Payment Gateway – Dutch Uncles

Paytm’s T+1 Payment Gateway: Cash Flow Settlement Just Got Quicker

Shalmoli Sarkar — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 08:35:10 +0000

Founded in the year 2015, Doodhwala was one of a kind grocery startup that disrupted the unorganised grocery space by introducing a subscription-based service that delivered milk, fresh dairy products, groceries, and other daily essentials directly at consumer’s doorstep. Sadly, the venture failed to take off as its cash flow was severely impacted due to operating on low margins with excessive usage of cashback and discounts.

When we describe that a business is doing good, it is synonymous with having a steady cash flow. Cash flow management is one of the integral aspects of running a business that showcases the financial health of a company and readies for any unexpected or uncalled situation. Most businesses in India grapple with the cash flow issue. According to research done by U.S. Bank, around 82 percent of small businesses shut down due to cash flow mismanagement. For any venture to flourish, cash is the oxygen to a business. Amid the harsh months of covid-19 and lockdowns, around 1107 companies were on the brink of closure, and in 2019-20 3380 companies had wound up the operations due to heavy losses and stuck cash.

Paytm’s new payment gateway of T+1 structure will be aiding online businesses to deal with the irregularities of cash flow.

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According to research done by U.S. Bank, around 82 percent of small businesses shut down due to cash flow mismanagement.

How does the payment gateway in India work?

A question must be popping in mind how can a payment gateway aid in managing cash flows for an online business? The answer lies here. When a customer uses online payment mode through a credit/debit card, wallet, net banking, etc, the payment gateway conveys about the happening transaction to the website, the business owner, and the issuing bank with the help of payment processors and card network. Once the transaction is successful the amount is deposited in the business owner’s account after subtracting the payment gateway charges.

Most payment gateways in India assure a settlement of T+2 days, 2 here is the number of working days required to deposit the amount directly into the bank account of the merchant. But, if there are festivals or weekends, or bank holidays occurring in between it will be added to the minimum settlement period of 2 days, further delaying the process of depositing in the bank. For instance, say a transaction took place on 23rd Jan falling on a Wednesday, ideally, the amount should have been deposited on 25th Jan, now consider that it is a festival day, the bank would remain closed. The following 26th Jan being a national holiday and weekends would take the settlement period up to 6 -7 days.

This results in fewer funds being deposited in the bank and impeding the continuity of business activities such as paying bills, the salary of employees, wages of workers, purchasing raw material, etc. Therefore, faster settlement of transactions is essential for online businesses.

Paytm’s T+1 payment gateway for quick settlements

Paytm’s payment gateway will offer T+1 settlement throughout the year, which will take only one extra day for depositing the amount in the bank. Unlike T+2 payment gateways, Paytm’s payment gateway will take a minimum of one business working day to deposit the amount irrespective of bank holidays and festivals. There will be zero times when the settlement period will exceed 6 days. Instant settlement by payment gateways will help small to mid-sized startups or businesses to better engage with their vendors and suppliers with liquid cash in hand and aid make an advance payment to procure raw materials. Low settlement periods are a boon to the businesses such as online grocery where the inventory turnover demands a continuous restock that requires a steady flow of cash or where the business model involves cash transfers in the form of awards, rewards, cashback, etc.

The post Paytm’s T+1 Payment Gateway: Cash Flow Settlement Just Got Quicker appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Neobanks Emerging As A Key Segment For Growth In Indian Fintech

Vaishali Das — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 03:35:04 +0000

With change in the financial landscape, shifting more toward customer satisfaction and experience, a gap has been created between the offerings of traditional banks and customer’s needs.

What is a Neobank?

Neobank is a digital bank without any branches offering multiple financial services to the tech-savvy customers. It works entirely on online mode, providing services from money transfer, payments, lending to opening a bank account in a hassle-free and smooth manner. Neobanks partner with traditional banks to provide bank licensed services and in return it helps traditional banks in expanding their customer base in a seamless manner.

What are the Advantages?

Neobanks, being completely digital, open up a wide window of advantages for customers and change their banking perception. Right from opening a bank account by following a few simple steps from the comfort of your home, it provides seamless and user-friendly experiences to its customers.

Neobanks’ apps are very much accessible unlike the glitchy net-banking sites. With being quick in responses and smart reporting, they also provide a customizable way of keeping a track of one’s finances and helps them in managing it combined with constant advice.

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Every now and then there are new players in the market whose essential goal is to simplify the financial sector.

India’s Top 4 Neobanking Startups

Currently there are 10 neobanks in India with a couple of more in-process to enter the market or in beta stages.

Niyo

It is a Bangalore-based neobanking startup, established in 2015, catering the blue-collared sectors, salaried employees and Indians who travel globally. Niyo is helping salaried employees with solutions to make the most out of their salaries.

Niyo has also launched a global card dropping the need to purchase a forex card during international travels. Collaborating with Upwardly, it is educating customers on investments and financial benefits.

Open

This Bengaluru-based startup, when started in 2017, partnered with ICICI bank. Presently it has almost 11 banks as partners. It offers startups and new businesses with an online bank account and a credit card that consolidates banking, accounting and payments in a single platform.

As a result, it is easing up hectic procedure of the current banking system. It also helps SMEs in automating bulk payments and digitising financial services.

RazorpayX

A startup within a startup is a neobanking platform of India’s Newest Unicorn Razorpay. It is simplifying and accelerating every aspect of financial operations from payments and management of cash flow to reconciling transactions and flexible payouts.

It also eases the refund process for e-commerce businesses with their API and dashboard payout platform. Also, with the help of opfin, a payroll and HR management software company, it manages tax filing and compliance through a unified platform.

InstantPay

The startup delivers hassle-free banking experiences by offering instant activation, money tracking and cash deposit features to individuals and businesses of all sizes.

With its API banking platform, which is a super scalable cloud platform, it auto scales from zero to a million transactions in a single day. It also provides users with a digital bank account and for startups and SMEs, a smart bank account.

Business Owners Who Aspire To Be In Neobanking

With RBI focusing on digitalization and financial inclusion, collaboration of Fintech and banks has become an emerging space in the banking sector in India.

Neobanks are taking over the Fintech industry by a storm on a worldwide level. Every now and then there are new players in the market whose essential goal is to simplify the financial sector.

India is moving towards an era of rising Fintech sector. With the increase in the number of people adapting the online mode of banking and bridging the gaps between traditional banks and customers, the potential of the neobanks market is very promising.

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Best Indian Payment Gateways of 2021

Shalmoli Sarkar — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 03:35:04 +0000

The trend of online shopping and preventive measures to keep body contact to a minimum in the pandemic has ushered in a deluge of online payment usage in India. According to RedSeer Consulting, online payments are expected to grow triple by Rs 7092 trillion by 2025 from Rs 2162 trillion in 2019-20. Companies operating in verticals like food, fashion, electronics, furniture, and medicines, etc. are increasingly moving towards expanding their online business which is proliferating the demand for online payment gateways. Here are the top 5 best payment gateways that can be used by businesses:

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According to RedSeer Consulting, online payments are expected to grow triple by Rs 7092 trillion by 2025 from Rs 2162 trillion in 2019-20.

