Packaging with Panache

Upliance.ai, a trailblazing innovator in the realm of home appliances, has emerged as a transformative force in our ever-evolving world where homes have assumed paramount significance. In response to the pandemic's spotlight on the importance of homes, Upliance.ai has dedicated itself to reshaping these spaces into extensions of one's personality, enhancing lives through technology.

Upliance.ai's vision is to go beyond the idea of robots taking over household chores. They aim to empower individuals within their homes, envisioning a future where technology seamlessly enriches daily life, making homes hubs of creativity and culinary delight. Their flagship product, the delishUp, simplifies cooking with guided recipes and a smart cooking jar. Led by CEO Mahek Mody, Upliance.ai plans to expand into smart microwave and refrigerator solutions, ensuring that technology, creativity, and convenience become integral parts of our homes, shaping an innovative future for home appliances.

Mahek Mody, CEO and Co-Founder, Up said, "Entering the smart kitchen industry was a no-brainer for us. Mohit and I come from backgrounds in hardware engineering, and we had a shared vision of revolutionizing home appliances. We aimed to create a brand, Upliance.ai, that understands the needs of young homeowners and offers a new way of smart living."

“Today, India has become a massive market for home appliances. People are spending a whopping $26 billion per year on these purchases. However, most of the products available are still stuck in the past, designed for the 1970s with outdated technology from the 2000s. It just didn't make sense to us. We wanted to build consumer appliances that are specifically designed for the new India, appliances that are smart, innovative, and tailored to the evolving tastes and preferences of the Indian buyer,” she added.

Enhancing User Experience with ChefGPT Integration

"Integration of ChefGPT on the delishUp is changing how we interact with technology at home today," Mody asserted.

Integration of ChefGPT on the delishUp is changing how we interact with technology at home today. As users engage with delishUp over time, with AI, it understands better their cooking habits, dietary preferences, and ingredient choices, allowing it to provide more tailored recipe recommendations and cooking tips. Users can ask questions, make requests, and receive recommendations in a natural language format, which can make the cooking experience feel more personalized and engaging.

They can also experiment with creating new dishes with the Recipe Generator, using it to create unusual recipes like a Mushroom Sambar or an Avatar-themed pasta. Overall, the integration of ChefGPT into delishUp has enhanced the user experience by creating a more conversational and personalized cooking assistant that can not only learn from and adapt to each user's preferences and needs but also make home cooking fun and engaging for users.

Strategic Factors Behind Rapid Revenue Growth

"Our strategic approach FAATAC involved rapid product development, addressing challenges faced by young nesters, and focusing on online sales through our website," she added.

Upliance.ai's rapid revenue growth in just six months after launching delishUp was driven by a strategic approach we call, FAATAC: Fast, Attention to Problems, Authentic Cash. This approach involved rapid product development within six months, addressing challenges faced by young nesters, and focusing on online sales through our website.

Numerous critical elements contributed to this accomplishment. Initially, we prioritized swift development, dedicating six months to crafting our AI cooking assistant, enabling us to grasp market demands swiftly. Moreover, we focused on an overlooked demographic - the young nesters - and systematically addressed their challenges in the kitchen. Most of us don’t know how to cook or cook well, but have been exposed to a larger variety of food and cuisines than previous generations. We built our appliance to bridge the gap between skill and desire and unlock the ability to cook anything at a whim.

Digital Technology and Omnichannel Experience

"Integrating digital technology significantly enriches the omnichannel journey for Upliance.ai customers, augmenting product development and customer service," Mody elaborated.

Integrating digital technology significantly enriches the omnichannel journey for Upliance.ai customers, augmenting product development and customer service. Our deep understanding of how young Indian homes today cook and interact in their kitchen has allowed us to both preempt requirements for feature updates and also build a robust weekly update schedule. Our owners look forward to Fridays since new recipes are rolled out, and they have something new to try for the weekend. Similarly, they have come to expect new features and improvements to roll out regularly. This has driven increased daily usage and has allowed them to experience the real value of a smart connected device - one that grows and improves with time.

The insights garnered from collected data and preferences empower us to provide a compelling pre-purchase experience, effectively supporting sales. With trials conducted in over 1000+ homes nationwide, we tailor experiences to individual households, delivering personalized recommendations. This approach fosters an in-depth understanding of customer desires, enhances engagement, and boosts conversion through data-driven customization.

"We’re excited about the future of AI-powered home appliances, mainly because this area hasn’t seen much change in a long time. We’re excited about the future of AI-powered home appliances, mainly because this area hasn’t seen much change in a long time. Devices like the delishUp are making meal planning easier, helping cut down on food waste, and making cooking more efficient. And they’re only going to get better," Mahek said.

Plans for Future Expansion

As a company, our goal for the next five years is to be the top brand for smart home appliances among young Indians. We’re working hard to make delishUp a well-known name, and we want it to be in over 150,000 homes across the country by the end of this year. We want AI-based cooking to be a part of more households. Our larger vision is to create new and smart products like microwaves and refrigerators that connect to the internet. We aim to make homes more exciting by adding smart appliances and helping young people make the most of their households.

"We are currently available pan-India through e-commerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart and are building towards entering international markets in the near future. We are currently available pan-India through e-commerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart and are building towards entering international markets in the near future. We are working towards diversifying our product portfolio along price points so we can make smart connected appliances accessible to young Indian homes, everywhere,” she further added.

Revenue Target and Key Milestones

Upliance.ai aims to be in 1.5 lakh homes across the country by the end of the year, with a revenue target of Rs 150 crore by FY25. The consumer appliance industry is a $30 billion industry in India with a 14 percent CAGR. We expect to capture 20 percent of this market over 8 years.

In conclusion, Upliance.ai stands at the forefront of innovation in home appliances, driven by a vision to enhance the lives of homeowners through technology. With a commitment to personalized experiences, rapid growth, and a global expansion strategy, they are poised to transform the way we interact with our homes, making them smarter, more efficient, and more enjoyable.

Share your views on the retail industry landscape.

Technology advancementshave led to colossal competition amongst the retailers. Be it inthe adoption of varying business models or rate of technology implementation, retail industry has experienced incredible changes in the past few years.

