Paytm Mall lost more than Rs 13 crore to make Rs 7 crore

E-commerce platform Paytm Mall has suffered a loss of almost double the sales it made in the previous fiscal, according to a Mint report.

The loss clocked was around Rs 13.63 crore on total sales of Rs 7.35 crore in the year ended March 31, 2017, according to filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).

The total expenditure of the company stood at Rs 20 crore, while reserves and surplus stood at Rs 1,284 crore, the filings showed.

“These are the initial years for Paytm Mall and we have a long-term perspective on building a successful tech business,” a Paytm Mall spokesperson said in a reply to Mint.

The spokesperson added that the company will help customers receive the same trusted retail experience synonymous with the brand and act as a technology enabler for the country’s massive offline retailer community. Paytm Mall aims to achieve this with its first-of-its-kind online-to-offline (O2O) model.

Paytm Mall was spun off from parent One97 Communications, the parent company of Paytm app, in August last year.

The Paytm ecommerce platform had raised $200 million from China’s Alibaba Group and SAIF Partners this February. In the same month, it also launched a standalone Paytm Mall app.

A few months ago, the e-commerce platform announced revamping of the sellers in its onboarding process to further enhance the consumer trust on its platform. In the process, it delisted over 85,000 sellers and their products, which were failing to meet its strict quality standards.

Now, the company sees market leaders Amazon India and Flipkart as direct rivals. Going head-to-head with the competition, it launched its maiden festival sales event last month, committing to spend over Rs500 crore on cashback offers.

The platform is also focusing on offline-to-online experience, much like China’s TMall, wherein the orders are serviced from local brand stores, offering synergies in logistics and warehousing. These brands also have their own web pages on Paytm Mall for easy access.