Top 5 Payment Gateways Businesses Must Adopt

Razorpay

Founded in 2014, Razorpay enjoys a user base of 800k and has received unicorn status in October 2020 with a valuation of $1 billion. The USP of this payment gateway is its instant activation and easy integration that can be used by freelancers, small -medium-sized businesses, and large businesses as well. Razorpay’s dashboard provides users with information on real-time data transactions. Razorpay accepts payment through various channels such as credit/debit cards, net banking, UPI, and wallets. Businesses that have built their e-commerce websites on Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce can select Razorpay as the payment gateway. Other advantages of Razorpay include placing a subscription model for recurring payments, sending payment links, payment pages, and avail working capital loans. Razorpay charges 2 percent on Indian debit/credit card, net-banking, UPI and 3% on Diners and Amex Cards, International cards, EMI.

Cashfree

Used by 15000 businesses, Cashfree enjoys the popularity of being the most affordable payment gateway in India. The payment gateway supports credit/debit cards, net banking, and UPI and can accept international payment as well. The feature of ‘Cashgram’ generates a weblink where businesses can send it to their customers to collect payments with ease. There is no setup cost involved in implementing this payment gateway and can be easily configured. Cashfree favours working with government-registered businesses. For Net-banking, Credit and Debit card Cashfree charges 1.75% per transaction, for Pay Later and Cardless EMI it charges 2.5% per transaction. For International cards charges are 3.5% +Rs 7 per transaction.

Paytm

The advertisement jingle on TV ‘Paytm Karo’ has made Paytm synonymous with ‘Go wallet less.’ Paytm supports all domestic credit and debit cards connected to more than 50 banks. Its user-friendliness and ability to support more than 72 international currencies is its USP. It has a recurring billing facility for businesses based on a subscription model. Besides, it allows website payment and multiple currency processing. Paytm charges 0 % for transactions through UPI and charges 11.99 % + GST for transactions through Paytm wallet, Net banking, Paytm Payment bank, and credit card.

Instamojo

Instamojo is an Indian payment gateway that enjoys a loyal customer base of 1 million. Features like simple user interface, supporting more than 100 payment modes, integration mobile, and website, and zero charges for NEFT/RTGS or any other bank transfer make it a preferred payment gateway for businesses. It does not support multi-currency payment. Paytm charges 2% + Rs 3 per transaction happening through debit and credit cards.

Aurus Inc

Aurus Inc provides an array of digital payment solutions to business verticals belonging to QSR and fine dining, specialty Retail, Health and Beauty, Auto and C-store for easy collection of payments online. It receives a total of 6 billion payment interactions annually. Aurus Inc acts as a one-stop platform to handle all merchant transactions irrespective of the channel, sales process, or process. The payment gateway is PCI P2PE certified and ensures secured payments by adhering to stringent compliance. Its Out-of-the-box integration with cutting-edge devices, systems, and providers in the digital payment ecosystem gives merchants the flexibility to enjoy the benefits of in-class technology.

What is in it for small businesses?

India is in the midst of a digital revolution with increasing smartphones and falling data plans. Trends like online shopping and digital payments to minimise contact are the need of the hour in the pandemic that is fuelling the adoption of online payments by businesses.

Payment gateways offer customers convenience and a seamless shopping experience. Apart from enhancing customer experience, small businesses can use payment gateways to save time and reduce excessive costs involved in physical transactions.

The post Best Indian Payment Gateways of 2021 appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

PhonePe: Making the Most of India’s Digital Adoption

Muskan Khemka — Fri, 28 May 2021 09:35:04 +0000

While payment apps in India are coming up with new offerings to corner the market, this particular start-up kicked it up a notch. Have you ever heard of a payment app that has its own ATM? This unusual but brilliant move was made by Bengaluru-based start-up PhonePe.

Before we explore this first-of-its-kind offering by the payment app, we rewind six years to when the start-up began its humble journey from a simple digital wallet to its culmination into one of the leading fintech players in the industry today.

Inception 1.0

In 2015, Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer started PhonePe to cause much positive destruction in the way people look at digital payments. The aim was to develop an app to give an overall new experience to users while ensuring financial inclusion and easy access.

The trio, however, was unsure whether PhonePe would be a payments company or a platform company. The market was transitioning into a phase of digital wallets boom back then. The early entrants – Paytm and Mobikwik – had already gained traction in the crowded e-wallet market at the back of sound funding, cash backs and product development.

In April 2016, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a government-backed consortium of banks, introduced Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Within a few days of this launch, e-commerce giant Flipkart, which was scouting for suitable acquisitions in the payments solutions space, announced its acquisition of PhonePe which saw ‘UPI’ as its golden ticket and was building a payments solution app based on the same.

In August, merely 4 months after UPI’s launch, the PhonePe app was made live. It became the first non-banking entity to launch a UPI app. It was only a year later that Google Pay and Paytm entered the UPI space, but PhonePe had gained the first mover’s advantage.

The start-up took a different approach from how the market was trying to solve the problem of online payments. They did not want to remain restricted in terms of product scalability by building a banking app, a recharge app or a utility payment app. Rather, the aim was to reach a wider audience with a scalable product and maintain inclusivity.

What does the PhonePe app do? It enables transfer of money from one bank to another (UPI allows a customer to pay directly from a bank account to different merchants, both online and offline, without details like IFSC code, net banking passwords, etc). Customers can use the app to pay bills, recharge pre-paid mobile numbers, recharge data card and DTH, send or request money from friends by entering their number, name or VPA, split bills between people, check bank account balance and scan QR codes to pay.

The app also sells products and services like groceries, insurance, food (via product promotion). What is fascinating about PhonePe is its evolution and growth over the past years. Within three months of its launch, over 10 Million users downloaded the app.

In a short span, it has surpassed its peers with over 280 Million registered users. It is processing over 100 Million transactions in a month and an annual total payment volume (TPV) of over $388 Billion, including 17.5 Million merchants across 500 cities.

Going Beyond a Digital Wallet

PhonePe has been in a continuous mode of evolution since inception. It entered the BFSI segment in 2017 by offering gold on its platform in partnership with SafeGold and MMTC-PAMP.

The start-up registered its wealth management division, PhonePe Wealth Services Pvt Ltd., marking its debut into financial services. It dispatched shared assets and protection monetary items like expense saving assets, liquid assets, worldwide travel protection and protection cover for COVID-19 in association with various financial organisations like Yes Bank, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, Axis Bank among others.

It has now become the largest platform for buying digital gold with a 35% market share.

In the most recent development, PhonePe is planning to foray into stockbroking. The aim is to encourage its existing users to put a fraction of their unutilised funds in wallets into the stock market. This will intensify the battle in the stock market which is dominated by players like Zerodha, Upstox and others.

The fintech company has a vision of becoming a full-fledged diversified financial services player and stock broking is an addition to the same. The expansion and plunge into different categories is also a part of the company’s strategy of monetizing its customer base – offering financial service being one of them.

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PhonePe is processing over 100 Million transactions in a month and an annual total payment volume of over $388 Billion.

Making Inroads in Unorganized Market

In a bid to tap the huge opportunity in the retail market, PhonePe started focussing on Kirana stores owners and small-scale retailers and help them adapt to the new-age style of doing business.

