Minko.app

We are launching a special program called ‘Minko Stars’ to help a selected group of shop owners double their business.

How will we double their business?

Inventory management, Cash flow and capital management, Customer Success Management – These are 3 key pillars to the success of a retail business and large companies have access to tons of MBAs trained in these areas to run them efficiently.

The stand alone retailer who has been running his shop for a while also knows a lot of these concepts – It’s also referred to as ‘dhanda karna aana‘ or loosely translated as having business sense to run a business.

 

What we do is help shop owners get access to knowledge and training on new technologies and concepts by which they can serve existing customers better, and get new customers by word-of-mouth.

Take for example Whatsapp – There are a set of very powerful APIs released by Whatsapp which are currently being used by big businesses. However, the same technology can be used by small shop owners in Tier 2 and Tier 3 India to grow their business too via this flow:

1. Taking orders via Whatsapp from local customers
2. Deliver in 10 to 15 mins via their helper,
3. Accept payments via Whatsapp or UPI

Like this, there are many ways we can help local shop owners become more customer focussed, use capital efficiently and double their earnings.

If you want to apply for the program, please click here

At Minko, we help over 10,000+ retailers and small shop owners in India grow their business through our Smart Income and Credit products.

Our ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Smart Credit app allows a small shop owner to easily take credit in 3 taps from our mobile app and pay any of his suppliers he regularly buys goods from, for his shop.

 

A retailer can earn more, when there is additional demand during various seasons and festivals, he can buy more goods in advance and sell more. And earn more.

He could take a loan for a week, pay 50paise in interest and then earn a margin of 10% on those goods sold. Basically if he buys goods worth Rs 100 on credit, he will pay interest cost of just 50 paise, but he will earn 10% in margin. That’s a phenomenal use of leverage.

I say could because earlier, no bank in India will give a shop owner a loan for Rs 25,000 for 7 days – Just processing the paperwork will take more than that.

 

He can now do that very easily with the Minko app.

Once onboarded, he can see all invoices from his suppliers and easily get credit in 3 taps – We will pay his supplier directly and he gets the goods delivered to his shop. Once he has made the money, he pays us easily via UPI.

All done digitally with no human intervention required.

 

Our smart LMS (loan management system) identifies credit worthy buyers ( even if they have no formal credit bureau score) and helps them become more credit worthy. Since these are end-use-case known loans, the default rate is practically nil compared to unsecured personal loans.

 

This was for those retailers who need credit.

There are also those retailers who have good cash flow management and hence don’t need credit.

Infact, they sometimes have surplus cash which earns them no interest as it’s lying in their shop drawer or idle in their bank account.

We can also help them earn.

We have partnerships with distributors who offer cash discounts of upto 2% on same day payment when the order is received. Our app allows both distributors( to easily give the cash discount) and retailers / shop owners (to avail the cash discounts) via our app.

Before Minko, a lot shop owners were not even aware when a particular distributor was offering a cash discount.

 

Basically, the answer to the question “What do retailers and shop owners across India need?” is in 2 parts:

1.) Access to Capital – We have solved this for them

2.) More Local Customers – We are now solving this for them.

Stay tuned for some of our upcoming products including

• The Minko QR code – to accept payments for free (No more paying 1% commission to Paytm or PhonePe)
• Minko Rewards – They can get cashbacks on regular usage of QR code and get special cash discounts and deals from companies
• Whatsapp QR Code – This will enable them to get more customers who live locally within a 2-5 km radius

 

We would love hear your thoughts on what else you think retailers or shop owners in India need?

 

Do you run a shop, or know someone in the family who does, or maybe even your friendly local shopkeeper who you might like to help grow their business? Please share their details

Nice to meet you. And thank you for stopping by on our blog.

We are Minko and we help millions of shop owners across India get more clients, and grow their business.

How do we do that, you might ask?

If you are a shop owner or related to someone who owns a shop, we invite you to download our app and experience what we can do to help owners earn more money. Click here to download our app.

We are also hiring and have openings across departments. We invite you to apply via our Careers page if you are a self starter, and looking to do something interesting and challenging in the next phase of your career.

We hire for attitude as we believe skills can be easily acquired – A growth mindset is more important than anything else at Minko – We don’t really care which school you went to, whether you graduated or where you live in India.

Enter your email id if you would like to stay in touch. If there is anything else please do get in touch with us.

Till we meet again, be well. फिर मिलेंगे