Evidently, this is an outcome of today’s smart consumers demanding a unified shopping experience and possess elite notion of level ofservice quality which sometimes are difficult to meet even for the bests in the field. Omnipresence of retail setupacross the brick and mortar, the digital landscape and beyond has become a mandate. Merchants are no longer considered to be the overlying reason for making purchase decisions. The tech-led makeover of retail landscape is putting variety of purchase options on consumer’s finger tips making consumers capable of driving their purchase decisionsfrom the place of their comfort and convenience. Also, in the  age of social media, the ‘word of mouth’ strategy via various communities have become an   important influencing factor in the buyer’s journey.

How has technology helped in reclassifying retail sector?

Fusion of technology and retail has delivered newer opportunities both for buyers and sellers Technology plays a critical role in the functioning of complex retail activities and is being increasingly leveraged to unveil unique dimensions of outstanding customer service. Virtual shopping assistants, in-store robots, Artificial Intelligence-fuelled suggestion motors, bot-managed billing counters, visual marketing are some of the new entities that have put the retail landscape in flux. Though majority of these are not a ground reality today but the fact that these are in the pipeline has impacted the retails’ planning and strategies surely. Upsurge in the usage of digital wallets, rise of consumer analytics derivations etc. are just upping the ante further.

Explain the aspects of retail that are being redefined by technology.

Retail is gamut of processes and procedures that has been fast-tracked and automated with the help of technology delivered by Sales enablement partners. Some of them are:

• Salesforce automation: Salesforce automation addresses all the existing as well as possible business challenges while implementing a feet-on-street strategy. It can be a holistic solution for planning and managing the field force program, offering end-to-end visibility to all the stakeholders in the sales ecosystem. It may address pertinent sales process issues such as inaccurate process of capturing sales data, fraudulent reporting, limited stock visibility, absence of structured communication platform, limited first-hand market insights and more.
• Training: Training through mobile apps is an apt case of the technology-empowered platform for ‘feet-on-street’ (FOS). Applications that enable real-time reference material for salesperson at remote location are key enabler in retail space. The applications can be a central repository for the salesforce and may provide window to the performance review, assessment processes etc for upskilling the FOS on go. 
• Logistical advancements:Advancements such as QR Codes, Virtual Reality, drones, digital wallets etc. are being leveraged to enhance customer experiences. Riding high on the emerging technologies these logistical advancements are only going to expand and permeate the retail sector deep.
• Predictive analytics:data analytics has been on boom with Predictive analytics playing a key role in the retail sector. Not only it provides insight into the customer’s journey and their buying patterns but also provide enough information to the brands for finalising their business strategies. It helps them to make right decisions and creating impactful touch points at every step of the customer journey.

Innovative strategies leveraging latest technologyhelp render a 'wow experience' for the customers. With the changing times, it is no longer sufficient to just rely on competitive pricing, in factit is also equally important for the retailers to adapt to the newer and smarter ways of doing business.  It is pertinent for brands to embrace technology to create an effective and empowered customer-centric experience and thus stay ahead of the curve.

With the pervasiveness of mobile and digital technologies, customer expectations are driving retailers to think and act differently. And no second thoughts that from showrooming to beacons, disruptive technology will continue to blur the lines between online and brick and mortar establishments, making omni-channel retailing the norm, asserts Sunil Kumar Thakur, Country Manager - India, BMC Software.

What is driving digital transformation in retail segment?

Retail is a dynamic industry with its own set of manifold and diverse business processes and requirements. With the advent of emerging technology, retailers today are challenged with multiple disruptive technologies followed by dynamic demands of tech-savvy consumers. In order to stay abreast in this cut-throat retail market, retailers need to stay on top of technological advances and learn how to incorporate these technical innovations into setting their business goals.

Today, there are a significant number of new retailing formats which include, online selling, kiosks, mail catalogues etc. For a retailer, it becomes pivotal to convert into an omni-channel and provide a seamless shopping experience for his consumers irrespective of what channel is being opted for.

How has digital transformation benefitted the retail segment?

Over the years, digital transformation has significantly impacted the retail sector. The entire supplier to customer value chain has been enhanced with the entry of smartphones, tablets, phablets, and other types of social media, eventually resulting in the growth of B2B interchange itself.

Today, retailers are given too many options to experiment with and enhance their sales, for instance - the usage of kiosks at the store, in-store services, smart shelves, home delivery, logistics automation etc. Hence, new age technology will continue to grow and at the same time allow companies to expand their reach with multichannel commerce.

With many retailers offering identical or comparable merchandise, competition can be intense. To differentiate, enabling seamless shopping will make Omni-Channel retailing the norm to provide a distinct shopping experience.

What are the challenges for adoption of digital transformation in retail market?

With advanced technologies seeping in, retailers need to re-visit their current operating model, in order to accommodate new software developments for devising their business strategy.

Out of all, the most prominent challenges faced by retailers today are -- offering a seamless omni-channel experience to consumers, integrating technology, managing huge amount of product data and incorporating mobile technology.

Consumer’s expectations have certainly grown when it comes to having an omni-channel experience. Irrespective of the mode of the purchases made, consumers would always prefer making transactions impeccably online or at an offline store.

Application integration is not enough for connectivity in software driven businesses like retail. Retailers should look at creating competitive edge by using these softwares. With an emphasis on the showroom experience, retailers are leveraging mobile technology to free up salespeople to engage with customers, wherever they are on the showroom floor. Today’s retailers are expected to provide online access to everything from calorie counts to instruction manuals. Collecting, storing, and serving up data in the most effective and efficient manner is still a challenge for many retailers.

How is BMC Software helping retailers adopt and deploy digital transformation solutions?

With the pervasiveness of mobile and digital technologies, customer expectations are driving retailers to think and act differently. Vendors are now striving to deliver an experience that will win and retain their customers. BMC can enable retailers to compete and thrive in the rapidly evolving world of retail with in-store personalisation and mobile technology, omni-channel sales, managing product data and also delivering customer expectations.

