FreeCharge, India’s leading digital payments platform, announced that it now has 1 Million customers. Customer roll-out of the FreeCharge Wallet was initiated on 25th September, making this wallet the first in the country to achieve this milestone within 5 days of customer roll-out. The early used cases observed are for utility bill payments like mobile recharge, electricity bill payments and online shopping.
Excited about the achievement, Govind Rajan, Chief Operating Officer, FreeCharge and Chief Strategy Officer, Snapdeal said
We have hit the 1 million mark, that too within a week of roll-out. This is the fastest not just for wallets but for any digital product! This milestone is a testimony to the trust that consumers have on FreeCharge. Speed and security are two pillars of the consumer experience.
With FreeCharge Wallet customers are able to make their transaction within 10 seconds. FreeCharge is compliant with leading industry standards like PCI DSS, making FreeCharge the quickest and most secure wallet.
We are focused on building habit commerce and through our focus on partnerships we believe that we will create the most compelling consumer experience.
FreeCharge wallet is powered by cutting edge technology. It is a robust and flexible platform that leverages enabling technologies such as HCE, NFC, QR code & BLE to create a most intuitive consumer experience.
About FreeCharge
FreeCharge is India’s leading digital platform for recharge and utility payments which provides prepaid, post-paid, DTH and Electricity bill payment for almost all Indian service providers. FreeCharge was founded in 2010 by Kunal Shah & Sandeep Tandon and had received funding of over $120 million in the last 4 years. In the largest acquisition in the consumer Internet space yet, Snapdeal acquired FreeCharge in Apr’15 resulting in India’s largest m-commerce ecosystem. For more details, please visit FreeCharge
FreeCharge, India’s leading digital platform for recharge and utility payments have announced its exclusive partnership with India’s leading fashion retailer – Shoppers Stop. As part of the exclusive tie-up, Shoppers Stop’s customers will be empowered with the feature rich FreeCharge Wallet.
Customers will have the option to use their FreeCharge Wallet to make payments at all 74 Shoppers Stop stores across the country as well as on the web-store. The partnership will also extend to the Shoppers Stop Ltd. group companies such as 17 outlets of HyperCity, 95 stores of Crossword and 19 stores of HomeStop across India.
Commenting on this exclusive partnership, Govind Rajan, COO, FreeCharge & Chief Strategy Officer, Snapdeal said
It is an honor to partner with a hallowed brand like Shoppers Stop. We are excited to redefine the shopping experience at Shopper Stop with the FreeCharge Wallet. FreeCharge Wallet is a step jump in the payment experience – faster, more secure and more rewarding than any other form of payment including cash.
This partnership will allow our 87 million users to get the best of shopping experience at Shoppers Stop. We envision the future of payments to be digital and it is going to be all pervasive
Govind Shrikhande, Customer Care Associate & Managing Director, Shoppers Stop Ltd. said
We have partnered with FreeCharge to offer our customers the option to use a mobile wallet to complete their shopping journey. The popularity of Digital Wallets has been on the rise and we are delighted to partner with India’s leading digital payment platform.
With the addition of the FreeCharge wallet, our customers will now have multiple payment options for a smooth, fast and convenient shopping experience. We strongly believe that this alliance with FreeCharge will give a significant fillip to the growth of our omni-channel business.
We are committed to offering our customers a seamless and convenient shopping experience. Our partnership with FreeCharge is a step in this direction and will greatly enhance our customers’ shopping journey. The FreeCharge Wallet integration will be rolled-out within a few weeks. We plan to enable the FreeCharge Wallet payment mechanism across all our stores of Shoppers Stop, HomeStop, HyperCity, Crossword as well as our web-store.
Elaborating on the partnership Sudeep Tandon, Chief Business Officer, FreeCharge said
The partnership with Shoppers Stop is a testimony to the commitment of both brands to offer a best in class customer experience. With this partnership we bring together the best of retail and digital payments to create a seamless transaction experience for consumers both in the online and offline world. We plan to roll out some exclusive customer experience and customer delight features never before seen in the market.”
Shoppers Stop’s recently announced partnership with Snapdeal has already paved the way for its omni-channel journey. This partnership with FreeCharge will further amplify the efforts in narrowing the gap between online and offline shopping experience for customers. FreeCharge with its proven expertise in the digital world will help enhance the payment experience of Shoppers Stop customers.
FreeCharge is focused on changing consumer habits in the digital space and understand that the world will embrace habit commerce in future. Digital Wallets will play an important role in driving habits especially in the offline space.
About FreeCharge
FreeCharge is India’s leading digital platform for recharge and utility payments which provides prepaid, post-paid, DTH and Electricity bill payment for almost all Indian service providers. FreeCharge was founded in 2010 by Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon. It had received funding of over $120 million in the last 4 years. In the largest acquisition in the consumer Internet space yet, Snapdeal acquired FreeCharge in Apr’15 resulting in India’s largest m-commerce ecosystem.
