PhonePe, India’s leading digital payments platform today announced that it is now live as a payment option at over 20 lakh shops comprising large organized retail stores as well as small and medium shops and kiranas across Maharashtra.
PhonePe has recorded a phenomenal 64% year-on-year growth in its offline store acceptance in Maharashtra. PhonePe is currently live at over 1.3 crore offline shops across the country, and Maharashtra accounts for the largest share of offline stores.
Commenting on this milestone, Vivek Lohcheb, Vice President – Offline Business Development, PhonePe said, “We are delighted to be accepted as a payment option across 20 lakh offline shops in Maharashtra. Our wide acceptance network now allows our customers the choice of using digital payment modes like UPI, wallet, Credit or Debit cards to pay for their daily purchases across their favorite stores.
For our merchant partners, the advantage is they can now serve more customers and grow their business with PhonePe. This milestone is also a significant step in helping us move towards our goal of digitizing 2.5 crore offline stores across India, thereby contributing to the vision of a digital and less-cash economy. Going forward, we aim to increase our presence in Maharashtra’s rural areas also and hence will be recruiting over 1700 more sales executives in the state over the next 3 months.”
PhonePe has built a comprehensive set of offerings to help offline merchant partners grow their business and attract more customers. One such feature is the ‘Stores’ tab on the PhonePe app which enables a seamless connect between PhonePe’s 23 crore customers and offline shops at scale throughout the country. Customers can easily discover a large number of offline shops in their vicinity and either call or chat with store owners to place their orders and shop from the comfort of their home.
Customers can also pay the stores remotely for their purchases using the “Pay now feature” without needing to scan any QR codes. PhonePe has also introduced a Digital Khata solution helping offline stores maintain easy records of customer transactions.
In case the working capital gets stuck and the payments happen only when the customer comes to the shop next, the store can easily send a reminder for faster collection.
Earlier this year PhonePe had also introduced a one-of-its-kind PhonePe ATM enabling customers to visit nearby offline stores to withdraw cash instead of having to visit a bank ATM.
