The coronavirus-led pandemic has had different impacts on people and industries. It disrupted many industries and people’s habits that were set in stone for aeons.
Adapting to online education is one such example. People never thought a day would come when they would have to attend schools, colleges, and tuition over video conferencing. But here we are – students log in every day in the morning on a video conferencing app where teachers conduct online classes.
Along with schools and colleges, even private tuition centres and big tuition chains that conduct classes for competitive exams also started online classes for their students. While others were learning and adapting to the ways of doing online classes right, edtech companies that have built their whole business around distance and digital learning saw the highest uptake from students.
Interesting Read: Using Paytm Postpaid Can Increase Edtech Startups’ Customer Base
While it may sound like most of the students from metros and tier 1 cities took to the ways of online learning, the truth is that a large number of students from tier 2 and 3 cities have heartily accepted online education.
In the last few years, the digital divide between tier 1 and lower-tier cities has started closing, thanks to cheap data prices and affordable smartphones.
If you are looking to expand your edtech startup to tier 2 and 3 cities, Paytm for Business is the right partner for you to enable growth in these markets.
How Paytm For Business Can Script the Growth Story For Edtech Startups
Paytm for Business takes pride in the fact that it has built several tools to help businesses script their growth story. Whether it’s an online business, a physical store, or an offline-to-online store – Paytm for Business is suitable for every type of business.
Online education startups that fall in all three categories – online, offline, and O2O model – can leverage the tools offered by Paytm for Business to succeed in tier 2 and 3 cities.
Here is how you can utilise Paytm for Business to grow your edtech company in non-urban markets:
- Paytm App
Millions of users open the Paytm app to pay for different purchases, which ranges from online and offline shopping to bill payments. Paytm App has made it really easy for customers in tier 2 and 3 cities to pay bills of any kind.
Just by listing your edtech company on the Paytm app you can make it easier for your customers to pay fees. Once you simplify fee payments for customers, you will start seeing lower rates of payment defaults from parents.
To pay the fees, parents will have to open the Paytm app and go to the ‘recharges and bill payments’ section, where they can find your educational institute listed. They don’t have to worry about entering bank details of your institute. They simply need to add the amount they have to pay and go ahead with the payment.
- Paytm Payment Links
One of the easiest ways to accept fees from parents is through Paytm Payment Links. It can speed up the payment collection process for your institute as parents will find it easier to make payments using payment links.
You can create Paytm Payment Links with just a few clicks by adding your bank account details and the particulars of the payment sought from the parents. Once you create these payment links you can share them with parents over a WhatsApp message or email.
Most of the educational institutes make use of Paytm Payment Links when they have to collect fees for expenses such as books, uniforms, late fees for library books, or to collect entry fee for events and seminars.
To seek payments for such expenses, you can create the Paytm Payment Links and share them with either the parents or students. Since these links carry a direct link to make the payment, the process is a no-brainer for customers and takes only a couple of minutes.
- Paytm Split Settlements
This feature is very useful for educational institutes that have more than one branch or plan to venture out in more than one non-urban cities.
Interesting Read: Paytm Split Settlements for Education Sector
Paytm Split Settlements allows institutes to split fees across different branches and bank accounts. You will waste a lot of time if you do this manually. To save time and man-power, you can automate the process. You simply have to set up the split payment details such as the amount, frequency of payments to be made, and in which bank accounts money should be transferred.
You can use this feature to split payments with different vendors. If your edtech company’s payment structure includes different fees like tuition, hostel, library, etc, you can collect each of them in different accounts directly. You simply have to add account details of the vendors who manage the hostel and library, and mention the percentage of the split. Once this is done, Paytm Split Settlements will automate the process.
- Buy Now, Pay Later (Paytm Postpaid)
Very often students do not enrol for a course because of the fees. This is true for almost all types of courses. One way to not lose students because of the fee structure, is by giving them better payment options.
As a founder of an online education company, you should provide credit-led payment options to students or parents so that they don’t have to worry about paying the whole tuition fee in one go.
Interesting Read: What is the future of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) in India?
Since credit card penetration in tier 2 and 3 cities is lower than in metros, you can offer students and parents to pay through Paytm Postpaid, which allows customers to buy products on credit without having a credit card. Paytm Postpaid democratises credit facilities in smaller towns.
With Paytm Postpaid, customers can enrol for courses and pay fees in equal monthly instalments. As a merchant, you don’t have to worry about not getting paid as you will receive the money the moment customers purchase the course.
So, it’s a win-win payment product – you receive the fees without losing customers and your customers don’t have to worry about paying a large amount of money at once.
- Paytm Wallet
In addition to monthly fees, parents and students also have to pay money to educational institutions for other services like educational trips and annual events. While a large part of ad-hoc fees is applicable to physical schools only, edtech companies also collect fees for tertiary services like enrolling for seminars by guest lecturers, etc.
While Paytm Postpaid is ideal for large-ticket fee payments, Paytm Wallet, which is an RBI-approved digital wallet, is ideal for low-ticket payments.
Paytm Wallet is used by 30 crore Indians making it one of the largest digital wallets.
Letting parents and students pay through Paytm Wallet has an added advantage: you don’t have to wait for days to receive the money as you immediately get the money in your Paytm Wallet.
- Paytm Ads
Acquiring customers in lower-tier cities will not be difficult if you have the right partner with you. Paytm Ads provides you with multiple platforms for you to advertise your brand on. It comes packed with the technology that will track the performance of your campaign.
Right from Paytm App, Paytm Money, and Paytm Insider your brand will be visible wherever you wish. You can create cohorts based on different factors so that your brand can be specifically visible to who it’s intended for. You can target both students and parents for your online education company using custom cohorts.
Paytm Ads is one of the best tools to drive new customer acquisitions in lower-tier cities.
Conclusion
Paytm for Business is committed to offering merchants the best tools that can grow their business irrespective of the market they venture into. Since tier 2 and 3 cities have huge market sizes for the education sector you need the best tools that can fast-pace your customer acquisition (Paytm Ads), ease the way you do business (Paytm Payments Bank), and simplify as well as expand the way customers pay fees (Paytm Postpaid and Paytm Wallet), improve efficiency by automating split payments, and make it easier for parent to pay fees using Paytm App.
You might have entered a new market thinking of the prospective customers and the huge market size, but have you got the right partner that can help you achieve your dreams?
Sign up with Paytm for Business today!
Frequently Asked Questions
Question 1: Can I use Paytm to accept recurring payments for my edtech company?
Answer: Yes, Paytm can help you add subscribers and accept recurring payments via any and all payment methods including debit and credit card, net banking, UPI, and Paytm Wallet. With Paytm Subscriptions, your customers can create an e-Nach mandate and subscribe to your online courses. They can also use UPI AutoPay to become a subscriber.
Paytm Subscriptions also allows your customers to modify their subscription whenever they want.
Question 2: What is Paytm PostPaid and how does it work?
Answer: Paytm Postpaid is a credit product offered by Paytm. It works on the lines of ‘Buy-Now-Pay-Later’ model, which allows customers to buy a product without having to pay anything at the time of purchase. Customers can use this payment method to buy anything including groceries, apparels, electronic products, etc.
With this service, Paytm aims to enable new-to-credit users to begin their credit journey. It can help them manage liquidity better by paying household bills and manage regular shopping payments easily.
As a merchant, you just have to enable Paytm PostPaid on your checkout page and customers will be able to opt for it while making the payment.