The company has ‘PhonePe for Business’ app, which offers end-to-end control of the payment process, including instant payment confirmations, receipts, and reconciliations and grocery deliveries to Kirana store owners and small merchants.

PhonePe has recently launched its own ATM which will enable people to get cash from merchant partners through transactions with their mobile devices. The company said that the service will enable neighborhood stores to act as ATMs for PhonePe users. At the same time, it will also help merchants avoid the hassle of storing cash and making multiple trips to the bank branch to deposit their extra cash.

The brand is also advertising the SMEs and local shopping brands on its app to raise awareness and help them market their products. The app offers its merchant partners to grow their business by giving them a personalised store page on the app, allowing them to list their store timings, share their product catalogue, and promote home delivery options, thereby reaching out to a much wider customer base.

The app further offers voice notifications in 11 vernacular languages free of cost. This helps the merchants during peak business hours as the app announces the amount received from customers, saving all the time to check the customer’s phone screen or wait for a bank message.

PhonePe at present has 13 Million merchants on its platform and it is accepted as a payment option at over 17.5 offline and online merchant outlets across 500 cities.

The company has come up with a Bluetooth-enabled Point Of Sale (POS) device that is indigenously designed to help merchants of all sizes – be it local kirana stores, petrol pumps, food chains or quick service restaurants to help accelerate digital inclusion at all levels.

PhonePe was one of the first fintech companies to identify the needs and demands of the local merchants who are not equipped with technology like the big retailers, hence the POS device. This device works like a traditional calculator which is cheap, easy to use and highly durable, something a merchant would be interested in.

The App’s USP

PhonePe user interface is simple and easy to use even if one has never made a digital transaction before. This makes it a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) as different age groups of people are often challenged while making online payments and revisit its adoption unless out of compulsion.

This is an important feature in such a highly competitive and crowded payments app market. The app, since inception, was kept simple and hence scalable to incorporate more verticals, especially in the context of Kirana store owners and small retailers who might not be well-versed with digital mediums.

There is an ease of looking up terms, navigating across pages and options besides strong privacy measures on the app. In terms of users’ experience, it ranks at the top, in comparison to its peers – Paytm, Gpay, Razorpay and Instamojo.

The company also introduced a separate chat service for users and merchants in over 11 Indian languages to further smoothen the user experience.

In 2018, the start-up had launched Switch which offers more than 260 mini web applications and allowed users to switch between various apps, including travel, grocery, food and shopping, within the PhonePe app.

This innovation turned out to be unique as users do not have to download and install all these apps individually on their phones, they can easily access the services from Switch without any additional convenience fee or charge. This further added to the app’s USP of ease and comfort and created a superior product experience.

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PhonePe user interface is simple and easy to use even if one has never made a digital transaction before.

Clash of the Titans: Paytm vs PhonePe vs Google

To date, PhonePe is cashing on its first mover’s advantage. The start-up defeated Google Pay in terms of market share between November and January 2021 and became the top UPI mobile app. The company processed 968.72 Million UPI transactions involving nearly Rs 1.92 lakh crore in January 2021.

The duo dominate the UPI apps market and have over 75% market share together. Paytm Payments Bank app, on the other hand, stands third followed by Axis Bank app and Amazon Pay.

The technical glitches faced by the banking partners of Google Pay and the government-mandated cap on UPI transactions, boosted the number of UPI transactions for PhonePe and Paytm as customers moved away from the former.

However, this cannot be credited as the sole reason for PhonePe’s lead in the sector. The start-up has been aggressively investing in its offline merchant base which has increased its user base and transactions besides its massive adoption in Tier 3 and Tier 4. Both PhonePe and Paytm have been adding more use-cases, growing the overall UPI ecosystem.

The Spin-Off

In December 2020, Flipkart divested PhonePe into a separate unit and partially sold its stake to its parent company, Walmart. PhonePe came under Walmart post Flipkart’s acquisition but continues to retain majority stake in shareholding pattern. The acquisition saw a rising growth of PhonePe as a brand.

At present, Walmart is considering spinning off the start-up to give the company more flexibility and freedom to pursue its development and get access to dedicated capital for its long-term goals. The partial spin-off will bring new opportunities for the start-up as it will be able to raise more primary capital, giving autonomy to operations.

PhonePe has come a long way since its inception from starting as a digital wallet to becoming the leader in UPI transactions.

As per the founders, the start-up aims to be profitable by 2022 and go public in 2023. The company bagged $700 Million from Walmart and other existing investors and another $21 Million from Flipkart, which still holds 87% stake in PhonePe, in December 2020. The post-funding valuation stood at $5.5 Billion.

Product innovation, diversification (fintech market) and the company’s mass-market focus (reach beyond metros) will continue feeling its future growth.

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BillDesk: An Old-School Start-Up Thriving in the Online Bill Payment Space

Aviral Srivastava — Wed, 26 May 2021 11:35:04 +0000

Back in the early 2000s, a businessman had to make the effort of going to the bank to withdraw hard cash while making a transaction. The banking service was still in its developing phase and their facilities were not efficient and fast. To overcome this barrier, a newly established business industry – the Financial Technology (Fintech) witnessed the emergence of a private company – BillDesk in the early 2000s.

The plans of the company promised immediate and convenient monetary transactions for financial institutes in order to make their cash flow more lenient. This means that this new product was intended to open a faster and safer medium of flow of money between any two or more business organisations, other than cash.

What is BillDesk?

BillDesk is one of the leading payment gateway companies in the market with an estimated worth of $1 Billion (estimated in 2015). The company, considered a pioneer of the Fintech industry, had set its foot in the market in the early 2000s. This private ownership was founded by three accountant friends working for the American firm- Arthur Anderson. The three friends, M.N. Srinivasu, Ajay Kaushal and Kartik Ganapathy left their jobs at their previous firm in order to implement their knowledge for an Indian customer base.

This platform was introduced to reduce the labour of physically going out and paying various household or phone bills and the product very well turned out to be a success when they made this facility available to the public. This essentially targeted Indian business owners who were still using outdated methods of paper bills and check writing systems, to switch to an easier method of payment.

BillDesk through the decades

When the three co-founders came together with this idea back in 2000, the idea was remotely known to people. Nobody could trust the internet on a greater scale with money or banking activities as people were not familiar with the inner workings of online payments gateways. BillDesk received its first payment from SIDBI Venture capital and Ltd. (a private company) and Bank of Baroda (public sector bank). This marked the beginning of a tremendous uptick. Public perception shifted in favour of BillDesk as associations with banks and big names in the private sector meant a growth in trust as well.

With times changing, other banks and financial institutions also started adopting online banking services and the usage of online payment gateway started becoming a trend. The popularity rose with the revenue and BillDesk became one of the very first payment gateways in India.

BillDesk and its owners proved their worth by selling a unique and useful product. They provided the facility of paying off electricity bills, credit card bills and bookings, ISP charges, phone bill payments and other banking facilities when no other payment gateway company did. The way it works is; for every transaction to be made, the user gets a confirmation slip on registered number or email ID. They also provide the bill of the transaction on the spot. The whole concept may seem very casual in today’s age but this was the beginning of the online payment technology back then and it was considered as an essential asset.

