Pay1 keeps its retailers at the centre of business, strategy and culture.
With financial inclusion, entrepreneur empowerment and frictionless offline to the online transition of a plethora of micro-retailers, traders and small business across India, Pay1 is focussed on being the voice of the retailers. It is tenacious in its approach to understanding, adapting and evolving its ways of doing business such that it can provide a positive experience to its retailers before, after and beyond sales. This is called a ‘retailer centric’ approach towards business which Pay1 has built over years of creating a culture around the retailers and their needs.
The Pay1 approach to retailer centricity is not just about providing a smooth on-boarding, hassle free transaction or large gamut of products on the app, it is about understanding the retailers, designing the products to fill the gap and keeping the retailer at the core of all the business. For a digitally powered retail tech company, this also means using data to provide insights into untapped opportunities for the retailers, understanding their business behaviour, preferences, analysing product trend etc.
The retailer centric strategy at Pay1 starts with empowering the frontline – its feet on the street, the distributors. The empowered distributors are fully educated and trained about the product, and also have the influence to convey the retailer needs, address the grouse and get his problem resolved on a case to case basis.
The next step to retailer centric strategy is designing customer-centric products. After extensive research and retailer interaction, Pay1 has been able to identify the areas where it can bridge the revenue gap for retailers. With prime focus on creating alternate revenue streams and a sustainable business model for the retailers, Pay1 is on its way to empowering retailer to become financial product distributors like loans and mutual funds. Many more services which the retailer can provide to its customers are under the fold. The mission is to empower the retailer to sell more than what lies on his self. To make the retail store a one-stop solution for not just fast moving consumer goods, but also digital, financial, logistics, online bill payments, remittance, recharge etc services.
A big step into retailer centric approach is educating the retailer. This involves digital literacy, handholding and guidance in using the secure application, and familiarising them with the world of online business and cashless currency. An agile technology, real-time troubleshooting and a small turnaround time for resolving errors go a long way in supporting retailer literacy.
While technology, data, software, and applications are the core of a technology-based company, a retail sector technology company ought to focus on its retailers first. Hence design products and technology which can interact and relate with the user-retailer is a better bet than a technology which exhausts the user with its supremacy and complexities.
One of the main tenets of a growing business and progressive organisation is welcome feedback and implementing it to improve its offering. The evolving business models and improved products have led to a sustainable relationship with thousands of active retailers across the country. Pay1 has not just gathered feedback and enhanced its user experience of the technology platform; it has also worked tirelessly on providing a secure interface which does not pose data, or credit loss threats to the unsuspecting merchants who range from a neighbourhood ‘kirana’ store, a small business or a micro retailer. Securities is a hygiene factor, and convince is what leads to sticky customers and low attrition- these are the building blocks to sustaining long-term merchant relationships with Pay1.
With a culture of nurturing its people both employees and customers, Pay1 has used technology to empower retailers to improve their game. Keeping an eye on the technology and ears on the ground, Pay1 is paving its way into the retailer ecosystem which is ripe to embrace the world of numerous possibilities.
