In this part (part 2) of our conversation with One97 CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, we explore why Paytm launched a marketplace only on mobile, whether recharge will decline in importance as a category for the company, the role of Paytm's semi closed prepaid wallet, how Paytm is handling the situation of (old) closed wallets and unclaimed deposits, among other things. Read part 1 of this interview here. MediaNama: You didn’t launch a separate Paytm marketplace app. You upgraded the old one. What has the impact been? Vijay Shekhar Sharma: Firstly, we did it on the iOS because it does around 10-15000 orders a day for us. Doing it first for iOS was to get feedback from consumers, for course correction, instead of shifting everybody. Consumers who were used to recharges as a primary product haven’t said that it’s great to have shopping. Some customers found it a surprise. We didn’t integrate postpaid bills (payment) either because prepaid is the primary recharge business, so consumers even thought we had given up on postpaid. MediaNama: You’re not separating recharge from the marketplace? Vijay Shekhar Sharma: We believe that there is a value (in the marketplace) for the consumer who is coming here for recharge. MediaNama: How do margins differ for you, between recharges and shopping? Vijay Shekhar Sharma: Upto 10x (margins on some categories of shopping can be 10 times that on recharges). MediaNama: Going forward, recharge is going to become smaller and smaller? Will there be a time when Paytm will…
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