Why is WhatsApp betting on Razorpay? 🤯
The full stack super app is here my friend.
Welcome to the 183rd edition of the GrowthX Newsletter. Every Tuesday & Thursday I write a piece on startups & business growth. Today’s piece is going to 94,400+ operators & leaders from startups like Google, Stripe, Swiggy, Razorpay, CRED & more
Yesterday, WhatsApp & Razorpay did a major announcement. A deeper integration that will change the game of mobile commerce in India. Here's the full breakdown & what future looks like ⬇️
Some context ⏬
WhatsApp has 500 million users in India - it's biggest market in the world. When Mark Zuckerberg (Founder of Facebook, now Meta) paid $16 Billion to buy WhatsApp - everyone wondered - " How will he get the money back? "
Enter 2023 ⚡️
WhatsApp is moving from being a "Chat app" → "business app". It wants to be the godfather of mobile commerce in India & boy - it has some good cards up its sleeves.
Let's segment WhatsApp into 4 categories 👀
→ Group communication
→ B2C communication
→ Logistics
→ Solve for Payments
First/ group communication 💭
The whole launch with "channels", "screen sharing" & "broadcast" features - it's all part of solving number of use cases around "communication" for it’s users.
Second/ business to consumer communication 🤝🏻
I wrote about it a week back. But, short context - WhatsApp wants to replace SMS. It wants to get brands to communicate with their customers on WhatsApp as the primary channel.
Third/ logistics full stack approach 🚚📦
JioMart partnership was to solve for the complete end consumer delivery experience. It allows WhatsApp to scale to thousands of ping codes without having to build it on it's own - unlike WeChat / GoJek.
And the most important piece - payments 💸
WhatsApp owns 0.1% of the UPI market. You see - the RBI broke WhatsApp's UPI game by choking how many customers they can onboard on WhatsApp pay (on purpose)wrote a larger piece on this.
Enter, Razorpay - India's larger payment gateway 💣
It understood the WhatsApp payments pain point. Plus, it has a Payment Aggregator (PA) License from the RBI. It can do what WhatsApp UPI couldn't.
Why is it so huge?
Short answer - "native shopping". Think of it this way - imagine you are a D2C brand, say Tira Beauty. You want to sell products to your existing customers. You can now push this through WhatsApp & customers don't even need to visit your website - that's crazy.
And, it’s more than just a repeat purchase 🔁
Think of WhatsApp as the new entry point for businesses that sell their products. Users don't need to go to Google/brand websites to make purchases. They can do it right within WhatsApp 😎
It’s huge for the majority of Indians who have never bought online 🤯
Yes, only 30 crore Indians / 140 crore have ever bought online. And this WhatsApp <> Razorpay integration will change the game for them. Their first online purchase could be on WhatsApp.
So if you are thinking WhatsApp is now competing with Meesho/ Amazon/ Flipkart, the answer is HELL YES!
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