There was not much competition in the market against BillDesk for at least 10 years. The platform ran very smoothly without sharing their customer base with any of the competitors. Organising a business that involves so much cash, government and bank backing is a huge undertaking. The company worked very well under all the guidelines and helped balance the economic structure with its convenience and efficiency.

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BillDesk was introduced to reduce the labour of physically going out and paying various household or phone bills and the product very well turned out to be a success when they made this facility available to the public.

The Plan for Glory and the Rise to Success

The idea behind the introduction of BillDesk was to reduce the financial gap between the two business parties by creating a medium of payment suitable for both. Business transactions aside, various other personal expenditures could be paid off using this facility.

BillDesk provided the solution to multiple problems like- storing bills on the internet, reminding about monthly bill cycles, providing flexibility of payment hours and many more. BillDesk initiated transactions with lesser processing charges which were earlier heavily implemented over any online transaction. This was possible through every mode of payment possible; credit card, debit card or UPI. Any savings or current bank account holder could have access to the product at ease.

The organisation gives back-end support and foundation to numerous small time firms like retail based business sites. It empowers these organisations to acknowledge online installments through BillDesk’s installment entryway. This made micro payments that much easier.

The whole system proved to be very beneficial for the bankers and large business owners in the longer run as the profits were marginalised due to the cut of processing charges and the frequency of business deals increased as the method of payment was simplified.

BillDesk is now widely used in India as well as abroad by various telecom, insurance, financial-services and e-commerce organisations and now has many online/mobile payment portals (or apps) used for online banking.

In India, post demonetisation in 2016, people tended to go cashless and BillDesk helped with this situation by providing the facility of mobile banking/UPI transfers. The company had activated its services mostly for the convenience of its huge customer-base.

The company was dealing in people’s money indirectly and that too, on a massive scale. This raised a few arguments about the security of the process and needed the company to publicly announce its safety protocols beforehand.

Money and Trust Go Hand-in-Hand

The payment gateway portal has always been consistent and attained customer satisfaction over time. BillDesk ensures Secure Sockets Layer Encryption (SSLE) technology as the safe passage of the portal’s transaction. To sum this up; the user’s information that is available on the internet via BillDesk is totally encrypted or coded. This provides a sense of safety to the user when doing payments online. BillDesk was one of the very first online payment companies to publish their security plans and built trust around the market by being transparent.

The work rate of the enterprise during the initial years of its establishment was immense and had good profit margins. This was all possible because of the trust gathered by working with major clients like SBI and Bank of Baroda.

Working with government banks and high-end financial institutions gave BillDesk a lot of credibility and added to the clout which was much needed, given that it was such an early concept platform for its time.

When things started coming together for the entrepreneurs, the whole business idea turned out to be life changing for them. Since their establishment, the company has come a long way.

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At times like the post-demonetisation era (2016), digital payments were normalised, as going cashless became the new trend.

BillDesk: The Source of Fortune

In 2006, the State Bank of India put in an investment worth $7.5 billion USD jointly with Clearstone Venture Partners. The joint ventures were in business with BillDesk for a considerable amount of time and still continue to thrive together as partners. US based private equity firm General Atlantic and Temasek invested a total sum of Rs. 620 crores in the company in 2015 thus, sky-rocketing the valuation of the firm to $583.67 million USD back in 2015.

The firm’s net worth is estimated to be between $2 to $5 billion (USD) making it a member of the esteemed unicorn club. The company managed to provide a reasonable growth in the percentage of profits (consolidated) in the year 2017-18. The charts rose from Rs. 138 crores of net profit at the start of the year to Rs. 149 crores at the end of the financial year. The revenue from these consolidated profits also increased in this financial year increasing from Rs. 772 crores (approximately) at the start of the financial year to Rs. 943.7 crores at the end of the financial year. This just indicates what a golden year 2017-18 was for BillDesk and its founders.

The firm enjoyed sole profits for years as they lacked competition. With the change of time, this privilege was taken away from BillDesk and a few new firms rose up with similar business ideals and concepts. Let’s learn about some of BillDesk’s competitors back in their prime years.

The End of BillDesk’s Monopoly

Since the beginning of the last decade, the Fintech industry experienced a massive change with technological development. It also saw the increase in the number of companies with similar projects much akin to BillDesk.

BillDesk faced stiff competition from other major companies like RazorPay, CC Avenue, Oxigen and Citrus Payment Solutions. These companies grew in the early 2010s and significantly altered the landscape by bringing the option of various payment gateway portals to customers. The race for the profits tightened which resulted in an upgrade of the product from a security aspect.

The owners even wanted to sell off the whole business in July, 2020 because of the immense amount of competition faced by industries in the financial sector. Being a private company, it was obvious that they would be facing more and harder competition in the future.

RazorPay was one of the toughest competitor platforms that BillDesk faced in that decade. It had a similar model as to BillDesk but was more modern working and “techno-savvy”. RazorPay uses only a single code line on the website or custom button to initiate any financial transaction making it quicker than BillDesk, yet despite this BillDesk still stands to this day.

BillDesk and Its Future

As mentioned earlier, the owners of the enterprise wanted to put their business on sale for various reasons. This did not mean that the platform was coming to an end. The demand for such a gateway is always on the rise.

As of 2015, India’s online payment market was estimated to be worth $1 billion USD with a growth rate of 50 per cent annually. This indicated that people started going cashless and putting more of their money and trust in digital payments. This revolutionary change brought about in the users’ mindsets did not happen overnight. This was the repercussion of the trust built around the people by BillDesk over the years and a result as to how they managed to provide elite quality of service with such consistency.

In the same year, 70 per cent of the total online transactions were done through BillDesk providing a financial backbone to the economy of the country as a medium of instant and distant payments or transactions. At times like the post-demonetisation era (2016), digital payments were normalised, as going cashless became the new trend. This marked a new trend where everyday consumers started understanding the importance of online payments and banking.

It will not be wrong to say that BillDesk managed to bring about a revolutionary change in the financial sector. They managed to provide people with something they needed but never knew they did.

For more inspiring stories, check out our Inspire Section!

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New Pricing Strategies for Enterprise Tech

Aakash Sharma — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 06:35:04 +0000

Companies can use different pricing strategies when selling products or services. To determine its most effective pricing strategy, a company’s senior management must first determine its pricing position, price range, pricing power, and competitive pricing strategy.

The price trend in Enterprise Tech, or Enterprise technology, is rapidly changing and improving. Enterprise Tech refers to the concept of shared data and information technology (IT) resources within an organisation. IT strategy, project portfolio management and IT governance make the idea and implementation of enterprise tech effective.

An important example of enterprise technology is a content management system. WordPress is now the largest CMS technology company in the world.

Enterprise tech pricing is based on three critical elements of a profitable pricing strategy:

The pricing model should balance price and revenue.

The pricing strategy should meet development goals.

Psychological pricing strategies need to adjust prices.

Finding the proper stability between value and income complements the ability to help customers and be fairly compensated for that help in the enterprise tech industry.

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The price trend in Enterprise Tech, or Enterprise technology, is rapidly changing and improving. Pricing strategies are directly tied to the user's enterprise technology solution cost.

