Alibaba and Paytm Joined Hands to Help Indian Sellers to Import More Than 5 Million Products at Cheaper Rates from China

Bengaluru: E-commerce platform Paytm and its Chinese contender Alibaba joined hands in order to offer the Indian sellers to import as many as five million products from China and other neighboring countries at cheaper rates. The collaborative strategy between the two e-commerce giants will also facilitate the sellers in logistics and payments.

According to a company official, Paytm had already started to source fashion accessories and other fashion and lifestyle products in a pilot basis from the neighboring countries. The digital payment platform also has identified as many as 25 to 30 Indian merchants ‘with credible track record to incubate’ categories like home and kitchen products and appliances, mobile accessories, home décor products and western fashion products in the project.

Reports are that the pilot project will go on board by the end of this year with an estimated 10,000 merchants sourcing more than five million products from China. “Inventory is the third pillar of e-commerce, after logistics and payments, which require optimization in India, said Bhushan Patil from Paytm, who is also leading the project in collaboration with Alibaba.

As the Paytm sources has asserted to EXIN Times reporters, they are focusing upon B2C business and ‘will more in-line’ to help the sellers who import from local distributors. “We expect the Indian SME's cost to come down three times with our direct connect,” Patil noted. He elaborated that with this initiative, the sellers will gain extra revenues by meeting the anticipated demand. Paytm will also offer the sellers to import bulk products from China, store those in India and sell from Paytm’s bonded warehouses when there’s an order.

Alibaba will support the project once the pilot project turns successful.