. Just check out who is there and order it.
Other than Service Providers and Shops, business model like this could also be useful for many other requirements like Rented Accommodation and Old Stuff etc. Would be covering this in another post.