Paytm Introduces Messaging Ahead of WhatsApp Starting Payments

Paytm Inbox allows users to send or receive money, chat, track orders, share photos and play games within the app.

Paytm has introduced its Inbox, where users can chat with each other and send money within the app, or even play games. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Paytm is turning into an ‘all-services-under-one-roof’ kind of e-commerce player now, with the introduction of services that were not part of its core premise earlier. Paytm has just introduced an ‘Inbox’ feature in the app, which allows users to chat with each other and directly send money as well within the app.

The addition of the Inbox feature now pits Paytm against messenger apps like WhatsApp, Hike, Duo, Facebook Messenger and others. It’s available only on the Paytm mobile app, and not on the website, for now.

The big advantage is that users will not have to download other chat or shopping apps, as the payments platform is now turning into a complete end-to-end e-commerce services platform.

Paytm Inbox already has a delete-for-all feature, which WhatsApp recently introduced.(Photo: Paytm blog)

Paytm had already begun to eat into the market share of platforms like bookmyshow.com for movie ticket bookings and the likes of yatra.com or cleartrip.com for flight bookings, as all these services were introduced under Paytm.

This is a trend that other players are also tapping into. Flipkart, for instance, introduced a wallet service – PhonePe – which is a direct competitor to Paytm. Amazon has its own wallet service as well.

All these e-commerce players want to own a complete ecosystem from payment to shopping and other services, including travel bookings and groceries.

What the introduction of a chat service does is to build a community. Once users are engaged with a chat service (like WhatsApp), it is easy to ply them with additional features and services. The ability to use additional services for payments or to shop online, without having to leave an app, builds loyalty – and for the companies, a huge captive audience.

WhatsApp had announced it was starting a payment service within the app, which would have put it in direct competition with Paytm on this front. However, Paytm has preempted that and taken the fight to WhatsApp a month in advance.