BMC has an array of solutions such as Atrium Discovery and Dependency Mapping, TrueSight Operations Management, My IT, Control-M Workload Automation, Data Management for DB2® on z/OS® and TrueSight Capacity Optimization which can help the retail industry adopt and deploy digital transformation solutions, seamlessly.

Digital Enterprise Management from BMC enables IT and Retail Transformation. Broad BMC Digital Enterprise Management coverage of IT Management makes it the ideal foundation for transformation initiatives, addressing both improvement of legacy operations at retail companies and modernization of Omni-Channel and Services Platform to drive new products and customers. Deployment of Digital Enterprise Management is incremental by nature, and business value for IT and operations only accelerates as the organization evolves into such a service-led model.

mPOS or mobile point of sale is not just a technology uplifting small businesses but more of a phenomenon these days. With the persistence of smartphone and the internet, businesses are beginning to realise the importance of transformation their transactions via mobile. Over the 5 years, mPOS has emerged as a common capacity in the payments ecosystem with increasing number of merchants who previously only accepted cash.

This breakneck speed of mPOS has now force financial institutions to transform their payment mechanics to create an improved customer experience, increase business efficiencies, reduce transactional costs and many more.

In a candid conversation with Sahil from Retailer Media, M.C Kulkarni, General Manager- IT, Bank of Maharashtra shared his take on financial institutions aggressively taking a piece of the  mPOS pie. He also spoke about bank’s partnership with an online payment gateway and how it will help streamline their payment process.

Talk to us about the recent partnership with AirPay.
Bank of Maharashtra has entered into a partnership with Airpay, an online payment gateway, to provide mobile point of sales (mPOS) services. This partnership helps to provide a holistic and easy-to-access payment solution, empowering our existing as well as new customers to carry out card-based payments with ease.

This partnership is important because we work very closely with the MSME community and several merchants. mPOS technology helps them compete effectively in a fast changing marketplace, both online and offline. Our mPOS offering will also add value to their business models by enabling them to migrate towards cashless transactions.

At Bank of Maharashtra, we are committed towards the nation’s vision of transforming it into a cashless economy by focusing on proliferation of card acceptance infrastructure across the country.

Share with us the factors responsible for this sudden boom of mWallet industry in the country?
There are several factors which has enabled the growth of digital payments which includes mobile payments as well. The increase in smart phone penetration and internet connectivity has enabled consumers to access digital payments. Also, government’s initiatives to leverage technology to expand the reach of banking channels though initiatives like Aadhar and Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) has empowered the people at grassroots to access financial transactions at their finger-tips. These are some important initiatives which are changing the face of payments landscape in India.

With technological innovation digital payments are convenient, fast and secure. India will probably see an increase in customers who will have smartphones linked to their bank accounts.

However, with the amount of cash in circulation India, Cash is still the king. There is still a long way to go before the masses can use mobile wallets as their preferred choice of payments; there is still apprehension about keeping one’s hard earned money in a digital space. But digital cash is the future as it provides convenience, speed and ensures security

Do you think India is moving towards being a cashless economy? 
Paperless payment tools such as cards, netbanking and mobile wallets are on the rise. 65% of the Indian population is less than 35 years of age; they are receptive to newer forms of technology much faster as they emerge as time saving instruments for instance take example of bill payments, movie tickets etc.

The government initiatives to promote financial inclusion are also facilitating the migration towards cashless economy as unbanked people are increasingly becoming part of the banking system.

Unified Payments Interface is in the pipeline and is set to revolutionise the online payments space. All this is indicative of a healthy, thriving digital economy, and sets the way for envisaging a cashless one as well.

How do you analyze the trend in tier II and III cities of the country? How has mPOS helped online retailers to take the lead in this retail war?
Seamless internet connectivity through smartphones, increasing demand of quality goods, growing logistics networks and increased purchasing power in tier II and tier III cities is fueling business transactions in these markets.

The online marketplace can offer more choice to customers in Tier 2 & 3 cities than their nearby physical retail stores. The youth in these areas is more inclined towards online shopping in a desire to be at par with their counterparts in metropolitan cities.

However, the mindset of people in this segment is driven by the ‘cash on delivery’ model because of the lack of trust and information on online payment models. mPOS technology can help solve this problem by transforming the ‘cash on delivery’ model to ‘card on delivery’. It will facilitate customers to transact through their debit/credit cards and empower them to shop without apprehension about the security of online payments.

Where do you see the future of mPOS and e-Commerce industry together 3-5 years down the line?
The Indian eCommerce industry is set to be valued at $38 billion in 2016. The rapid growth in this space is because of the increased use of smart phones. There are several industry reports which suggest cash on delivery still dominates ecommerce transactions, over 83 percent of consumers in India[i] shopped via this route.

From an etailer perspective COD isn’t as beneficial as other modes of payment because it adds a new layer of cash handling to their supply chain and increases the settlement period of online retailers. The mPOS empowers the online retailers by digital movement of money instantaneously.

With online retail sector estimated to be a trillion dollar marketplace, mPOS technology will play a significant role in the development of this sector as it is beneficial to both customers and etailers.

How many of these MPOS machines in circulation at the moment?
There are a total of approximately 1.3 million PoS devices across India from all the banks, out of which less than 100,000 are mPOS devices. Bank of Maharashtra has started supporting mPOS devices only this month and we are expecting approximately 100 devices to be in circulation by the end of this month.

What is the cost for merchants to adopt this technology and complete a transaction?
Over the years the transaction for accepting card payments have consistently declined due increase in transaction volumes. Today, the cost of a debit card transaction is as low as 0.75% of the transaction amount on the mPOS technology.

Which sectors are likely to benefit from adoption of this payment infrastructure and what is pipeline for merchant tie-ups?
Bank of Maharashtra’s mPOS is targeting sectors like education, hospitality, government institutions, retail as well as SMEs who have a Bank of Maharashtra CASA account. With incremental use of digital technology and card transactions on the rise, all the sectors are likely to adopt this technology.

We are focused on increasing our penetration in the education space as the card payment infrastructure is still at nascent stage.