These are some new trends in enterprise tech pricing strategy

Cost Per User Method

In the enterprise tech industry, pricing per user is a small pricing model in which a business charges each user for their products. For example, some companies charge Rs 999 per user per month, while others charge a flat fee for unlimited monthly usage.

In this model, a single user pays a fixed monthly price. If another user is added, the value will be doubled, and so on. This increases the monthly revenues of a company. Besides, it is straightforward for customers to understand the importance of their membership, and start-ups can easily estimate their income using this mode.

Usage-based Billing

Also referred to as the ‘pay-as-you-go model’, this pricing strategy is directly tied to the user’s enterprise technology solution cost. The more you use the help, the steeper the price and vice versa.

This pricing strategy is more prevalent among technology platforms and infrastructure-related software vendors (like Amazon Web Services). Customers are priced based on the number of API applications, purchases processed, or gigabytes of data utilised in this type.

Layered Pricing Strategy

Layered pricing is one of the most common pricing strategies used by enterprise tech companies. This pricing allows companies to offer multiple “packages”, while offering different combinations of prices. The number of the packages provided can vary greatly, but the average ranges around three in low, medium and high pricing tallies.

For example, HubSpot, the content marketing company, uses multiple sequence values in its pricing strategy. Each of its kits is designed according to potential customers’ different needs (and budgets), from new entrepreneurs to professional entrepreneurs and marketing companies.

Flat Rate Pricing

Flat rate pricing may be the easiest way to sell SaaS solutions in the enterprise tech industry. In this model, the company offers a single product, including features under standard pricing slabs.

Examples of fixed prices are mainly in publishing and e-commerce. For example, if you sign up for The New York Times, you have to pay a fixed monthly or annual fee.

The post New Pricing Strategies for Enterprise Tech appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

How to Sell Online Without a Website

Shalmoli Sarkar — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 01:35:05 +0000

Sushilaben was distraught. With lockdowns announced, her famous Khakhra shop was forced to remain closed, which gave hiccups to her revenue. Sushilaben, initially a homemaker, began her business of selling homegrown Khakras at the age of 40. To insulate her business from further losses, she sought refuge in her new selling channels- Whatsapp groups and Facebook. Yet, her main hindrance remained in collecting online payments in a simplified manner. Sushilaben never thought of having a website, as her shop majorly operated locally. In India instances like Sushilaben are no unique, the small business owners who do not have a website and lack knowledge of online payments will prove to give massive headwinds to their business. Shifting business online which seemed earlier an additional expansion plan became a necessity in the pandemic for the MSME sector. Small businesses in India stared at losses that left them in a precarious position of closing their business permanently. In such testing times, MSMEs pivoting their business online quickly is a near-impossible task. Many MSMEs want to sell online but major investments for website development and less deep tech knowledge for integrating a payment gateway discourages them from doing so. Instead of investing in building a solid, functional website and taking pains to host it all the way to integrate the right payment gateway, MSMEs can accept payments online without having their business’s website or app using payment pages from Razorpay.

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Shifting business online which seemed earlier an additional expansion plan became a necessity in the pandemic for the MSME sector.

What are Razorpay’s Payment Pages

Whether your business has a website or not, the payment pages from Razorpay are designed to accept payments from your consumer. One can effortlessly create a payment page within less set-up time to go live and start accepting payments from your customers from all over the world. The payment pages can accept payments from 100 international currencies that require no coding experience or support. It helps your business with end-to-end payment collection by allowing you to create a payment page without the need of hosting it. We can also link the payment page to the social media page or can send the payment page links to customers.

Features of Razorpay’s payment Pages

List multiple products

Business owners can list any number of products or services that they wish to sell on the payment page, also including images and descriptions for each item that we list.

2. Setting limits on purchasing

To prevent underselling or overselling of inventory the business owners can set limits for the minimum or maximum number of products to be purchased by a customer. NGOs and charitable organizations can fix a minimum amount for the patrons to donate.

3. Rearranging the items

Items that have been purchased recently can be displayed high on the payment page by dragging the input items or fields upward or downward.

4. Collect customer data

From an array of input fields supported by payment pages, business owners can capture customer data. The input fields range from phone number to email to PAN number and PIN code. Business owners can select the appropriate input field to ensure proper validation.

5. Reporting

Small business owners can receive a comprehensive report on each item sold, basis on real-time transactions from Razorpay’s dashboard to help make informed business decisions.

6.Works on Mobile as well

The payment pages are mobile-friendly where customers can pay swiftly by just clicking the button with the freedom of choosing from many payment modes.

7. Can be embedded on the website

If the business owner has a website that is not integrated with any payment gateways, they can embed the payment pages CTA in the website where you prefer the call for action. On a single click, the customer will be taken to the respective payment page.

8. Redirect your customer

We have the autonomy to customize the text on the CTA ( Call to Action) and can also redirect customers to the merchant page. After every payment process, we can also show a custom message to show the payee that the payment was successful.

Use cases where payment pages work wonders

Below are the use cases where payment pages reduce time and cost :

Selling tickets for events: Let us say you are organising a one-day marathon event in your city. But your only hiccup is that you don’t have a website and any means to collect payments online. Creating a website and integrating a payment gateway seems economically unviable and time-consuming for a single-day event. Here, the Razorpay payment pages come to the rescue by giving you the functionality of a webpage that can be customized to suit your brand hosted by someone else but accepts online payments for your event with a custom URL. We can choose the input details in the payment page that we want to collect from the participants such as age, email id, past marathon participation, etc. The payment page can be shared across emails, SMS, and social media pages, etc. It helps you with end-to-end payment collection.
NGOs and charitable organisations: For NGOs and charitable organisations the pandemic was a rugged year for procuring essentials and raising funds for the cause. NGOs with no cost can create a payment page link as the landing page to accept donations from more than 100 international currencies. The payment pages allow contributors to donate through multiple channels such as credit cards, debit cards, wallets, netbanking, and UPI. There are no hidden charges or extra costs for creating a payment page. For NGOs that have a website, they can add a code to the website and start accepting payments, and then with the Razorpay payment button, we can add an integrated checkout with payment gateway on the website and accept donations without any integration or coding efforts.
Payment pages for social media businesses: Business owners who have been sharing their bank account details with the customers to date can create payment pages and share them across Facebook and Instagram. After creating the payment page we can just link the payment page to the social media profile where we can accept payments or send the payment link to your customer. Accepting payments through the payment pages are secured with 100 % PCI DSS compliant and certified solution.

Creating the payment pages on Razorpay

Creating payment pages from Razorpay is a no-brainer. But, before we create below, are some prerequisites.

Firstly, we need to sign up for a Razorpay account.
After logging into Razorpay’s dashboard, fill in the Know Your Customer requirements.
To test the payment pages, Razorpay’s dashboard has test and live modes. The test mode is a replication of Razorpay in a sandbox environment which becomes available as soon as we complete the sign-up process. It allows you to test all aspects of your integration before you go live. The payment page created in the test mode does not go live and after thorough testing of the payment page, we can switch to the live mode and start accepting payments from the customer. Sometimes, payment Buttons created in the test mode do not appear in the live environment, thus one must create a new Payment page on live mode.
Understanding the payment flow

Generic Steps to create payment page

After logging into the Razorpay dashboard, navigate to the payment pages present at the left bottom of the page.

