Paytm E-commerce reports net loss of Rs 1,171 crore, revenues jump by 25%

Paytm E-commerce Private Limited (Paytm Mall), the online shopping platform, reported a net loss of Rs 1,171 crore for the financial year 2018-19. This is a 34 per cent decrease from the last financial year. However, the company reported its revenues for the same fiscal as Rs 968 crore, a 25 per cent jump since the last financial year, according to data accessed by business intelligence platform Tofler. The company’s total expenses for the fiscal were reported as Rs 2,140 crore.

The company is integrating its offline merchant base with international sellers on a single platform in a bid to take on the competition such as Amazon and Flipkart. This will help its 300,000 offline merchants access international brands from across the world. The company has also set up an office in China and was planning to source and identify items it believed would sell in India. Listing Chinese merchants on its platform from where customers can buy directly was another new initiative.

Paytm Mall has raised a total of $795 million in funding from top investors including SoftBank Vision Fund and Alibaba, according to data platform Crunchbase. This year in July, US-based e-commerce firm eBay bought a 5.59 per cent stake in Paytm Mall for $160 million. The deal enabled Paytm Mall to start getting catalogues from the US and Europe.

Eager to make their presence felt during the festive season, Paytm Mall and eBay were bulking up their offers of the global catalogue. This month, Paytm Mall said it would generate at least Rs 500 crore in actual sales for its offline brick-and-mortar retailers this festive season. The announcement came at a time when trader bodies are at loggerheads with Amazon India and Flipkart over the massive discounts during such sale drives.

Over the past six months, the firm had worked out massive discount and cashback schemes, with more than 100 brands and major offline retailers. Overall, Paytm Mall said it was targeting not less than $2.1 billion (Rs 14,900 crore) in gross merchandise value (GMV) for the entire year.

During the festive season itself, the company said it was aiming at least $300 million (Rs 2,100 crore) in GMV.

E-commerce companies are facing huge losses in pursuit of dominating the country’s growing online commerce market which is expected to touch $200 billion by 2028, from about $30 billion last year.

Amazon has faced losses in several of its business entities in India, such as seller services, wholesale, transportation services and digital payments, for the 2018-19 financial year. According to the regulatory documents, the combined losses of these entities stand at over Rs 7,000 crore.

Also, Flipkart India Private Limited, the wholesale entity of Walmart-backed homegrown e-commerce firm Flipkart, has suffered an increase in net loss by 85.91 per cent in the financial year 2018-2019 compared to the previous year. Flipkart India Private Limited reported a net loss of Rs 3,836 crore as compared to Rs 2,063 crore in the previous financial year, according to the regulatory documents.

Paytm Mall vows big push this festive season for traditional retailers

Paytm Mall said it would generate at least Rs 500 crore in actual sales for its offline brick-and-mortar retailers this festive season. It says so at a time when trader bodies are at loggerheads with Amazon India and Flipkart over the massive discounts during such sale drives.

Paytm Mall is the online shopping platform created by Paytm, the e-commerce payment system and financial technology entity. We have, says the former, been working hard on our omni-channel model. This year, the company believes, most of the ‘leads’ it generates online would convert into sales offline.

Over the past six months, it has worked out massive discount and cashback schemes, with more than 100 brands and major offline retailers. Overall, Paytm Mall says, it is targeting not less than $2.1 billion (Rs 14,900 crore) in gross merchandise value (GMV) for the entire year.

As Amazon India has been doing, Paytm Mall has been concentrating a lot on the market outside the tier-I cities. While these metropolitan areas contribute 35 per cent of its business, the rest comes from elsewhere.

During the festive season itself, the company says it is aiming at $300 million (Rs 2,100 crore) in GMV. It has got on board over 30,000 new retailers and these stores will offer their catalogues on the Paytm Mall app, in-store pick-up, local deliveries and exclusive brand vouchers. The company has dedicated a team to address the needs of offline retailers and help their transition online.

The partnership will help it get new users, strengthen its assortment and expand its reach to the neighbourhood brand outlets. The firm does not own or operate warehouses; instead, it partners with sellers and encourages them to use local courier services for delivery. The target is to, within two years, show a positive figure on operating earnings, by addressing the issue of logistics cost.

“In preparation for the coming festive season, we are aggressively on-boarding retail stores and collaborating with new brands. We have also introduced exclusive brand vouchers...(and) are confident on achieving two-fold growth in our user base during this period,” said Srinivas Mothey, senior vice-president.

In the run-up to the festive sales, Paytm Mall has also broughtn eBay’s global inventory on its platform. This catalogue of over a million products includes categories such as toys, collectibles, fashion, automobile accessories, gifts and decor festive items.

“Paytm Mall is rapidly expanding its World Store which makes international brands available to Indian buyers at its platform. The company also aims to become the launch partner for international brands to cater to the Indian market,” the company said.

Paytm Mall on hiring spree, eyes Rs 10,000-crore business in a year

Putting speculation to rest and eyeing a comeback, Paytm Mall, the online marketplace firm of Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led One97 Communications, is planning to hire as many as 500 back-end tech team members. The company is targeting Rs 10,000 crore in business over the next 12 months.

The news comes amid reports that the company was planning to scale down its online marketplace business and eventually exit it. The company, however, has been through some internal reshuffle as well as changes so that it can revamp and reboot. According to sources, while Amit Sinha, chief operating officer (COO) at Paytm Mall, is still overseeing the business, he might be given another role in the company.

The company on Sunday said that it was on the fast track to expand its online to offline (O2O) platform across the country and has witnessed growth of over 200 per cent in the last six months.

In past few weeks, the company has hired 200 people across various verticals to bolster back-end processes and plans to add another 300 on the rolls in the next few months.

Chart “We are observing strong traction for O2O with the business growing over 200 per cent in the last six months and have therefore doubled down on this business model. To support this growth, we have re-aligned some of our teams and have added 200 more people for the business. We further plan to add an additional workforce of 300 people across business, technology, and product in the next few months,” said Srinivas Mothey, SVP – Paytm Mall.

The company is planning to make a splash in the grocery space over the next few months. It would soon go big on hyperlocal grocery delivery and would also get into the fresh produce space. Over the past few months, it has been increasing its merchant-base, which will help in creating traction in the grocery segment, a vertical which if tapped, ensures repeat customers and daily transactions.

“The idea is to do a business of around Rs 10,000 crore in the next 12 months. For this reason the company has been on a rapid expansion mode. It is very serious about the online marketplace space and that has been made clear amply by the founder of the company as well,” said a source close to the firm.

The company has also partnered with large format retail stores, including Croma, Reliance Digital, and Big Bazaar; Brand-exclusive stores such as Samsung, Asus, Dell, Lenovo; and large format retail stores to ensure a strong offline presence in all major tier-II, and tier-III cities.

For the Alibaba-backed online marketplace, the going has been tough. The company had reported net loss of Rs 1,787 crore on sales of Rs 774.8 crore in FY18, nearly 150 times the losses reported in 2016-17. Competing with Amazon India and Flipkart, the company has not been able to make strong in-roads into the e-commerce market unlike Paytm Wallet, which is the market leader in its segment.

Sharma, during an interview to media some time back had, however, made it clear that they would be expanding Paytm Mall and grocery would be one of the target |verticals.