Inspiration
Our team always focussed on building up a platform that could create a positive impact on the whole society which would address the problems of the people irrespective of the age, gender, or income they earn. After thorough background research, surveys, and interviews with the customers we end up selecting the retail and consumer sector and identified that a lot of problems existed there. Thereby we found out the necessity for implementing a platform that could solve all these issues faced by the shopkeepers and the customers of local stores as it is a relevant matter of concern that could bring benefit to a huge community worldwide. In our E-commerce business, we started, we heard from customers that it is hard to buy commodities at the end of the month, which is a problem for most households. As far as shopkeepers are taken into consideration, many of them pointed out that they had difficulty offering commodities in their shops in debt and that their business had declined due to these types of lending practices. So we decided to implement an innovative platform that facilitates BUY NOW PAY LATER service and credit facilities accessible even to common people and which allow end-to-end tracking of the entire transactions using blockchain thus the platform named FUNDGET was built up. Additionally, the Buy Now Pay Later system is primarily working in India's E-commerce and consumer electronics sectors, but the problems that we have discovered in our research and surveys directly point toward the offline markets, grocery shops, small-scale supermarkets, etc. We believe that providing such a solution can make a significant impact on a large community.
What it does
This is a solution built for both consumers and the shopkeepers. We provide an effective solution for most of the problems faced by the customers and shopkeepers. From the consumer side of view, we have implemented a Buy Now Pay Later system facilitating convenient payments. This facility enables smooth payments/transactions in a way that even if they don’t have money they can purchase goods and services using the credit provided within our application. The credit can be paid back within 15 days to avail of the next credit limit. The credit limits are determined by an algorithm that takes into account the promptness of repayment, credit history, purchase history, etc. Using this information the customers are provided with loyalty points, credit limit improvements, customized loans, and many more through the platform.
As a shop owner, the credit system that exists today is not streamlined. Due to the fact that the shop owner is the one who provides credit to the customer, they have to deal with a lot of chaos. If the customer does not repay promptly, this creates money flow problems for the shop owner. This makes it difficult for the owner to keep up with stock levels. Data that we have gathered directly demonstrate these problems, and the solution we build will be a gamechanger. This solution enables you to run the business conveniently and without any hustles as the payment to the shopkeeper is made as soon as the purchase is done. We also provide customized loans based on their customer base and business. By obtaining these loans, they are able to boost their business to higher levels.
How we built it
With the help of surveys and data collection, we outlined the major challenges consumers face. Customers rarely have the option of paying later for goods or services, resulting in a low purchase value. Also, applying for a credit card is a lengthy process that often leads to rejection or disappointing results when it comes to credit limits, and applying for interest-free credit requires documentation. The result was the creation of a platform, Fundget, which is a Buy Now Pay Later provider, that allows you to set up an account while you are standing in line at the checkout of a shop. As far as shopkeepers are taken into consideration their average sales will grow and it will solve the issue of giving debt to the customer.
Challenges we ran into
It was tough for us to identify the right customer segment and to find out the real problems faced by the wider customer segment, as the customer segment we addressed is really large. Analyzing the existing solutions to find the different aspects of this problem was a bit tricky. Collecting validated data from our target customers who are the shopkeepers and buyers of different locations was very difficult within this short span of time. Thus our major challenge was to carry out the fieldwork efficiently. By analyzing the data we obtained, we found out that the Buy Now Pay Later services are not commonly used currently and hence require a lot of awareness among both the shop owners and the buyers of local stores before getting implemented.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
This is a solution built for both consumers and the shopkeepers. We provide an effective solution for the credit issues faced by the consumers and shopkeepers and thus improving their standard of living. For the consumers, we have implemented a Buy Now Pay Later system facilitating convenient payments. This facility enables smooth payments/transactions in a way that even if they don’t have money they can purchase goods and services using the credit provided within our application. From the shop owner's perspective, this solution enables her/him to run the business conveniently and without any hustles as the payment to the shopkeeper is made as soon as the purchase is done. We also provide customized loans considering their customer base and business so that with these loans they can boost their business to higher levels. This platform also enables end-to-end tracking of the entire transactions using blockchain.
What we learned
While developing this project we could gather so much information and knowledge about various things. The fieldwork helped us to walk down the aisle of so many lives and to know more about the different levels of struggles and challenges faced by the shopkeepers and buyers in general. We learned more about Buy Now Pay Later services, different entities providing these services in various sectors,merits and demerits of the current credit system, hectic formalities, and documentation to access loans. We also understood the various possibilities of fast-growing technology such as Blockchain, Embedded finance, Banking As A Service, different APIs, etc in the financial sector.
What's next for Fundget
We would like to develop and scale up this product utilizing Finestra Apis which would enable a large customer segment to access personalized and paper-free loans and which facilitates end-to-end tracking of the entire transactions utilizing the benefits of a modern cutting edge technology, blockchain. Thus this would bring up revolutionary impacts in the entire retailing and consumer sector which is blooming like never before.
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