FORMULATING
STRATEGIES FOR THE WHATSAPP PAY IN COMPARISON WITH GOOGLE PAY
ABSTRACT: UPI generally elaborated as UNIFIED PAYMENT INTERFACE is
an emerging smartphone enabled fund transfer technology that supports in-bank
transfers and many more.
As, the governments of many
different countries has been focusing on digitizing payments, we see more
amalgamation of UPI gateways in the
market.
A market leader which is Google Pay
with a market share of 64.6% and a market follower which is Whatsapp payment
with a market share of 8.5% has been chosen for the following Report.
INTRODUCTION: A market leader could be a product, brand, company,
organisation, group name which has the highest percentage of total sales
revenue of a particular market. Market leader dominates the market by
influencing the customer loyalty towards it, distribution, pricing,
etc.(Reference : Economic Times).
A market follower is a company that
follows what the leader in its sector does. A market follower does not like
taking risks, i.e., it is the opposite of a maverick. Instead, it waits and
observes what its competitors do, especially the market leader.
It then only adopts the leader’s
successful strategies. (Reference : market business news).The report talks
about Google pay which is the market leader, over the last one year Google Pay
grew more than 3 times to 67 million monthly active users and WhatsApp Payments
which is the market follower.
STRATEGIES
USED BY GOOGLE PAY :
1. Providing Scratch Cards : Google pay
provides scratch to their customers by promoting scratch card marketing which
helps the customers to have the irresistible winning sensation. In the beginning
they were aggressively giving away rewards to compete PayTm but eventually when
they acquire a customer base the rewards were reduced.
2. To pay Bills: they associate
directly with major consumer service providers such as state electricity
boards, BSNL, Water authority etc. to facilitate easy bill payment. They also
have collaboration with OLA, Milk Basket, HP Gas, Reliance Fresh, OYO etc
3. To Book Tickets: They have partnered
with Indian Railways and other travel facilitators to book travel tickets.
4. To contribute to various relief funds:The rise of the
internet has facilitated easy fund transfer to different relief funds such as
earthquakes, floods and other natural calamities etc. this helped in
eliminating the doubt of philanthropists in contribution as the account number
and details will be verified.
5.
Launched with a brand value
“Google” along with a tagline “Assured with Google’s Security”: As the
brand Google is tech giant which is well known for its services and people
trust it for a great extend for the security it provides. The customers can
avoid a dilemma in choosing G Pay.
6.
Easy to use Intuition : There are different types of advertisements
that are being used by google pay, to make more people know that google pay is
not complicated and it is very simple to use.
STRATEGIES
USED BY WHATSAPP PAYMENT :
1. Whatsapp
has integrated its payment option in the regular app which generalizes the user
interface and makes it easy to use.
2. Launched
with a brand value “Whatsapp”: As whatsapp is a commonly used application in
the mobile phones of almost every person to exchange messages. It can be easy
to transfer funds and avoid the hassles in G Pay such as logging in to the app
by creating separate pin and identifying
the person by searching etc. Thus in comparison whatsapp is much faster in
payment process.
ADVANTAGES
OF BEING A MARKET LEADER:
1. Large Market share : G Pay
has a great market share in comparison to the newly launched whatsapp pay.
2. Grabbing maximum number of investments and
customer base : since the market leader is already has a great marketing
they do have an upperhand in customer base
3. Builds Popularity: As they are having a
very large number of customer base, they are very popular among the competitors
as well as users.
4. Lower cost of services due to economy of
scale: They can reduce their expenses by implementing economies of scale by
increasing the customer base.
5. Longer Product Life Cycle:
the more the number of customers and services offered, the more the product
exist in the market. They can also do it by value addition process at regular
intervals or by adding competency.
DISADVANTAGES
OF BEING A MARKET LEADER:
1. The Risk Taker : They are risk takers
as they jump into the market for the first time to offer a particular service
which is completely new to them.
2. Competition from the market
challengers: They will face a tight competition from the market challengers
as they have already made a product inspired by them and they are challenging
the leader to be the number one in the industry.
3. Constant expenditure on Research and
Development: The market leader in order to hold the position, will have to
constantly undergo research and add value to the product inorder to defend the
existing customers form slipping away.
ADVANTAGES OF BEING A MARKET FOLLOWER:
1. There is less Research and development cost :The market leader has
already entered the market and faced all the initial challenges and created a
customer base. Thus it is easy for the follower to join him and to get inspired
by his business techniques and more or less do the same.
2. Customers: As the market leader is already having a good customer
base it is easy for the customers to jump and try the new product which is
almost providing the same functions with a little difference which can make
them unique.In simple terms the customers are already aware of the product.
3. Product Positioning: Since, they are a follower they can easily
position the product and can establish a good operations channel with less
infrastructure cost.
DISADVANTAGES
OF BEING A MARKET FOLLOWER:
1. Always compared to the market leader:
They will always be compared to the market leader in the market as the market
leader is the benchmark for every product.
2. Not seen as an innovator: From the
viewpoint of a customer they may be sees just as a copycat as they have been
trying to provide a service which has been already existing in the market.
3. Not Primary choice of the market :
obviously for a rational customer they will always look upon the market leader
as their primary choice. But, for a person who has profound knowledge to
distinguish and identify the services offered to them, there is a small chance
for some customers to change the preference.
SWOT
ANALYSIS OF WHATSAPP
Advantages/Strengths
of Whatsapp Payment:
1.Whatsaap Messenger Option : WhatsApp being a messenger service
first, makes it easier for users to communicate with each other and transfer
money on-the-go. Essentially, WhatsApp is a more holistic service as it allows
for messaging and digital payments.
