Amazon Pay announces expansion of its ‘Smart Stores’ to empower local merchants in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana

 Partners with top electronic retailers like Bajaj Electronics, BNew Mobiles, Big C, Happi Mobiles, among others, to provide a smart and contactless payment experience for customers

 

National, December 2021: Amazon Pay announced the expansion of their “Smart Stores” program in partnership with offline electronic retailers across 12 key cities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The expansion will bring the Smart Stores experience to 1500+ electronics stores in Hyderabad, Warangal, Nizamabad, Nalgonda, Khammam, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Guntur, Nellore, Tirupathi, Kurnool, and Rajamundry.  Customers can scan the QR code of a Smart Store using the Amazon app and explore thousands of products across offline electronic retailers such as Bajaj Electronics, Big C, Happi Mobiles, Bnew, Sonovision, Pai International, Celekt Mobiles, Lot Mobiles, Touch Mobiles, and other stores.

 

Commenting on the expansion, Mahendra Nerurkar, CEO & VP, Amazon Pay, said, “In our effort to provide a trusted, convenient and rewarding experience for our customers and merchants, we are further expanding our Smart Stores program. With this, our partner electronic stores in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana will enjoy high discoverability and extend contactless payments, EMIs, bank offers, & Amazon Pay rewards to their customers. This would also enable them to offer services like digital bills and voice-based payments simplifying the customers in-store shopping experience.”

 

After selecting the products on the Smart Stores digital storefront, customers can checkout using Amazon Pay, which provides them with a choice to pay through UPI, net banking, Amazon Pay Balance: Money, or credit & debit cards. Additionally, customers can opt for converting their transaction into an EMI on-the-spot and avail exciting rewards from their banks or Amazon Pay. Furthermore, the bill is delivered digitally, making the entire journey contactless, convenient, and rewarding.

 

“With the launch of Amazon Pay Smart Stores, we have seen a good uplift in customer walk-ins leading to increase in overall sales at our stores. Customers prefer paying using Amazon Pay as the overall experience is seamless and rewarding.” – Sai Nikhilesh, CEO, BNew Mobiles.

 

“As a leading mobile retail outlet chain of AP & Telangana, we are always on the lookout for innovative avenues to enhance our sales and also to simultaneously enhance brand loyalty amongst our target audience. Given terse competition in this domain, our topline revenues won't grow unless our customer acquisition strategies are competitive. In this context, Amazon Pay has played a crucial role in boosting our sales through their exciting inventory of offers. We are delighted with the partnership and looking forward to more exciting years ahead” – Sharan Sree Harsha, VP – Operations, Happi Mobiles.

 

Amazon Pay’s Smart Store enables local shops with the following capabilities:  

 

·         Digital Storefront: Every Smart Store can be discovered on the Amazon App. Additionally, every Smart Store gets a digital storefront, enabling its customers to discover products, read reviews, and evaluate offers while in the store or from anywhere using the Amazon app.

 

·         Contactless Payments with EMIs and Bank Offers:  Smart Store enables merchants to offer the entire suite of contactless payment options, including UPI, net banking, balance, credit and debit cards, EMIs and bank offers, and get instant confirmation of completion of the payment.

 

·         Amazon Pay Rewards: Smart Store enables local shops to offer Amazon Pay reward coupons to attract new customers and incentivize customers to come back to them for their next purchase, thus increasing footfalls.

Launched in 2020, the Amazon Pay Smart Stores program has onboarded thousands of local shops across the country. In addition, several top brands, including OPPO, Lenovo, Xiaomi, Samsung, Prestige, USHA, ASUS, More, Big Bazaar, MedPlus, have already partnered with Amazon Pay to offer customers the best value and in-store purchasing experience through the program.  Amazon Pay has also onboarded over 5 million small and medium businesses on the “Amazon Pay For Business” mobile app. Available on Android, the app can be used by small & medium businesses across the country to register themselves, generate a unique QR code and start accepting digital payments within minutes. In addition, customers can use any UPI app to scan the Amazon QR and make payments to these businesses.