FreeCharge as a platform has 27 million registered users making more than 5 transactions per month per user. FreeCharge is PCI DSS compliant and is at the forefront of the mobile commerce revolution with over 90 per cent of transactions originating from mobile. In its game changing partnership with Snapdeal, FreeCharge aims at enhancing its user base significantly.
The eCommerce sector has witnessed an unprecedented growth since last couple of years. The growth was driven by rapid technology adoption led by the increasing use of devices such as smartphones and tablets, and access to the internet through broadband, 3G etc. which led to an increased online consumer base.
With many companies like Motorola, Xiaomi, One-Plus etc. opting for 'Online-Only' mode via exclusive launches through e-commerce route, it is a sector that has expanded pretty fast. With the launch of Flipkart's Ping, online-shopping will no longer be a lone show and you can now involve your 'Social Connections' in the important decision of buying a particular product.
But what if could you combine Online Commerce with Social Networking for the purpose of doing something for a Social-Cause… it sounds interesting 🙂 An online venture Gudville wants to convert Online Commerce into 'Impact Commerce' by helping a Cause at no extra cost to you.
Gudville : What, Why
What is Gudville
Gudville Shopping is a way of Impact consumption that helps you support causes that you care about while you shop online. By shopping on partner stores – Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal, through Gudville, you can earn Cause Donations [Wishes] and shopping vouchers [Gudville Points] everytime you shop.
The other partner stores of Gudville include Jabong, YepMe, TrendIn, Croma, Pepperfry etc. The interesting aspect about the partnership is that Gudville has ensured that it has partners across different e-commerce businesses e.g. Horizontal e-commerce like Flipkart, Snapdeal & specialized or vertical e-commerce sites like Pepperfry, TrendIn etc.
Have a look at how Gudville can create a difference through shopping as demonstrated in the video:
Gudville Shopping Buddy
Gudville plans to convert casual online-shoppers into impact shoppers by encouraging them to shop through Gudville Shopping Buddy. Gudville Shopping Buddy is a browser extension/add-on to make it easy for shoppers to make this world a better place by shopping on various partner websites.
You can download the Gudville Buddy for Chrome from here The Firefox extension can be downloaded from here
How does Gudville Shopping Buddy work
After installing Gudville buddy, you can check the list of Impact Offers on their partner websites through the add-on. Once you select an offer, you would be routed to appropriate shopping section on the chosen e-commerce partner.
Gudville Shopping Buddy accounts your online shopping to influence a donation for a non-profit organization of your choice and earn Gudville Points which can be redeemed.
Adding the Gudville Shopping Buddy does provide a 'Social Angle' to your shopping experience. We performed a dry-run by shopping on Flipkart using Gudville Shopping Buddy & the experience was seamless. The question that definitely comes to mind is "How does an NGO benefit if you shop using Gudville Shopping Buddy" ? Well, Gudville helps the non-profits to build their influencer base through various campaigns that they can run on Gudville.
Non-profits also benefit from other online consumption activities that Gudville facilitates for its supporters and influencers. Gudville Shopping is one way to influence funds for these non-profits where donation of 1% of the purchase amount goes to a non-profit when you shop online on Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal using Gudville Shopping page or Gudville Shopping Buddy
You can refer to the other details about the Gudville Shopping Buddy from here
Gudville : Non-Profit Associations
Along with 'Impact Shopping', Gudville in it's old avatar used to facilitate it's users to create their own 'Impact Campaigns' also termed as Ripple Campaigns, but now all the user needs to do is use the Gudville Shopping Buddy to Shop & create an impact [Chrome & Firefox]
Gudville has tied-up with 500+ Non-Profit organizations & it drives campaigns with/for them.
Gudville : Road Ahead
Gudville : The impact of App-Only Mode
Since Myntra decided to shutdown it's website couple of months back & decided to go 'App-Only', many e-commerce biggies also have that plan on their cards. The topic has been under constant debate & many companies are vary to take that route. But with increasing mobile penetration, arrival of 4G & reduced data rates, App Only would definitely be an important agenda for many of the e-tailers [Source – TOI].
One of the reasons cited has been 'Price Comparison' since that is not possible on mobiles [through browser add-ons]. On a similar note, we would also love to see a stand-alone Gudville mobile app that would act as an aggregator for the 'Impact-ful Offers' across it's various partner sites.
One more change that might be of interest in it's browser add-on is "to make the user aware that a particular e-commerce site is Gudville's partner & have a Gudville icon on the product page". This would result in incremental user-awareness & user-growth [something like what MakkhiChoose extension does to your online-shopping].