What kind of analytics support will be available for the merchants?
Bank of Maharashtra provides real time data and analytics for transactions initiated on the mPOS systems to merchants through a web based merchant administration system. This system can be easily accessed on desktop and mobile platforms. Merchants can benefit from this online system by analysing various data points such as preferred bank cards for transactions, time frame and location registering maximum sales, which they can utilize to build time based and product based marketing strategies to increase sales.

How do you see this mPOS segment growing in next five years?
Looking at the market trends, the mPOS segment should grow to more than 1 million terminals in the next 5 years.

Blend a pinch of technology in retail and see the magic happening in no time. Looking at the influence of digital gadgets on consumers, the retail fraternity has surely accepted the metal of technology in retail. Infusioning technology in a retail business is not just about connecting a web page to the inventory. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The real dive comes while driving traffic to the website, hooking users with the products and providing a seamless shopping experience.

Over the past couple of years we have seen a rigorous splurge in inception of technology solution providers aiding the retail and eretail landscape. Incessant innovation and disruption has brought in a tremendous renovation in the industry at large and is touted to grow in the years to come.

Regarding the same, Sahil from Retailer Media caught up with Karthik Bettadapura, CEO & Co-Founder, DataWeave to know more about the dynamics of technology and how it’s bringing the revolution with retail intelligence and brand analytics.

Please share your background. Your education and whether entrepreneurship was something you always wanted to do?
Prior to starting DataWeave, I worked as a Lead Programmer at Web18 Software Services Ltd for over 3 years. Before that I completed my Masters in Technology from International Institute of Informational Technology in Information Retrieval, Advanced Databases, and Distributed Systems

How was the idea of your Start-up conceptualized? What is the need you are addressing in the market?
During our (Vikrant and I) previous stint at Web18, we realized the importance of ‘alternate data’ or ‘publicly available data’ in analysing external factors that impact businesses. As there is a lot of noise in this data, this results in ‘the right data not being available in the right form at the right time’. We saw various problems that could potentially be solved by building a platform like DataWeave.

DataWeave was started with the idea of democratizing access to information and providing businesses with actionable insights using these data points. At DataWeave we build data products by aggregating and analysing publicly available data on the Web.

How is technology helping traditional retailers fulfil their true potential?
Technology is deeply embedded in the retail businesses. Whether it is operations, merchandising, or marketing technology has made a significant impact. We have chosen to focus on specific aspects which we believe we can disrupt disproportionately using our expertise in aggregating public domain data.

DataWeave's range of products delivers real-time actionable insights to retailers and brands. The Retail Intelligence platform provides Pricing, Promotions and Assortment Intelligence thereby providing a deep understanding of product availability and pricing. The Brand Analytics platform helps brands in Pricing Analysis of products, as well as to understand the momentum of products across brands.

How outsourcing technological operations is better than having it in house?
I do not believe there is a simple answer to this question. It actually depends on multiple aspects. Some of the questions which would need to be answered are:

i. How hard is the technical problem to solve?
ii. How core is the system to operations for the retailer?
iii. How long would it take to build the system and scale it? Does the organization have the core expertise to build, manage and improve the system?

It is not always as simple as a build vs. buy question.

We often are faced with these conversations and we believe that the platform we have built will be hard to develop in house. The platform requires very specific skill sets, and with the evolving nature of both technology and the web it requires a specific focus to develop, maintain and keep relevant. This essentially, requires a specialised skill-set which is what we bring to the table. What also often gets discounted is the time, effort and cost involved in maintenance of the system, which can turn out to be a serious issue later on.

What solutions do you provide and how it makes retail operations seamless?
Businesses are demanding more actionable insights from analytics and tie it to business outcomes. Simplified (easily consumable and actionable) analytics that is timely and accurate will be the need of the hour. Data from across channels is going to be integrated and analyzed in a near real-time fashion.

Retail Intelligence & Brand Analytics provides both retailers and brands with "outside-in" analysis on how customers perceive them vis-a-vis other competitors. It provides them with actionable insights on executing their pricing and assortment opportunities, and strategies while preserving their brand equity.

Have you raised any funding so far? What are your plans to use this funding for?
In 2013, we raised seed funding from Blume Ventures, TLabs (Times Internet*), 5ideas Startup Superfuel, Meta Studio Advisors and a group of angels: Rajan Anandan, Pankaj Jain, Bharathram Thothadri, Krishna Mehra and Abhishek Gupta.

We have primarily invested our funding on expanding our technology, teams, and infrastructure.

What has been your A-ha Moment in the business? (The high)
Various use-cases of external/trans-firewall data is one of them. We once were contacted by a crop insurance agency to check if we had weather data specific to a certain village in India. They were interested in the data as they had crop damage claims from a few individuals and they wanted to cross verify this.

This opened our eyes on the various possibilities/ use-cases that having ‘external & trans-firewall data in the right form at the right time’.

What has been your biggest challenge so far? How are you addressing it? 
When we started out with DataWeave, we had to spend a lot of time with clients creating awareness on the power of augmenting internal information with trans-firewall information. Our approach helps clients get a much better understanding of the external functions that impact their business. The kind of insights that marrying the two provides is phenomenal.

Internally, we had to learn to manage the scale associated with aggregating all this information. One of our largest learnings was to deal with varying levels of data quality across geographies, as well as working with multiple languages.

The retail industry comprises of different players offering different product and services at a competitive pricing. We have seen companies globally that offer services similar to ours, but one of our key differentiators is our human in the loop process. This process helps us provide a higher level of accuracy while scaling and improving our algorithms. This accuracy ensures our clients are able to use us with more confidence and embed us more deeply in their processes and systems.

How do you see growth scenario is this business? What are your future scale-up plans?
Our enterprise product is specific to retailers and brands. This product is being used by large retailers, ecommerce companies, and global brands.

Our data feeds can also be used by aggregator websites, price matching engines, and developers. In fact, we provide a free demo access to our APIs. Additionally, we have partnerships with consulting firms, data aggregator firms and large PE funds as well.

DataWeave’s technology platform is built for a significant amount of scale as well as being language- and-geography agnostic. We already serve clients in more than 10 countries with many being served in their native language even if it is in non-English script. We are using a combination of partnerships and building out our own teams to drive geography and vertical expansion. For instance, we have recently entered into a partnership with Capillary and Aucfan, a Japanese firm-listed on the Tokyo stock exchange. These are examples where we are working closely with partners to drive geography expansion. We are also hiring significantly in the US to drive our expansion into that market.

