BHUBANESWAR: Smile is back on the face of Bhaskar Sahu, a fruit vendor at Sriya Square in the city, nearly a month after demonetisation which had hit the trade hard.
Running dull since a couple days after the announcement of ban on higher denomination currency notes, Sahu’s fruit sales gained momentum after he started accepting payment through Paytm, a digital payment and commerce platform.
“Fruits trade is limping back slowly. It was severely affected throughout November due to less cash flow. Even as there is scarcity of smaller denomination notes, the trade has gained pace with the introduction of e-payment systems,” he said.
Not only Sahu, most of the vendors in the fruit market at Sriya Square have adopted cashless transaction methods to tide over the currency crisis. They have not only turned to e-wallet systems, customers visiting their shops are being encouraged to go cashless.
While 80 per cent of 20 shops in the market have put up the Paytm board, a couple of them also has the facility of PoS machine.
However, the vendors said they had a lean period from November 10 to 30 as they had to pay from their pockets to meet the daily expenses for a few days. The sale had dropped from Rs 20,000 a day to Rs 500 in the first week of money ban. Though the sale is rising slowly, it is yet to match the earlier range of daily business.
Sahu said he has sold fruits worth around Rs 25,000 in last ten days through Paytm. “I would have done more business had I kept a PoS machine. Customers are offering payments through debit or credit cards since they do not have Rs 500 notes and it is difficult for us to give changes of Rs 2,000 note if one buys fruits of Rs 200 or Rs 300,” he said.
Litu fruit shop in the market has both the facilities of Paytm and PoS machine. Proprietor Baidyanath Sahu said on an average, he is selling fruits worth more than Rs 30,000.
He has a reason to cheer because he is supplying fruits to hotels which are making on-line payments. “Some customers who are yet to opt for the Paytm mode of payment are paying in cash,” he added.