As payment majors like PhonePe and Paytm battle out over merchant soundbox, Amazon Pay’s Whole-time Director, Vikas Bansal said Amazon’s app already sends voice notifications to merchants on payments.
“While the merchant problem is partially addressed by these voice notifications, we continue to watch the space closely. Our merchant team is on it, to see if there’s a real need for soundbox and if can it solve multiple use-cases,” he added.
Bansal noted that launching an Amazon Pay soundbox will not depend on what its competitors have done, instead the company will decide it based on their assessment of the merchant problem.
Further, commenting on the existing competition in the digital payments space, Bansal said, “The digital payments opportunity in India is extremely large, and customers are only loyal to a platform till the point it delights them. So our motto is very simple — make our offerings more convenient, trusted and rewarding experience for the customers.”
He added that while certain customers have gotten habituated to existing digital payment solutions, he believes there is still a very large segment of India that still pays in cash and stands in queues to pay their utility bills.
“We have a long way to go in terms of really penetrating into each of the digital payment use cases,” said Bansal.
Smart stores
Among its other offerings, Amazon Pay has set up a new format of offline stores called ‘Smart Stores’. In this model, customers can discover all the store items on the app and also see their reviews.
They can then walk into any store nearby, pick up the physical product, and then pay for item. Customers also get various online-like payment options such as EMI, discounts, etc in these smart stores.
“It is a very unique concept. Merchants like it because there’s new footfall to their stores and customers like it is because they can now evaluate different product options, compare them, look at reviews and then make a purchase decision,” he added.
Around 18,000 merchants have signed up for Amazon’s smart stores program. These are mostly large branded stores with multiple outlets, who tend to have a higher average order value purchase.