How do you see the technological dependency in retailers in tier II and III cities of the country?

Dependency on technology is only going to increase, as these retailers have to scale. As of now, the dependency is limited to a few core technologies like MS Office, Website Dev, Customer Support to name a few.

India is experiencing a phenomenal growth in the segment of mobile payments in recent times. With the ever-increasing smartphone and internet penetration across the country, mobile payment endeavours have successfully managed to change the payment habits of consumers. Significant splurge in mobile payment adoption has led to a disruption in online payment vertical and many solution providers are now betting at innovative technology which can enhance user experience by making their transactions seamless.

Doing the same is Freecharge, a name that needs no introduction when it comes to online payment. Freecharge has successfully managed to take digital payment industry to a whole new level. Sahil from Retailer Media caught up with Freecharge’s Chief Business Officer (CBO) Sudeep Tandon to understand the reason behind this explosive growth of mobile payment usage in the country.

Do you think India is moving towards being a cashless economy? 
Less than 5 per cent of transactions in India are cashless. Just as consumers have shifted from snail mail to the internet for commerce, so will it be for payments and this is where digital wallets come in. We at Freecharge believe that the digital wallet will transform not just payments but commerce by connecting consumers and merchants in so many different ways.

How has FreeCharge contributed towards making India cashless?
Since our wallet launch, we have seen a massive growth primarily driven by high user retention and loyalty. We believe our great user experience coupled with compelling features allows merchants to accept digital payments at no additional cost. In fact, we are working with merchants nationally to help them adopt mobile wallets and inculcate a habit to fast track India into a less cash economy. Our aim is to be available at over 5 million merchants from both organised and unorganized sectors in the next 18 months and get them to start accepting digital payments. We are currently doing 1 million transactions a day and plan to do 7 million transactions a day by 2016-end. 

How do you analyse the trend in tier II and III cities of the country? 
We foresee both online and offline payments will rise depending on consumer needs and the nature of the transaction. We at Freecharge launched features such as on-the-go-pin and chat-n-pay are for peer-to-peer transfer and person-to-merchant payment. It is meant for merchants in the unorganized space who do not have the means to accept the payment.  The chat-n-pay feature is finding wide acceptance among taxi drivers, salons and Kirana stores with almost 45 per cent of our customer base using it. At Freecharge, 85 per cent of the transactions take place through the app and 15 per cent through desktop and web. Currently, the wallet can be used to pay at over one lakh merchants, including both online and offline segments. About 50 per cent transactions are from tier-I cities and rest from tier-II and tier-III.

What are the major roadblocks of the industry and how to you plan to overcome them?
India remains a cash led country in transactions. There is an overwhelming preference for physical cash, even in urban cities despite the available alternatives. Another challenge that digital wallets are facing is the lack of acceptance across many used cases. As we create a simple easy to integrate technologies to onboard new merchants, there will be a rise in use cases further increasing the salience of digital payments. Converting cash into digital money is another major challenge towards the adoption of digital wallets. It should be as simple as handling cash both for the consumers and the merchants. The adoption of wallets also needs to be incentivized initially and there should be common operating standards for everyone.

How do you plan to overcome these roadblocks?
So, there are challenges in every new thing you start and the solution is to make a habit change. We have seen if the benefit is large enough, consumers will switch in droves. By making the wallet swifter and safer than cash, we believe consumers will move to a digital wallet. The user interface is super important so is a secure, swifter mode of payment than cash. There is no doubt that the future of the Indian economy is cashless.

Where do you see the future of mWallet and eCommerce industry together 3-5 years down the line?
We are working towards creating a habit and will see the industry recognize the importance of habit commerce. Commerce is a two-way street. It’s all about partnerships and we are creating an ecosystem of partnerships to help consumers and merchants move from cash to digital payments.

With Indian consumer slowly but steadily moving towards mobile payments, the industry is likely to reach $6.6 billion market by the year 2020. With better security, attractive deals and discounts and ever-increasing smartphone penetration across the country, mobile wallets have created a parallel ecosystem in the online payments space. From investor’s interest to consumer demand, the mobile wallet trend is surely moving towards making India a cashless economy.

As per a research, mobile payments in India are estimated to grow from $86 million in 2011 to $1.15 billion in 2016, with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 68 per cent.

Retailer Media caught up with Upasana Taku, Co-founder & Director, MobiKwik to understand the future of mobile wallets in India and how will it compliment the eCommerce industry in making larger revenues and a much larger consumer-base.

Share with us the factor responsible for this sudden boom of mWallet industry in the country?
We launched India’s first mobile wallet with a vision to make people’s lives easier. In the beginning, they could do phone recharges and pay bills and gradually it became about a cashless life. Today, our users can live their entire day without cash and pay for every utility through their wallet, be it paying for groceries at Big Bazaar or shopping clothes at Central Mall/Madura garments or enjoying a meal at Dominos. This ease of payment has made people discover a new way of life which is truly digital. Mobile wallets are popular as people have adapted to paying digitally and not having to carry their wallet everywhere or look for ATMs.  Growth of smartphones and easier data access has also contributed greatly to this growth.

Additionally, retailers, both offline & online have supported digital payments as a preferred mode of payment, which has further encouraged use of wallets.

Do you think India is moving towards being a cashless economy?
We have begun inching towards a cashless economy already and mobile wallets are supporting positively towards this transition. Recent RBI data confirmed that mobile wallets are growing at a fast pace. For the year 2014-15, 255 million mobile wallet transactions were made.

This is relevant in the context as India has over 1 billion mobile connections and the adoption of smartphones is increasing rapidly. Mobile wallets have transformed a phone into a ‘Catalyst of Change’, that provides financial services to unbanked Indians.

RBI’s new vision document is promising and recent steps taken by the government and RBI, including UPI will further boost digital payments.At the same time, fintech companies have to contribute to this vision with innovation. MobiKwik launched cash pick up and cash deposit for wallet loading to encourage cash users to start paying digitally.