Gudville : Offline Partnerships
Gudville can explore offline-partnerships with CSR department of various organizations. The partnership could be for CSR programmes taken by the organization that are not designed to produce profits or directly improve the business performance.
Gudville can leverage these partnerships by awarding employees of the partner organizations or universities with 'Gudville Points' based on the impact of the CSR activity. This would create a two-way impact by converting the Employees into online, impactful shoppers & hence leveraging the use of "Social aspect of Commerce" & "Social aspect of Responsibility" 🙂
We are sure that conversion of 'Offline Shoppers to Online Shoppers' for creating grass-roots impact would be there on Gudville's agenda !!
Closing Thoughts
If you are an online shopper & want to ensure that your online-shopping affects lives of millions than download the Gudville Buddy [Chrome & Firefox]. Do share your experience in the comments section.
Earn 'Gudville' while you shop with the Gudville Shopping Buddy…
FreeCharge, India’s leading digital platform for recharge & utility payments, with a volume of over 200 million transactions annually, has announced the launch of FreeCharge Digital Wallet. The ‘comprehensive and trusted’ digital wallet service will transform mobile and web transactions by facilitating easy and secure payments. The wallet is being launched in partnership with YES bank, one of India’s leading private sector banks.
With an ecosystem of 8.2 million daily unique users, 4 million monthly engaged hours, 15 million stored cards, combined with GMV of over USD 4 billion, the FreeCharge Digital Wallet is set to become India’s most used wallet in the next 6 months.
In line with Snapdeal’s vision of building the most impactful digital commerce ecosystem in India, the FreeCharge digital wallet will enable a culture of digital payments through multiple partnerships.
In addition to a large and robust network of merchant partners, FreeCharge will partner with FINO – a payments bank licensee to build scale and ability to reach even the under-served.
FreeCharge Digital Wallet is powered by cutting edge technology, consumer behaviour insights and innovations in payments. It is a robust and flexible platform that leverages enabling technologies such as HCE, NFC, QR code and BLE to bring in efficiencies in the consumers’ purchase experience.
L-R- Anand Chandrasekaran, Chief Product Officer, Snapdeal; Govind Rajan, Chief Strategy Officer, Snapdeal; Kunal Shah, CEO and co-founder, FreeCharge
Commenting on the launch, Kunal Shah, CEO and Co-founder, FreeCharge said
FreeCharge has hit an important milestone in its journey today. With the launch of the FreeCharge Digital Wallet, we are all set to transform the way people make payments. A secure, easy to use and feature-rich service, the wallet is equipped with state of the art technology and a robust partner network, making it a truly game-changing service that will bring value to consumers and our partners in the ecosystem.
Congratulating FreeCharge on this milestone launch, Kunal Bahl, CEO and Co-founder, Snapdeal said
Our aim is to bring in efficiencies in payments using digital commerce to cater to every consumption need that a user may have. Consumer needs are constantly evolving and we feel it is the right time to launch a trusted and feature-rich digital wallet service. At Snapdeal we are building an ecosystem that powers billions of digital commerce transactions. With the launch of the FreeCharge Digital Wallet, we will now play an even more intrinsic role in our customers’ lives
Commenting on the way forward for the Digital Wallet, Anand Chandrasekaran, Chief Product Officer, Snapdealsaid
We are very excited about this landmark product launch. With 87 million combined registered users, we will ensure a seamless transition by offering easy integration and access to the platform resulting in a superior consumer and merchant experience
About FreeCharge
FreeCharge is India’s leading digital platform for recharge and utility payments which provides prepaid, post-paid, DTH and Electricity bill payment for almost all Indian service providers. FreeCharge was founded in 2010 by Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon and had received funding of over $120 million in the last 4 years. In the largest acquisition in the consumer Internet space yet, Snapdeal acquired FreeCharge in Apr’15 resulting in India’s largest m-commerce ecosystem. For more details, please visit FreeCharge
Ogle, India’s fastest growing premium on-demand streaming platform, successfully teams up with India’s largest online marketplace Snapdeal. The online portal will be the exclusive marketing partner for Ogle till the end of 2015. In addition, Snapdeal customers will get three months of free Ogle subscription when they buy smart TVs, tablets and mobiles from the website.
Earlier this year, Ogle gained a lot of traction for its latest live streaming stint at the Lakme Fashion Week 2015. Following the overwhelming response to Ogle’s pre-booking of subscription on its own website, this service will be now available to potential subscribers only via Snapdeal
Ogle streaming service comes with remarkable features such as buffer-less & ad-free streaming. Ogle enables online streaming across various connected devices and also caters to low bandwidth issues. Providing an array of cult online content across genres, Ogle streams buffer-Free even at bandwidths as low as 0.5 mbps.
