Amazon Pay extends smart store program for local merchants

HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, Aug 17: Amazon Pay announced the onboarding of 18,000 merchants across Tier-II, and III cities through its ‘Amazon Pay Smart Stores’ program. Notably, Amazon Pay Smart Store is an innovative offline shopping experience that enables offline stores to be discovered by customers and improves in-store sales by offering best-in-class affordability propositions across the widest array of payment options. It strengthens Amazon Pay’s endeavor to digitally empower offline Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs), retailers, and micro merchants and unlocks new growth opportunities for them.
Commenting on the initiative, Girish Krishnan – director, Amazon Pay Rewards, said, “We are committed to enabling merchants and customers with easy access to credit, reduce friction in their everyday transactions and maximise their savings. Amazon Pay will continue to offer innovative solutions to customers choosing to shop offline including better discoverability of nearby stores, affordability propositions like No Cost EMIs, bank discounts, value-added services such as insurance, warranty, and much more.”
Amazon Pay Smart Stores Program was started in 2020 to facilitate improvements in the offline shopping experience to provide seamless credit to offline shoppers, improve discoverability for offline stores and offer various affordability propositions for customers. Once inside a Smart Store, customers can simply scan the store’s QR code using the Amazon app to explore the products available within the store. They can also choose to pay by their preferred method including UPI, Amazon Pay balance, credit or debit cards; along with flexible EMI options and a wide range of Bank offers.