It’s a name we’re all very familiar with. Launched in 2006, Croma is one of the largest gadgets and electronics retail store chain in India, with a product catalogue of over 6,000 products across 200 brands. Over a decade since its inception, Croma, a subsidiary of the Tata Group, has become synonymous with the electronic needs of the Indian consumer, with a retail presence all across the country. In this blog, let’s explore how Croma used Plural’s payment links solution for their brand.
The challenge Croma faced
COVID-19 changed the way Croma had to do business. Consumer behaviour has significantly changed due to the ongoing global pandemic. Contactless payments are seeing greater adoption as they are perceived to be safer. As communities began to slowly reopen at the start of the pandemic (Q3 2020), Croma entered a new normal, where the way they made a sale at their store traditionally required rethinking.
During these times, Croma was looking for a payments provider that took care of this challenge by giving a solution that minimizes physical contact. Croma needed a reliable and flexible solution that could integrate with their retail stores easily and efficiently, a huge challenge when operating at an enterprise scale.
How Plural helped Croma
Croma leveraged Plural Links (our Pay-by-link solution) to accelerate and boost payment acceptance solutions across all stores of Croma. Together with Plural, Croma now offers a contactless payment mode, adapted to the norms and preferences of social distancing, for large cart value transactions. Creating and sharing a payment link with customers on their mobile number or email is seamless. Payment links also allowed customers the power of choice, enabling payment methods such as No Cost EMI, Buy Now Pay Later, Debit Card EMI, Prepaid Wallets, and more.
With Plural, Croma now gets a partner for omnichannel payments. Croma also utilizes Plural’s flexible and highly customizable affordability suite, with offers being powered by Brands, Banks & Croma itself, for their online e-commerce website. Plural’s high-quality merchant experience and developer-friendly APIs also meant Croma could go live quickly.
What were the outcomes?
Plural helped Croma deliver a best-in-class payment solution to their problem. Adoption at scale followed, with payment links being implemented in 150+ Croma stores across 40+ major cities of India. As comfort with using this solution grew and customers started visiting stores again, transactions via payment links saw an average Quarter-on-Quarter growth rate of 188%. Whether in-person or online, Plural’s Affordability Suite has also been an enormous success with Croma’s customers, with more than 70% of Croma’s transactions routing through Plural Gateway belonging to EMI.
Summing up
Plural Links can help your business too! What’s more? These payment links are fully customisable so you can tailor the email and SMS, give more information to your customers and personalise it! Plural Links are shareable on Whatsapp, Instagram, SMS, email and other social media platforms. Write to us at pgsupport@pinelabs.com to get started with Plural Links today.
Plural by Pine Labs has received an in-principle authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a Payment Aggregator.
Amrita Konaiagari is a Marketing Manager at Plural by Pine Labs and Editor of the Plural blog. She has over 10 years of marketing experience across Media & Tech industries and holds a Master’s degree in Communication and Journalism. She has a passion for home décor and is most definitely a dog person.
