In its bid to simplify ordering, payments and delivery of essentials during the lockdown, fintech startup PayNearby has now expanded its hyperlocal discovery and purchase app ‘PayNearby’ to pan-India operations. The app has helped more than 2 lakh+ kirana shops across the country take their stores online. Besides the local kiranas, the platform hosts a wide range of retailers inclusive of -- groceries, pharmacies, sweet stores, supermarkets, milk & dairy products, branded specialty stores, gift shops, and meat shops, among others, thus catering to a wide range of customer needs.
In the wake of the lockdown, with physical distancing being the new norm, access to daily essentials has been a huge challenge across the country. With its latest offering – PayNearby customers can now identify their nearest local kirana store and conveniently order anything while choosing from a wide range of products. Besides easy access to daily essentials, the interactive app allows customers to pre-order and pre-schedule deliveries, with the options to pay digitally, thus helping observe physical distancing and minimal contact.
The offering, which was introduced in the Mumbai and Chennai markets on a pilot basis, has now been launched across 2 lakh+ retail touch-points pan-India. PayNearby aims to ramp up its presence significantly at a rapid scale in the near future.
Besides easy product discovery, it also offers 24X7 ordering facility where one can place an order on the PayNearby app anytime even if the shop is closed. The tech enabled platform will also help customers to track the order and discover substitutes if the required item is currently not available.
Additionally, the platform enables consumers to confirm specifications and modifications before placing an order whilst supporting both cash and digital payments. The features of pre-ordering and pre-scheduling of deliveries notifies in case of unavailability of items or wrong deliveries thus avoiding unnecessary visits to a retail outlet. With a wide range of retailers on the platform, PayNearby seeks to cater to the needs of all types of customer demands.
Retailers, on the other hand, can receive orders on their apps and in turn, can place specific orders to their distributors, creating a seamless supply chain. The platform offers multiple payment options, allowing them to cater a wide range of customers and increase their consumer base. Customers coming to the store will also have an option to avail a wide range of financial services generating additional income for the retailers.
Distributors, too, receive real-time orders from retailers, further improving the delivery network, while the interface helps improve stock visibility. It also allows them to view team movement, analyse sales data and track assets with ease. The app also clubs all orders from a particular area so that merchant orders can be aggregated and delivered in bulk, rather than separately, saving on time and travel costs.
Anand Kumar Bajaj, MD & CEO, PayNearby said, “The kirana store has been a crucial part of the Indian economy as well as the social fabric. It enjoys a certain level of trust and familiarity that cannot be replicated by the other retail formats. Even through the pandemic lockdown, the humble kiranas in the neighbourhood have stood tall offering seamless access to daily essentials. PayNearby aims to transform and empower these local stores, by marrying digital technology with last-mile connectivity. With the initiative, we also aim to diligently drive our honourable PM’s vision of ‘Aatma-Nirbharta’ and his call for ‘local’ by supporting local businesses and helping them evolve into retail powerhouses.”
PayNearby offers a host of financial and non-financial services to the underbanked and unbanked, through its 8.5 lakh retail touch-points strong network. The company, for the past four years, has been working diligently to bridge the urban-rural divide in terms of accessibility to financial services.