2.Universality :WhatsApp's overall popularity gives it a boost over
new players like Google Tez that is still new and still working to establish a
user base. As far as convenience is concerned, people are likely to prefer
WhatsApp to send and receive money rather than download a separate app to do
so.
The biggest reason why WhatsApp
comes into the competition is that
WhatsApp being the most popular messaging platform today enjoys over 200
million monthly active users, while Tez is slowly growing .
3.Easy Accessibility : Everyone
with a smartphone in India is on WhatsApp as it is the defacto messaging
service. This makes it terrifically simple to transfer or receive money between
friends and family as they can perform the action from within the messaging
service without the need to download another.
Google Pay on the other hand,
requires both the sender and receiver to download the app to enable payment
using Cash Mode or via mobile number. A Google Pay user can also send money to
a non-Google Pay user but that will require the other person's bank account
details which makes it a slightly tedious process.
Disadvantages/Weaknesses
of Whatsapp Payment:
1.Peer to peer transactions : As of now, Whatsapp payment only allows
peer-to-peer transactions and nothing more. Meanwhile, services like Google
Pay, Paytm and Mobikwik allow users to pay bills and enable transactions with
merchants and businesses as well. For users who rely more on digital transactions
for various purposes, WhatsApp Payments will not be enough.
2.Fraudulent Transactions : The
messaging service has been involved in number of spam letters and the payments
feature could now enable fraudulent transactions by duping uninformed users.
Google Pay, on the other hand, is less likely to cause such cases as it doesn't
come with a messenger. Moreover Google Pay has more security as compared to
Whatsapp Payment option.
3.Limited Features : Whatsapp
lacks basic features like bill payment options,Booking tickets
etc.However, without features like bill payment, WhatsApp Payments is limited.
On the other hand,Google Pay
includes features like Bills Payment, Payment towards Government Relief
Funds,Booking Tickets etc. which makes them achieve the position of the Market
Leader till date.
Opportunities
of whatsapp pay :
- Already has Huge customer base
which is highly engaged on the platform already :
WhatsApp Messenger being a cross-platform mobile messaging app which
allows you to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS has already
grabbed a of
- Focusing on the SMBs : Whatsapp pay
aims at providing UPI-based Pay service for over 300 million users,
especially the small and medium businesses (SMBs) in order to conduct
small transactions in their businesses.
- Penetration of internet : Increasing internet penetration, especially in
developing countries can be leveraged by WhatsApp pay. People in these
countries opt to avail the payment service within the messaging app.
4.
Late entry to market :
It is facing problems of late entry to market. Google pay, Paytm, PhonePe etc
has already entered the market and now holds a big share. They will not be
getting the benefits of early adopters of technology
5.
Concerns about safety and security : People are very much concerned about money, especially when they are transferring
it. Therefore they will think twice before using whatsapp for transferring
money to another account.
- Shorter product life cycle : Since they entered late in the market they will have
only shorter product life cycle. The life cycle of the product have
already started and they entered the market in between the life cycle of
the product. therefore they will not get the benefit of the new technology
for a longer duration.
COMPETITIVE
STRATEGIES :
Here
are some competitive strategies that have to be adapted by whatsapp who is the
market follower to be able to disrupt Gpay the current market follower
- In-App
marketing- Whatsapp pay can promote In
-app marketing. This feature will make Whatsapp Payment option different
from the market leader i.e Google Pay. Whatsapp can navigate and help the
users to easily access whatsapp payment option as soon as the user opens
the app.
As soon as the user opens the aap, the app
will guide the user as how to use whatsapp payment option. This is one of the
methods by which whatsapp can advertise the new payment feature introduced by
them without investing more on its marketing
- Chat
and pay- Whatsapp pay would be
focusing mainly on the MSME’s and SME’s
sector and will help them carry on transactions and payments along
with a chat and hence helping them be more assured and confident about the
payee.
Security assurance given to its
users is higher in whatsapp pay because it provides both the parties (the
receiver and the payer) the benefit of verifying the other through a chat.
- Making users experience more lively : There are many engaging and eye candy animations that can be added to whatsapp payment so that there can be many users who will always want to be engaged in the same app for the payments. The whatsapp scannable animation icon below serves as an interactive mode, which becomes a scratchable bonus on each transaction.
- Fund Rising using Sponsored
Statuses : There can be sponsored whatsapp statuses
where, when people click on the link mentioned in the whatsapp statuses,
they are going to be directed to the payment page of their own account.
This will help people to raise funds for NGO activities and many more.
This will help them reach more audience.
- Provide data credit : Whatsapp pay will collaborate with all the service
providers and bring a new data credit service. This will be a new added feature in which
customers can avail small data packs for ₹10
or so on, credit through whatsapp pay only. This can be used during
emergencies as well as during insufficient data balance.
- Provide Transaction Details
even in offline mode : Whatsapp pay will provide
transaction details in the chat-box as soon as the transaction has been
made to both the users, along with some interesting emojis attached with
the details of the transaction, so that user gets the joy of payment and also the user does not have to check the
account balance after the payment.
Conclusion:
Google pay currently is doing great
in the market.But on the other hand, Whatsapp pay which has just launched is
also coming up with various competitive strategies that will help them acquire
a large market share.
Whatsapp messenger has a huge
customer base and this will provide
whatsapp pay a competitive advantage over other competitors. Both whatsapp pay
and Google pay has its own strengths and weaknesses. Whatsapp pay has come out
with new and innovative strategies to over power the market leader and become
the leader.
REFERENCES :
- https://upipayments.co.in/whatsapp-upi-payment
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- https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/heres-how-to-activate-and-use-payments-on-whatsapp
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