Paytm Mall to be the top e-tailer by next year: COO Amit Sinha

For Paytm Mall — the latest entrant in the big-bang festive sales war — what mattered more than elbowing out competition this time was to understand the market and test the waters. Wrapping up the first edition of ‘Mera Cashback Sale’, Chief Operating Officer Amit Sinha tells Karan Choudhury that by next year, the company will be the top player in an ecosystem where Amazon and Flipkart rule the roost. To achieve this, Sinha says the company is ramping up logistics and also bringing in global sellers. Edited excerpts:

Your competition claims to have sold millions of smartphones. Do you think such targeted sales are important?

Our success metric is not how many mobile phones we have sold. For a new entrant, we have seen a massive surge in sales, which few can boast about. The number of new users coming to the platform increased by 30X during the sales period. While other players have a significant amount of payments coming from cash on delivery, for us, it is less than half a per cent.

Customers from over 839 cities and towns ordered products from sellers across 270 cities during the sale. For me, all these things are more important in our race to the top.

What will you do differently next time?

We will go deeper, and launch region-specific offers across online and offline channels ahead of the upcoming festivals such Durga Puja and Dusshera. We will have more targeted sales as they generate more interest, create traction among existing users and bring in new ones.

Amazon India just acquired 5 per cent stake in Shoppers Stop. Does this worry you?

We are sorted on that front. We have been following the online-to-offline (O2O) model for a long time. We have deep relationships with major players such as the Future Group. These relationships will only grow stronger and will be visible in more brick-and-mortar stores, as well as on our platform.

Will you bring in more global players to take on the international product base of players such as Amazon?

Absolutely, we recently revamped our app and launched over 1,000 ‘Brand Stores’, including top brands such as Apple, Samsung, Puma and Fossil, among others. Our team is aggressively forging brand partnerships. We are also in constant talks with global players who are keen on entering India via Paytm Mall.

Where do you see yourself in the pecking order in the near future?

We will be the top e-commerce company in the country by next year. We have got a good grip on the festive sales. We are ramping up our logistics, and working closely with partners. We already have large number of audience and it will only increase by next year. We will be the all-around destination for customers, not just for particular categories.

Our O2O strategy has never been tried in Indian retail and would be the key to our success. It will enable us to offer faster deliveries and a consistent experience across online and offline channels.

Were you able to achieve the half-a-billion-dollar sales target?

The target is for the ongoing festive season. We are extending our sales and are on our way to achieving the target.

This time, you had a massive Rs 501-crore budget for just cashbacks. Do you think you will be able to reduce this expense by next year?

These are the initial years of our business, and we believe such investments are important to gain in the long-term. It will be wrong to call it cash burn.