Therefore, we already have a reach to the interiors of India, where banks may not bepresent. There are over 200 million unbanked Indians who do not have access tobanking services, there are many more that do not have confidence in using net banking or cards for transactions, therefore a wallet is the most viable solution to this problem.

How do you analyze the trend in tier II and III cities of the country?
In Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, the uptick in mobile wallet usage has been the highest. In fact recently we launched our cash pick up services in Surat and Jaipur and the response has been tremendous. The trend in these cities will only be an upward trajectory in days to come. As spending patterns change and the growth in disposable income continues to go up so will the mobile wallet usage.

At MobiKwik, we have undertaken strategic initiatives to promote the use of digital payments across the country. Our exclusive cash pick up service allows users to request cash pick up for wallet loading and a MobiKwik representative reaches their location within 30 minutes for it. Also, our users can walk into more than 1, 00,000 touch-points across 1000 (ICICI branches, Suvidha outlets etc.) cities in India to deposit cash in their MobiKwik wallet. One can locate these outlets with the nearby feature in MobiKwik app. The feature also shows outlets around the user where MobiKwik is accepted for payments. We have created a merchant network that caters to the user’s every day needs such as Big Bazaar for grocery shopping, Central mall and Madura garments for clothing, Dominos for eating out etc. MobiKwik can also be used for bus bookings.

MobiKwik is determined to make mobile wallet accessible across the length & breadth of our country and also provides additional financial services to its users like micro credit. Our vision is to have users pay, invest, borrow and save all using MobiKwik.

How mWallet has helped online retailers to take the lead in this retail war?
Mobile wallets are undoubtedly a very important part of retail transactions. Online payments reduce the cost of doing business compared to Cash of delivery which is more resource intensive and expensive.

Also mobile wallets such as MobiKwik assist retailers in integrating robust payment mechanisms without having to undertake the hassle themselves. This ensures that online retailers continue to offer the great shopping experience which results in better customer retention and ultimately more monetization opportunities.

What are the major roadblocks of the industry and how to you plan to overcome them?
As mentioned earlier, usage of cash is our biggest challenge and we have launched cash loading for MobiKwik (through cash pick up and deposit) to address this challenge.

Secondly, adoption of mobile data and network access is still a challenge and we will soon be launching app advancements to make it easier for our users to use MobiKwik even with older phones and low data connectivity.

Where do you see the future of mWallet and e-Commerce industry together 3-5 years down the line?
Ecommerce and mobile wallets are growing hand to hand. 80 per cent of our GMV comes from online businesses and we have partnerships with some of the leading ecommerce players in India including Big Basket and Myntra. We have also launched bus booking on MobiKwik platform owing to increased demand from our users. Having said this, we know for a fact that e-commerce payments with mobile wallets have a huge scope for growth and we are determined to be at the forefront of it and drive users’ adoption of mobile wallets and encourage increased usage.

So far, the most preferred payment option for e-commerce players is COD that is cost & time intensive for online companies and also is a hassle for users to find exact change for payment. In the next 3-5 years, my belief is that we will witness a huge change in this trend and contribution of mobile wallets will increase over a hundred percent. 

According to PwC, offline retailers are finding it difficult to compete with their online counterparts even after a higher market share. The major problem faced by offline retailers is to stay connected to customers 24x7, which is not possible without having a digital presence and integrating technology. Digital customer engagement is also critical for providing relevant and contextual services to consumers. A 2014 Infosys survey reported that 78 per cent of consumers said they’d be more likely to purchase from a retailer again if they provided offers targeted to their interests, wants or needs. Mid-sized offline retailers face limitations like high costs of setting up these integrated systems and lack of resources for maintaining these platforms as key business avenues.  
One Rewardz, a Mumbai-based mobile application, provides such a platform to offline as well as online retailers. It serves as an interactive, analytics driven, customisable customer loyalty program for retailers and brands. The platform is a feedback-based engagement solution that helps brands incentivise offline as well online interactions with their customers. The 24X7 connectivity combined with real-time analytics enables brands to understand consumer spending patterns. The platform provides a targeted channel for promoting special offers and deals directly to consumers through image and video notifications. The solution seamlessly integrates with the brands’ POS systems and other digital platforms.
Retailer Media spoke to Ashwin Meshram and Sunpreet Singh Bindra, Co-founders of One Rewardz to share their views about the current industry and the need for customisable technology platforms gaining importance for mid-sized offline retailers.

Can you discuss the business model of your company? Can you briefly describe how the business model is currently working and how it may be changed over time?
ONE Rewardz (formerly known as Sqy! Rewards) is a customer engagement program that serves as an interactive, analytics driven, customisable customer loyalty management platform for retailers and brands, co-founded in 2014 by – Ashwin Meshram and Sunpreet Singh Bindra. The platform is a feedback based solution that helps brands incentivise offline as well as online interactions with their customers. It provides an integrated mobile platform for end consumers to interact with various brands, eliminating the need of carrying physical loyalty cards. The real-time analytics solution analyses customer feedback and interactions on the platform, generating insights that can significantly contribute to timely business decisions.
By becoming a part of the ONE Rewardz network, brands are provided 24X7 connectivity with consumers and this helps them in boosting in-store and online interactions. The platform runs brand’s customer loyalty program, encourages customer feedback and provides detailed real-time analytics on its customers. Brands can create customer segmentations and decide what rewards to give to different customer groups. We also give insights on customer spending patterns at an aggregated as well as individual customer level to brands. We provide a platform to promote special offers and deals directly to consumers through image and video notifications and leverage social media for targeted marketing. ONE Rewardz streamlines all the notifications on one platform rather than sending multiple messages. Geo-fencing feature helps brands in increasing store walk-ins and thereby increasing probability of sale; it prompts consumers as and when they are near the brand outlets. It provides an effective platform to run cross-branded offers.
On the consumer end, they get access to all rewards at one place which can be viewed at any time, any place. Eliminating the need of carrying physical loyalty cards, ONE Rewardz provides a cohesive mobile platform to end consumers to interact with different brands. All required information about customer’s favourite brands, on-going offers and deals and their existing loyalty points are available at ONE Rewardz and accessible right on their mobile phones. It proves to be a one-stop destination for interacting with their preferred brands.