The subscription offerings come at INR 49/day, INR 249/month & INR 2400/annum
Speaking about the latest association, Pritish Nandy, Chairperson, Ogle Technology Group said
Ogle’s one-of-its- kind association with an e-commerce giant like Snapdeal will be a great innovation for this field. This new venture will create a larger audience reach for Ogle from the subscription point of view as well as from a market leader point of view. This association will also be a favourable deal for Snapdeal. Free access to Ogle on their newly bought devices will definitely be a unique experience for the buyers. With our user friendly features, and our commitment to the association, we aim to strengthen our expertise.
Throwing light on similar sentiments, Karan Khara, Vice President, Strategic Alliances, Snapdeal said
Ogle is a great addition to our digital entertainment offerings. With increasing consumption of online videos and growing preference for International content among the young consumers in India, we are confident that this streaming service being offered at an affordable price point will find great traction.
Opening its doors across international boundaries very soon, Ogle will enable the premium online streaming service to reach out to a larger audience and significantly change the way content is consumed online.
The India enterprise mobility market is expected to grow from US$ 1.7 billion in 2015 to US$ 2.3 billion in 2017. This radical growth is due to the explosion of smartphone users in India and the time they spend on the internet.
Below is an info-graphic with some interesting data points on smartphone usage in India, what it means for leading e-commerce players, as well as smartphone vendor share in the country.
E-Billing Solutions Pvt. Ltd [EBS], a leading pan-India online payment gateway, now offers the ‘Go Live in 24 hours’promise to merchants who wish to set up online business.
Startups are always on the lookout for an appropriate payment gateway partner to start accepting online payments for their venture with a minimum lead-time. With EBS’ promise of ‘Go Live in 24 hours’, it has not only simplified the payment integration processes, but also ensured that startups do not lose out on business opportunities due to unnecessary delays.
EBS makes life simpler and easier for new merchants in the highly competitive market by actually delivering on its promise. EBS is able to activate payment gateway solutions within 24 hours by merely optimizing its internal workflows and cutting through the red tapes. At the same time, EBS also ensures that all legal and compliance are being addressed appropriately.
Speaking on the need to stand true to its word when it comes to enabling ‘Go Live in 24 hours’, Bhavin Mody, Director, E-Billing Solutions Pvt. Ltd, said
We understand the urgency and the importance of the merchants looking for payment gateways to kick start their venture. Delays in initiating these services postpone their business plans and this can also impact their crucial business milestones. In view of this, we have put in place this valuable offering to help new businesses take off on time.
The merchants can choose from various pricing plans offered by EBS viz. Economy for 4,799; Starter for 9,599; Standard for 15,999 and Premium for 23,999 for merchants purchasing these plans on www.ebs.in
EBS is continuously expanding its network to successfully cater to the ever increasing tech savvy population. It offers the widest range of payment options currently available in India and innumerable intuitive products to enable seamless transaction experience for end consumers.
About EBS
E-Billing Solutions (EBS) established in the year 2005 is head quartered in Mumbai. It pioneers in providing a technical interface/ platform between merchants and banks by providing software that connects a merchant’s website to multiple participating banks. It facilitates online purchases from a merchant’s website and helps them to collect payment from the end customers through net banking, credit and debit cards.
EBS is PCI DSS 3.0 Standards of Compliant & ISO 27001- 2013 standard certified. This achievement makes EBS one of the most secured online service providers in the world. EBS is a fully own subsidiary of Ingenico group. For more information please visit EBS
The SCPC aims to bring together the leading supply chain practitioners from across industries to showcase achievements and share best practices, while building a community which can influence policy making. This forum intends to foster an environment to propel India towards global supply chain leadership and make it a go-to place for supply chain excellence.
This widely attended supply chain forum has occurred successfully in Bangalore for the past two years and eight such editions have been hosted by companies/institutes such as Dell, Cisco, JDA, Honeywell, SAP Labs & IIM Bangalore.
We hosted the 5th edition of the SCPC which was manufacturing-centric. The theme for the 9th edition is ‘last mile delivery and returns management, which is retail-centric. The eminent speakers will discuss current opportunities and challenges. It is also a great networking opportunity for supply chain professionals.
JDA has a large client base in manufacturing, distribution, retail, category management and store operations. It is a privilege to provide a platform that helps supply chain professionals to actively collaborate, think collectively and act decisively. The SCPC helps promote understanding of the current market problems and the way they are currently being solved, as well as provides guidance on moving enterprises to the next level of supply chain maturity.
About JDA Software Group, Inc.
JDA isa the leading provider of end-to-end, integrated retail, omni-channel and supply chain planning and execution solutions for more than 4,000 customers worldwide. For more information, please visit JDA or JDA on SlideShare
