survive isolation, turn your business into an e-commerce
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Contxto – Fintech startups have taken cards into helping small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) cope with their customer slowdowns due to coronavirus (Covid-19). And now Brazilian unicorn EBANX has taken that method to the next level.
Last week it announced the launch of EBANX Beep. Thanks to this platform, any shop or service provider becomes an online vendor.
One increasingly common approach is by hosting SMEs on an online voucher system. Through these platforms, users can pre-purchase items from shops or restaurants. After Covid-19 eases up and these locales open, users can pick up their purchased goods. But EBANX is also opening up a place for service providers hurt by consumer downturns.
- Related article: Might your favorite restaurants not survive quarantine? Brazilian fintech, Cora, may help you save them
Through this initiative, the fintech hopes to help businesses and individuals alike better cope with this global pandemic.
EBANX Beep turns anything into an e-commerce
Any business owner or self-employed person can sign up and use EBANX Beep for free (huzzah!) here. Naturally, the system will allow for electronic payments through the startup’s payment processor, EBANX Pay. The only small catch is that the fintech charges a 4.9 percent fee for every transaction carried out on it.
To benefit from this solution, EBANX requires users to sign up and then indicate the products or services they wish to sell online. Goods can be sold and delivered prior to the pandemic winding down, or be obtainable later on through vouchers.
Likewise, the fintech is looking to buddy up with logistics providers to help its platform users with the delivery of their goods.
Prior to its launch, the platform underwent testing with around 400 participants selling all kinds of goods and services from pizzas to singers waiting to be hired for your next social event.
What I find particularly refreshing about EBANX’s approach is that it’s also opening a digital place for the self-employed to receive a cash injection.
No doubt hairstylists, manicurists, singers, and other service providers are also suffering as their customers withdraw into their homes.
Indeed, Covid-19 is forcing everyone to adopt digital solutions to survive. But we can also view it as a push into more financial inclusion. On a hopeful note, despite the pandemic, this fintech is opening a new channel for these businesses and individuals to continue operating.
Can you think of another way to innovate the voucher system for SMEs and the self-employed?
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-ML