2. On clicking the payment pages, we need to click on ‘create payment page’.

3. It will showcase five payment page template options.

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Accepting payments through the payment pages secured with 100 % PCI DSS compliant and certified solution.

4. After selection of the payment page template, we need to add page details that require both business and payment details section.

In Business details

For business details we need to add a page title which should not be exceeding 40 characters and a brief description for the page, to make the page more alive images and videos can also be added. To make the payment page shareable on social media, we need to click on the option, ‘ Add social media share icons. For extending any assistance add your contact information such as mobile number or email id. Click on add terms & conditions to add terms of business.

In Payment details

To fill in the payment details we need to configure the price fields. The price fields are the price tags of products or services that we intend to sell.

We can configure the price fields in three ways –

Item with Quantity : We should choose this when we want the customer to buy more than one unit of the item. We can also set upper and lower limits of units that a customer can buy.

Opt for this if you want the customer to buy more than one unit of the item. You can set additional parameters for minimum and maximum numbers of units a customer can buy.

Fixed Amount : We choose this amount when we want the customer to buy a single unit.

Customer Decides Amount: This mostly happens in the case of donations if we want the customer to enter the donation amount. We can set additional parameters for the minimum and maximum amount a customer can enter.

Customizing the pay button label

We can customise the pay button label by labelling it as book tickets, pay now, etc.

Configuring the payment receipt

By selecting the automated receipts we can ensure that the customers receive payment receipts via email once they complete the payment.

Configuring the page settings

Choose a custom URL for the page, this is available only when in live mode. Enhance the look of the payment page with a light or dark theme.

Publishing and sharing the payment page

After saving and publishing the payment page, a URL appears that we can copy and share. If we have a website, then we can embed the payment page button on the website, the customers can click on this button to open the payment page and complete the payment. In the pop-up that appears, customize the button text and select the button size and then copy the HTML code to be embedded on your website and select done.

Thus, with the above-mentioned steps get started to accept online payments through payment pages.

The post How to Sell Online Without a Website appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Be it Blog or Website, Monetize them Using Payment Buttons

Shalmoli Sarkar — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 01:35:06 +0000

The pandemic will be remembered as a muddled year for businesses and economies. changed in a fortnight, with the announcement of lockdown many businesses were coerced to shut down for several days. Micro entrepreneurs and small businesses bore the brunt of the pandemic, as they were not equipped enough to go online.

Meanwhile, India’s print media industry too could not insulate itself from the pandemic crisis. With newspaper circulation stalled, there was hardly any revenue generation for a long period of three months that led to layoffs of many journalists and the shutdown of regional newspapers. Renowned media houses such as The Hindu laid off 100 journalists with the closing of its Mumbai edition. Times of India too followed the shutdown suit by closing its Sunday special Times Life.

Grappling through pay cuts and layoff, freelancing jobs for several journalists is appearing to be a glimmer of hope and is also paving the path for a new set of micro-entrepreneurs and gig workers to run individual businesses and work on different projects respectively. The gig economy in India as per ASSOCHAM in January 2020 has estimated that it would grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17 percent to $455 billion by 2023.

Monetizing the online presence

With numerous website and blog building tools such as Wix, WordPress, and e-commerce store building tools for example Shopify and Woocommerce at affordable costs, micro-entrepreneurs operating in verticals as psychotherapy, Yoga, freelance writers, content creators, pet food shops, etc are launching their products and services online. However, with the best use of templates, images and designs the work does not end there. The website or the blog site created will be of no use unless we add the business flavour to generate revenue from it. The most challenges an independent business owner counters is to generate sales when any visitor lands up on the site. However, content is abundant around how to generate conversions but monetizing the site, be it a blog site or website through digital payments, is yet a question mark. For new independent businesses, going live with payment gateways similar to e-commerce sites such as Flipkart or Myntra is an arduous task, as it demands technical expertise. One needs to build a complete checkout flow, integrate the payment gateway and buy cloud space to store the customer data which is difficult to achieve in limited time, resources, and a shoestring budget. The process of integrating payment gateway is easy for established business owners or entrepreneurs as they are backed by investments for which they can hire website developers and digital marketing agencies to take care of the entire process on an online platform. Payment buttons here can help the new entrepreneurs to monetize their sites in no time.

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The gig economy in India as per ASSOCHAM in January 2020 has estimated that it would grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17 percent to $455 billion by 2023.

Razorpay’s Payment Button

Razorpay has developed a customised payment solution’ Payment Button’. It is a Do-It-Yourself solution that is designed for everyone to accept online payments by adding a payment gateway along with an integrated checkout on the website.

Why Should You Choose Razorpay’s Payment Button?

It is a quick payment solution that can be added to any webpage not requiring integration efforts.
Creation of a payment button in Razorpay does not involve a tech expert.
The payment buttons are mobile-friendly that can be embedded without any coding requirement.
It offers a quick payment solution that suits any business vertical.
The payment button goes live in 5 minutes after embedding.
The payment button can offer more than 100 payment modes including credit/debit cards, netbanking, UPI, wallets and enables international payments.
Payment through Razorpay’s payment buttons offers a smooth experience to the customers as its redirection-less experience reduces drop-off rates on both mobile and desktop.
Razorpay’s intuitive reporting system helps business owners to get detailed insights on each item sold, based on real-time transactions from the dashboard to aid in better business decision making.
We can create any number of payment buttons that we can add to the website along with required details and descriptions for each one of the items.
After payment, Razorpay helps businesses to send automated receipts to customers without any manual intervention and is compatible with website builders and content management tools.

Types of Payment Buttons available on Razorpay

Quick Pay Button: Embedding Quick Pay Button on the websites helps customers to make quick payments for a fixed amount by their preferred online payment method such as card, netbanking, wallet, etc.
Donate Button: Several NGOs and charitable organisations can use this button to accept donations with the pre-decided amount or can allow the customer a ‘Pay -as -you -Like’ option, where they can type the desired amount to pay.

Buy now Button: This payment button is mostly suitable for event organizers, product, or service sellers. This button accepts payments of multiple items with varying quantities.
Custom Button:This is designed for power users with capabilities for different amount types, custom forms, etc. It gives the business the liberty to create, customise and publish payment buttons without any technical knowledge and offering a seamless experience to the customers.

Businesses Which Can Make Use Of Payment Buttons

Below are various business verticals that can use payment buttons to accept payment from customers :

Non-Governmental Organizations(NGO) and Charitable trusts: The payment button for NGOs will prove to be beneficial since the payment button supports more than 100 payment models as well as international payments. Here, NGO can either select a minimum amount that is to be donated or can leave it free for the patrons to enter the amount. After the donation has been successful, the buttons have an automated receipt feature that can send 80G receipt in PDF either by saving time and resources. We can also get donor information such as the PAN number that comes with an inbuilt validation check. NGO should select the ‘Donate Now’ payment button.
Event Organisers: An event organizer that is selling tickets for a particular event. For example, if you are conducting a stand-up comedy event and want to sell tickets online, the event organizers can create a ‘ book ticket or buy now button for a fixed monetary amount to sell tickets. They can also create payment buttons of their choice by using the ‘ custom button’.
Small Businesses: Small businesses such as gift shops, bakeshops, stationery shops, handicraft shops, pottery, pickle, local Kirana shops, private fashion labels can add the payment button ‘ Buy Now’ button to their site. Businesses to avoid overselling or underselling of stock can define demarcations for each item for easy inventory management.
Educational institutes: Schools, colleges, and institutes can embed the “Collect Fees’ payment button in the websites to collect fees online from students.
Individuals: Individuals such as digital content creators, clinics, or a freelance writer can monetize their blog sites and websites using payment buttons.