What kind of technology is used by the company?
We provide a SaaS platform for brands to interact with consumers. For analytics, we have developed a unique algorithm and insights are available to brands in simple dashboard format. Our platform can seamlessly integrate with a brand’s POS systems and other digital platforms. ONE Rewardz is free to download on Google Play and App Store for consumers. In the absence of the ONE Rewardz application, consumers get notifications through SMS and get benefits of the platform on their mobile phones.

In terms of market development, what trends do you see currently in the multi-channel marketing sphere?
Today, brands want to reach out to consumers through various touch points. Offline retailers understand the need to step onto the online zone to compete with the digitalised marketplace. Mobile is increasingly becoming the most sought after platform for Indian consumers as they are comfortable using it to perform multiple activities at a go. Customers are open towards giving their feedback and sharing their experience on social media networks. Two-way communication with brands and customised services are need of the hour.

What is the market size for consumer rewards programs in India?
According to a TRRAIN (Trust for Retailers and Retail Associates of India) report published in 2015, the overall loyalty spend in the country is a little over Rs.2,000 crore annually at present and it is growing at the rate of 10 per cent. Currently, there are 500 loyalty programmes being run by various B2C retailers and brands. There are two crore active users out of five crore, who have enrolled themselves for various loyalty programmes.

What is your current customer base?
We currently have over 1 million customers.

Your future plans.
We are looking at being the “engagement partner” for every B2C brand and a “one-stop destination” for all consumers wanting to interact with multiple brands. ONE Rewardz is currently active in Mumbai and plans to expand operations into Delhi and Bengaluru. Our aim is to touch every aspect of a consumer’s lifestyle and bring every interaction with the brands on one single platform. The platform is scalable and customisable to integrate various engagement functions a brand wants to conduct to interact with its customers.

Payment gateway PayUbiz asserted its supremacy in the payment industry in India by launching a new technology which will allow users to make payments via a single tap, while remaining compliant with the Reserve Bank of India’s two-factor card authentication system.
Speaking to Indianretailer, Rahul Kothari, Business Head, PayUbiz said that apart from providing better conversion rates, PayUbiz caters to 80 of the top eCommerce companies in India. A few excerpts from the brief chat:

How many transactions happen in a day with PayUbiz? What’s the current traction?
PayUbiz processes some 20 million transactions a month. We have been coming with innovative products and offerings for our customers. Recently we have launched OneTap payment and have received great response from many merchants. You will soon see us on Peppertap, Redbus, Goibibo, Grofers, Big basket, Just dial, Xiaomi, Musafir, nearbuy and many more apps.

What is the firm’s conversion rate in the market?
Merchants using PayUbiz platform get better conversion rates. Our merchants have testified that, on an average, they have been able to get 10-12 per cent higher transaction success rates compared to partners they were previously processing payments with. There is a couple of proprietary algorithm that enables us achieve higher success rate.
Downtime detection algorithm detects downtime of card issuers and based upon that alerts the user to either use some other payment card or notifies when the network is up for the customer to try making payment again.
Dynamic Switching algorithm detects the health of multiple PG’s and switches the transaction to the PG with best health.

How many customers do you have at this point?
PayUbiz caters to more than 80 of the top 100 eCommerce companies. There are more than 10,000 enterprise grade merchants using PayUbiz.

Reliability of PGs has been an issue from long now, how do you solve this?
PayUbiz follows the most stringent security measures and ensures compliance with mandates such as PCI-DSS, which require using very strict controls around payment processing. This makes PayUbiz more secure, safe and reliable payment gateway. If we talk about reliability from transaction success point of view, then our Dynamic Switching and Magic Retry features ensure our customers do not lose out on revenue during the last leg of online transaction. So, they can reply on us.

What are the future plans?
We are targeting to increase our transaction volume to 50,000 Crores GMV by end of next financial year. Our focus is to continuously innovate and provide technologically superior payment gateway. You will see us launching new and innovative products in next 5 to 6 months.

How is PayUbiz different from other eCommerce payment gateways? 
A name synonymous with ‘trust’, PayUbiz, India’s leading payment organisation for Indian eCommerce ventures is number One in the eCommerce space and number Two in the overall online payment industry. Integrating PayUbiz to an eCommerce website opens up options to receive payments from multiple channels, so we have multiple payment options; PayUbiz has provisions of storing card data in secured way, which means returning customers can make prompt payments for transactions. It is protected by 3-D secure password and PayUbiz offers white label resolution, which means customer data remains secured with the merchant.
Integrating PayUbiz means you are gaining entry into dynamic control, intelligent software and mobile optimized payment. Below is a series of benefits that one can possibly find with this online payment aggregator; PayUbiz is also known for the fast and accurate customer service. Data based on analytical observation and logical monitoring makes it easy for merchants of any size to manage customer service in conjunction with technical assistance; Brands like Makemytrip, Yatra, Snapdeal, Jabong, BookMyShow and GoIbibo use PayU too as their trusted payment processor.

Do you think innovation and growth go hand in hand? 
Innovation is necessary to accelerate and sustain organic growth. Innovation paves way for new business models, improving customer experience, leveraging value propositions, opening new markets, and launching new products; which in turn results in growth of the organisation.
One such example from PayUbiz is the launch of OneTap payments. We have launched OneTap at the point when 80 out of top 100 eCommerce websites and more than 10000 enterprise grade merchants use PayUbiz. OneTap payments is an innovative technology to accelerate growth and give seamless experience to the users which comes with the purpose of providing better support, services and technology to the merchants.

What inspired you to enter into this segment?
When we started PayU India in 2011 with Naspers, payments was still an unexplored territory. Every merchant wanted to collect online payments because of convenience but the existing players were not able to cater well to the needs of the merchants in the right way. We launched our first product which was a payment gateway (now called as PaUbiz) and within few months of its launch, it became the number One gateway in eCommerce category.
Later we realised when small merchants want to collect payments, they need to set a website, they need a payment gateway and they need technology which can connect website to the payment gateway. This is when we launched PayUmoney. It enabled small merchants to go online without having an upfront cost or a website; with just a savings account. We bundled PayUmoney with lot of free tools like free website, free mails and that product saw amazing adoption. Today, we are 110,000 merchants strong and we are still growing.  PayUmoney also has a customer facing wallet and checkout business where we have more than 7.5 million users.

