Indian Mobile Payments Powerhouse Paytm Targets Delivery Market

Buying groceries is often a cumbersome and unpleasant process. More than a few have wondered why this process can’t be rendered a bit more digital to help speed it up, and indeed, some have done just that. Whether it’s delivery, autonomous car delivery, or just mobile order-ahead for pickup, we’re seeing a lot more digital hit the grocery store lately. Paytm—particularly its ecommerce marketplace Paytm Mall—is working to join that fray itself.

The reports suggest that Paytm Mall is connecting to BigBasket, an ecommerce grocery service, to help better compete with Flipkart and Amazon’s offering. Given that BigBasket, at last report, is the third-largest company competing in India’s retail space, that could make it a very big ally to have on hand.

Currently, word from Paytm Mall’s chief operating officer Amit Sinha suggests that the BigBasket connection is light so far, as the company is currently “…in the process of integrating BigBasket on our app.” Fairly sedate so far, and Paytm Mall isn’t ruling out the notion of further partnerships with both “…pan-India retail chains like Big Bazaar”, and “…regional, local city-based brands.”

Paytm Mall’s push comes at the same time as Amazon—and several other firms—are rolling out delivery options of their own, which increasingly, is going to make delivery a table-stakes operation. This is great news for anyone who, like me personally, has been looking forward to the notion of having most anything available for delivery. The exact methods of delivery are still a bit up in the air—we’ve seen most everything from flying drones to rolling robots and self-driving cars step in on this one—but the concept is still heading out.

It might well be easier to engage in delivery options in India. India is only about a third the size of the United States, but it has nearly four times the population. That makes the population density substantially greater, and in turn, makes it probably quite a bit easier to make deliveries. There are fewer empty stretches of land to cross, orders in tow, to reach a desired destination.

Still, the way the market’s shaping up, delivery is going to be table stakes soon, and Paytm will be at least somewhat ahead of the curve going in.