By Riddhi Mukherjee and Nikhil Pahwa Paytm Mall has revamped its seller onboarding process and has made it mandatory for sellers to furnish brand authorization letters and undergo strict quality and service audits. Paytm will check the prospective seller's registration number, shop location, shop photos and GSTIN among others before listing their products on Paytm Mall. This change in guidelines has resulted in over 85,000 existing sellers being delisted from the platform. Paytm had demerged its e-commerce business into a separate entity called Paytm Mall, which is similar to Alibaba’s TMall, in February this year, and appointed appointed Amit Sinha as its chief operating officer (COO) to lead the Paytm Mall business. Paytm Mall raised $200 million from Alibaba Group Holding and SAIF Partners, in March this year, of which Alibaba invested $177 million for a 36.31% stake and SAIF Partners invested $23 million for a 4.66% stake. We prefer small sellers partners. Small or big: sell yr own product or only authorised by brand. It helps small sellers build new customers. https://t.co/XYNcQGmrpB — Vijay Shekhar (@vijayshekhar) July 17, 2017 A community of trusted sellers and trusted buyers is good for online commerce. Few misuse, those being removed -- from both sides. — Vijay Shekhar (@vijayshekhar) July 17, 2017 The company will also allow brands and shopkeepers to determine the return, exchange and refund policies for their products being sold on the platform. However, this might result in customers potentially facing a different shopping experience, if for the same category of products the sellers are different and have set…
