Paytm Mall to take on Flipkart and Amazon

Online shopping majors, Flipkart and Amazon will soon have to contend with Paytm Mall, a consumer shopping app from Alibaba-backed Paytm.

The shopping app for smartphones is inspired by TMall, China's dominant e-commerce platform, and promises to end the virtual two-horse race India's online shopping market had become with Amazon and Flipkart.

Alibaba is bullish on the online commerce market in India, having already pumped $200 million into Paytm, valuing the company at around $1 billion.

It had widened its range of offerings from over 0.14 million local sellers, across products to consumers and had established 17 fulfilment centres for speedy service as the company aimed to dominate the Indian online shopping market.

To give Amazon a run for its money, Paytm e-commerce will add close to a billion products from all across the globe to its shopping cart.

The company would bring sellers from Southeast Asia especially from Alibaba's other investments such as e-commerce major Lazada which had a huge base in Indonesia.

The company had plans to offer around a billion products by the start of the festive season in August.

According to market sources, Amazon had around 500 million products on its platform, while Flipkart and Snapdeal had around 50 million products.

''Through Paytm Mall, our aim is to offer consumers the most trusted shopping experience. We have defined quality criteria for sellers and are building strict controls over warehousing and shipping for products sold on Paytm Mall. Consumers would continue to get the largest assortment of domestic and international products through Paytm Bazaar, which will also be featured on the new app,'' said, Saurabh Vashishtha, the vice president of Paytm, BGR India reported.