Creating the payment buttons on Razorpay

To understand how to create payment buttons for your blog or website, we need to have the below requisites:

Create and sign up for a Razorpay account.
Login into the Razorpay dashboard to complete the Know Your Customer requirements.
To test the payment button, Razorpay’s dashboard has test and live modes. The test mode is a replication of Razorpay in a sandbox environment which becomes available as soon as we complete the sign-up process. It allows you to test all aspects of your integration before you go live. The payment button created in the test mode does not go live and after thorough testing of the payment button, we can switch to the live mode and start accepting payments from the customer. Sometimes, payment Buttons created in the test mode do not appear in the live environment, hence one must create a new Payment Button on live mode.
Understanding the payment flow

Adding the Payment Buttons

Go to the Razorpay dashboard to select the payment button option that appears in the left column. On clicking it, you will be able to see the ‘Create Payment Button’ that appears on the right side of the screen.

On clicking the ‘Create Payment Button’ it will display options of four button templates -Quick Pay, Buy Now, Donations and custom.

Choose the button that you want to select for your business.

Fill in the button details where you can select the fixed amount that is needed to pay and a button label which is a text on button such as – Pay now, Buy me a coffee now, etc.

For the ‘buy now’ payment button, business owners get a separate section for setting the amount details for different products. For example- I own a flowers and gift shop that sells bouquets. It also has a package that sells chocolates with bouquets which is optional and chargeable if selected. Here, we can set two amount details for bouquets individually and another for chocolates under the label button ‘ Add Chocolate’. Also, to manage oversell or undersell, we can control how much quantity one can order by selecting the quantity limit in the advanced options.

After adding the button details configure the information such as email id and contact that must be entered by the donor for payment. NGOs can add one input field of PAN number.

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To test the payment button, Razorpay’s dashboard has test and live modes. The test mode is a replication of Razorpay in a sandbox environment which becomes available as soon as we complete the sign-up process.

Select a Button Theme

Businesses can select a button appearance from the below available themes at Razorpay-

Razorpay Dark
Razorpay Light
Razorpay Outline
Brand Color

Review the details entered in the button, amount, and customer details. To make changes one can navigate to the button details, amount details, and customer details to make changes, and click ‘ Create Button’.
Upon completion of these steps, the button code in HTML appears. Copy this code and add it to your webpage.

Post Payment actions

After payment is successfully made, we can send them a payment confirmation using:

An automated payment receipt, for NGOs they can enable the 80-G payments option.
Showing them a custom message
Redirecting them to another page showing that payment is done.

Thus, small businesses can monetize their blog sites or websites using payment buttons offering a hassle-free payment experience to customers. So, without much ado, get started with payment buttons.

The post Be it Blog or Website, Monetize them Using Payment Buttons appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

If You Are a Start-Up, How to Select the Best Payment Gateway?

Tanisha Achrekar — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 00:35:05 +0000

When you are running an e-commerce business, one of the main decisions you have to make is how you want to receive payments from your customers. With having numerous payment gateway options, choosing the best one has now become more difficult than ever. When a customer is purchasing something from your website, you want their experience to be as smooth as possible.

What do I look for while selecting a payment gateway?

The first thing you need to consider while choosing the payment options is knowing your audience and its needs. Here are few pointers to look for when you are choosing a payment gateway for your startup:

Security

Security is a dealbreaker when it comes to receiving money from your consumers as a new business. You want to ensure them that their transaction is safe and secure or they might hesitate and not order at all. The PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) is the highest level in card data protection achieved by a gateway. To ensure the gateway you choose has one, should be the top priority. Over the past several years, people have had trust issues with online transactions. If your gateway does not seem secure enough, you may lose your orders. Security is a non-negotiable thing to look for while exploring payment options.

Fee structure

If you are a startup, you may feel hesitant to pay an initial setup fee as you are yet to make money. You can evaluate your options and choose the ones that may have lower or no set-up fees. Have a look at the use license and the storage that is being offered in the amount you are paying. Also, consider the Annual Maintenance Charges (AMC) while choosing a payment option. If you have sufficient funds, you can also choose multiple payment gateways. Multiple payment options enhance the trust of consumers to a greater extent.

Seamless and friendly experience

The checkout experience hugely impacts the purchases made on your website and the retention rate of your consumers. If your customer struggles or has a poor experience while making payment on your website, they are unlikely to make online payments next time. The payment gateway should be hassle-free and friendly so your consumers can just breeze through it. The more swift and smooth transactions, the happier your customers.

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A payment gateway is more of an investment than an expense.

How does it impact my business?

Since choosing the right payment gateway plays a vital role in streamlining your business and is a factor closely connected to the customers, there’s a lot in it for you!

Importance of secured payment gateway

Small startups are known for their ability to connect with customers’ needs and demands directly. Whether you are working for new clients or retaining the existing ones, their expectations are needed to meet with caution. An absence of a secured payment gateway is directly associated with losing customers’ trust.

See it as an investment, not an expense

When you are choosing a payment gateway for your business, keep in mind that it is an investment and not an expense. As in the long run, it will enhance your customer experience and retain more clients. The perception of your brand is directly impacted by the gateway you choose, so invest wisely!

The post If You Are a Start-Up, How to Select the Best Payment Gateway? appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

How to Accept Payments Without a Hassle on Social Media

Shalmoli Sarkar — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 01:35:03 +0000

It will not be an exaggeration to say that scarcity of essential products in the pandemic due to market closures in lockdown led people to purchase more from e-commerce. A study from Bain says that the e-commerce Gross Merchandise Value in India reached $30 billion in 2020. Small and mid-sized startups, apart from selling products on e-commerce biggies like Amazon, Flipkart, BigBasket, and Grofers, have leaped to leverage new channels to offer shoppers a customized and interactive shopping experience. Social commerce – that is selling products through social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat was nascent till date is gaining prominence. Since many social media platforms and content creators are going the vernacular way to deliver content, social commerce can firmly place its hold among millennials and in tier-II and Tier-III cities of India.

Social commerce: A new e-commerce

During the lockdown, many people lost access to essential goods overnight. Many local retailers and store owners sought refuge in social commerce platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram to stay afloat with their businesses. The fact that people will trust local and small-medium merchants for product delivery made their debut in online business using social commerce. Besides trust, the duration of time spent on social media by the Indians has catalysed more sellers to ramp up their businesses on social media platforms. According to a Bain & Company report, Indians spend an average of over three hours per day online, of which around two hours consists of messaging, social media networking and watching videos. The study also showcases that India’s social commerce sector, which is a $1.5 to $2 billion Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) market today, has the potential to grow to $16 to $20 billion in just five years, increasing to $60 to $70 billion in revenue by 2030.

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According to a Bain & Company report, Indians spend an average of over three hours per day online, of which around two hours consists of messaging, social media networking and watching videos.