What technological revolution have you brought in the online payments business today?
The launch of ‘One Tap’ technology that recently took place in Delhi by PayUbiz is one such technological breakthrough which sent ripples across the online payments industry. The patent pending and first-of-its-kind tech innovation in the payments world is another step which will ensure a robust online payment system. The PCI-DSS complaint and patent pending ‘One Tap technology’ is a combination of four different technological innovations that together provide a seamless online payments experience to the users.

Store Card Vault: This feature is the first of seamless payment journey, ensures that the consumers don’t have to go through the pain of putting in the 16-digit card number repeatedly.
No CVV: The heart of creating a seamless one tap payment solution was doing away with the process of repeatedly entering the CVV. The innovative patent pending and PCC-DSS certified technology developed by PayUbiz provided a solution to it.
Auto OTP Generation: Furthermore, the second factor authentication of OTP, gets auto-read and submitted leading to the completion of a seamless one tap payment experience.
Magic Retry: The magic continues even when there is a network issue and the magic retry feature picks up the transaction from the point where it stopped.

Any advice or suggestion for the start-ups to reduce their burn rate?
Entrepreneurs should carefully consider what they’re spending money on to decide whether it’s more prudent to save the cash, or scale growth faster. If a huge leap in growth comes at the expense of a reasonable increase in gross monthly burn, it just might be worth it to increase the spending. Consider the cost of slower growth, missed opportunities and the affects those could have on your business in the long-term, not just the short-term effects of increasing your spend.

Fashion in India is way more than just a trend and these new-age eRetailers know how to leverage this factor to uplift sales and popularity of their brands. Every third shopping search in India is fashion- related and the queries on fashion are growing at 66 percent year on year. 2015 is all about innovation and online apparel industry in India has seen extraordinary competitiveness here.
Talking about the same with Retailer Media, Radhesh Kagzi, President, Creative Lifestyle Pvt. Ltd. explained how big the industry is and still there is a lot to tap. He also shared his vision on how to keep the boat sailing in this high tide of retail globally.

Talk to us about Creative Lifestyle and the journey so far?
Creative Lifestyles Pvt. Ltd. is a part of creative Group which is amongst India's largest apparel and home furnishing group. It has 22 state of the art apparel factories all over India producing over 11 million units annually. Creative Group's mission is to be a leading reliable, cost-efficient supply chain partner for textile products, especially for apparel brands, home textiles and retailers worldwide. The Creative Group launched 109°F in October 2006 and is one of the leading brands in women’s western wear category in India and is also popular in foreign countries such as Australia, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Ecuador, Sri Lanka and Nepal. It also includes expansions in EBOs (exclusive brand outlets) and other LFS (large format stores). The company launched Fusion Beats, a women's wear brand which is western in look but Indian in spirit in the year 20122. It is an amalgamation of ethnic & western wear. Our stores are present all over the country & overseas. We are also present on-line & planning to expand on the E-commerce front in the near future. Also, we are planning to come up with New Franchisee stores & additional Large Formats as well.

Your thoughts on budget 15-16? Do you think it will reaffirm the fashion industry?
Unfortunately, the Govt. is not paying adequate importance to the apparel Industry which is the largest employer in the country after agriculture & one of the most significant contributors to the country’s GDP. However, our association CMAI is working hard to persuade the Govt. to include garments in the lowest slab of GST which is likely to be introduced in the coming Financial Year. If this is done, it will give a major fillip in the industry of which fashion is an integral part.

3.       What were the initial challenges faced while rooting Creative Lifestyle into the Indian market?

Organized retail in India is still at a nascent stage, and I see a huge jump in the share of organized sector in the coming years. Tapping of Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets, the large percentage of youth in the overall population, the gradual shift from traditional to modern clothing, and the increasing prosperity along with rising aspirations, will all lead to the surge in consumption of ready to wear garments. Our company will be in a position to take full advantage of this market phenomena, and in addition to these, there is also the rapid shift in consumers tastes to western clothing and international fashion

4.       Indian customers still believes in “touch & feel” factor and this applies on clothing more than any other category. How did you overcome this hurdle?

The touch & feel factor is extremely important & especially to the Indian Consumer. This is why, inspite of our major growth in the E-commerce  space, we are continuing our focus on our EBO’s & other retail outlets & in the coming year hoping to use technology to create an omni- channel link between our online & off-line segment.

5.       Your take on FDI in retail. What percentage does Ecommerce holds in the overall apparel industry?

I personally believe that FDI in retail will be good for the overall industry. However, I would strongly urge the govt. to ensure that the artificial differentiation between various channels such as online & offline are removed & the entire retail industry as a common policy.

6.       Do you see any potential in tier II and III markets for premium lifestyle products?

We have already started tapping Tier 2 markets for our brand 109°F, and Tier 3 cities for our brand Fusion Beats. This trend will continue keeping in mind the changing socio-economic and demographic factors.

7.       Mobile commerce is the talk of the town. Do you take it as an extension to E-Commerce or a separate entity altogether? Does it have the clout to change the face of retail in the country?

Yes, it is a sheer extension of E-commerce but has the power to displace the traditional E-commerce models & emerge as a strong entity by itself.

8.       How different is the consumer behavior when it comes to a comparison between India and the rest of the world?

The consumer behavior is essentially the same anywhere in the world. She has the same attractions, temptations & apprehensions. The Indian consumer perhaps is slightly more price conscious.

9.       Do you have any omni-channel strategy in place?

Yes we are working towards this & we should be having it in place in next few months.

10.   Your vision on the future of fashion retailing and how do you plan to cope up with the changing dynamics of the market in the coming years?

Continuous efforts to upgrade our product design, introduction of international fashions, close track of trends, attractive visual merchandise, better sales staff, and improving the available stocking system are some of the ways we keep ahead of the changing dynamics of the market.