Rural India is responding to social commerce

The deluge of affordable smartphones and cheaper data plans is causing rural India to explore themselves online or more of a hybrid model where the buying is assisted by someone they trust. Assisted buying has led to many homegrown social commerce apps like Meesho, Bulbul TV, City Mall, Mall91, Meri Saheli app to foray into their businesses in the low tier cities of India. These social commerce apps have provided a means of livelihood for many housewives turned businesswoman, micro-entrepreneurs and resellers who can sell products through social media like WhatsApp and Facebook, thus able to build their online presence with no costs involved and increase the customer base. A report from Bain & Company states that small sellers and merchants form 85 percent of all social commerce players that have the potential to empower over 40 million small businesses and entrepreneurs across India.

The skepticism towards online shopping

Despite a bright future that lies ahead for social commerce in India, a report from Bain says that only 100 million out of a universe of 700 million internet users transact online. The main deterrent of online shoppers from going with online transactions is the fear whether the money will reach the concerned person’s account or bank accounts getting hacked. There is a visible lack of trust. The customers from tier -II and tier-III cities are comfortable with smartphones and the internet but find it unconvincing to fulfill payments online due to their apprehensions about digital privacy and complicated user interface. For online sellers this becomes a roadblock for running a business smoothly. Imagine, for receiving payments, the seller needs to share his bank account details mentioning the IFSC code, branch number, and account number; that is a tedious and manual job. With this, there is no guarantee for instant payment or might cause customer drop-off. We require a convenient payment solution here that solicits the customer for instant payment and does not allow the customer to have room for second thoughts about buying, and close sales quickly. Small business owners should create a seamless shopping experience by enabling their businesses with fast, safe, and secured payment solutions through payment links.

How Payment links from Razorpay can help here

An online visitor might want to reconsider their purchase decision if we present them our bank account details on social media platforms. The Razorpay payment links enables businesses to accept digital payments from any social media channel in a hassle-free and secured manner. One can create a payment link from the Razorpay dashboard or through the ePOS application on mobile. Once the link is created, we can copy the link to share it with the customers to accept social media payments.

For instance let us say, we have an online store on Facebook and a prospective buyer is seeking answers to her queries through direct messages, after she is convinced, we can share the Razorpay payment link for the payment. Razorpay payment links can be used to accept payments online by businesses that do not own a website. Once a customer receives the payment link, they get various payment options such as debit card, credit card, UPI, netbanking, and wallets.

Features of the Razorpay Payment links

The payment links are secured with PCI DSS compliance.
Business owners will receive automated notification through powerful webhooks every time a customer makes payment using payment link.
The payment links from Razorpay are easily shareable that can further be personalised to enhance customer’s shopping experience.
No complex integrations, coding, or design knowledge to begin with.
Has facilities like chatbot payments and cash-on-delivery
Enables businesses to offer 100+ payment options to their customers
Receives insights, data and reports about the payment status on Razorpay’s dashboard.
The appearance of the payment links can be customised.
There is no additional charge required to create links except a standard gateway fee of 2% per transaction.

Creating the Payment Links for accepting Social media payments

The payment links for social media on Razorpay can be generated through the Razorpay dashboard and ePOS app

Link Creation through Razorpay Dashboard

Creating payment links through the Razorpay dashboard is a no-brainer, one needs to create an account on Razorpay, and click on ‘ Payment Links’. There we enter details such as the amount to solicit from the customer, customer name, for what the payment is, etc., and click to create the payment link which can be shared. As soon as the customers make payments the owner will get notification of the same.

2.Creating payment link through the ePOS app

If we want to generate payment links from mobile, then we need to download Razorpay’s ePOS app whereby by clicking on ‘Create link’ we need to fill in the details such as the amount to be collected, phone and description of the transaction. After the link is generated it can be shared on any platform from mobile.

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A study from Bain says that the e-commerce Gross Merchandise Value in India had reached $30 billion in 2020.

Sharing payment links on Facebook

Business owners can create business accounts on Facebook in two ways. One is through creating a Facebook business account that carries product photos and catalogues for buyers to choose from and another is a Facebook marketplace, which is a free service where customers can explore, buy and sell products all under one platform. Facebook does not have its delivery or payment systems to offer. It is a platform where sellers and prospects can interact. The challenge for the sellers is that there is no checkout page or payment system created by Facebook. Once a purchasing decision has been made by the customer, the seller needs to share his bank account details that delay the process making it complicated and giving the buyer the room to rethink about its buying decision, which is certainly disappointing. Therefore, payment links make a seller’s life easier by which he/she can easily share the payment link over chats or conversations. Sellers, once they receive confirmed orders over direct messages, can share the Razorpay payment link with or without message. The customer can click on the link and complete his/her social media shopping in no time after which sellers can process the orders, post the receipt of payment.

Sharing payment links on Instagram

Instagram has transformed itself from a photo and video sharing platform to a business platform for cosmetics, apparel and jewellery. To enable ease of doing business on Instagram, it has introduced many plugins. As per a study from Deutsche Bank, it is estimated that ventures on Instagram to be a global market worth $10 billion by 2021. Sellers on Instagram can sell their products in two ways – Instagram business account, which is similar to Facebook page where ventures can showcase their product pictures and via Shop feature. The Shop feature is a new tab on Instagram which upon clicking we get a product tag showing the name and price details of the product.

While the customer clicks on the ‘Shop’ feature, it redirects the customer to the business website to place the order and make the payment. Sometimes if the customer is visiting the website for the first time and the website demands to create an account, it might be a bummer since no customer wants to face the ordeal of sitting and creating an account while using the phone. Besides the ordeal, customers on Instagram seem uncomfortable with social media payments with excuses such as redirection, net banking servers not working, and UPI linking issues. Razorpay’s payment links come to the rescue for Instagram businesses with customised links, multiple payment options, and instant notifications. The payment links can be sent directly over direct messages (DMs) when a customer is placing an order. It can be used to remind customers of the remaining payments, reducing bad debts and missed payments.

In the ‘Shop’ feature, by using ‘DM ME’ (Direct Message Me) sticker we can receive orders and share payment links. Using DM ME stickers can reduce the chances of customers abandoning cart items, with payments done instantly.

Accept Payments from Email and SMS

Besides, Instagram and Facebook the payment links can be shared over e-mails and SMS. Razorpay has an in-built feature where the system can directly send the customer SMS or e-mails payment links. For new businesses whose websites are not fully equipped to handle too many payment requests, might give customers a ‘failed payment’ experience. In such cases, sending payment links through SMS or emails is a saviour that offers a smooth payment experience to the customer.

Sending Payment Links on Twitter, LinkedIn

Payment links created from Razorpay’s ePOS app allows instant sharing on platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp or Reddit based on the requirements. If you are planning to conduct a skill workshop, courses or any seminar then sharing of payment links on professional platforms such as LinkedIn will garner more participation.

Payment links create a frictionless and secured shopping experience for the customers at the checkout. It increases the business efficiency of those who currently do not have a website or a mobile storefront. Hence, without giving much thought, start creating payment links on Razorpay to receive online payments.

The post How to Accept Payments Without a Hassle on Social Media appeared first on Dutch Uncles.