Company Overview
Rupifi, a leading fintech platform, offers retailers credit lines across wholesale marketplaces like Walmart (Flipkart Wholesale), Nurturefarm, and ApnaKlub via an embedded checkout feature. This solution allows retailers to easily purchase on these platforms using the 'Pay by Rupifi' option. Rupifi wanted to extend the credit line to more users and also understand how to improve the experience of existing retailers. The credit penetration in India, even among SMEs is a very small number compared to markets like the US and China. Rupifi aims to bridge this credit gap and empower the SMEs to grow without limitations.
5.5%
Credit Card Penetration
in India - Jan 2024
1 25 K+
SMEs powered by
Rupifi Credit Line
14%
MSME Credit Penetration
in India - Jan 2024
150+
Partner Suppliers on
Rupifi Platform
$530 B
MSME Credit Gap
in India - Jan 2024
$700 M+
Credit Disbursed via
Rupifi Credit Line
Role & Team
As the Head of Design at Rupifi I take the lead on 0 to 1 products like this. We also worked very closely with the company leadership to design and develop this product.
Sr. UX Designer
Gnaneshwar Reddy
Sr. Product Managers
Bakul Agarwal
Swati Tripathi
Product Analyst
Sumit Saurabh
Engineering Team
Sumit Arora
Sourabh Tote
Surabhi Sharma
Rishav Das
Market Research
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted confidential information from this section. The information presented here is my own and indicate key learning from the research.
Back in October 2022, we conducted a market research to understand our users better. We talked to hundreds of retailers, distributors and brands to understand how the SME market works.
We especially focused on understanding the offline sales cycle of products from brands to distributors to retailers to end-customers. We tried to understand how it varies across different product segments (credit vs cash and carry), yet remain so similar.
974
Retailers Interviewed
via Phone Call + Visits
23
Distributors Interviewed
via Video Call + in Person
8
Brands Interviewed
via Video Call + in Person
User Pain Points vs Use Cases
Insights - Market Research
Distributors and retailers in industries like pharma, FMCG, and HORECA face significant challenges in managing credit, payment reconciliation, visibility of transactions, and maintaining cash flow. Distributors struggle with liquidity risk, collection pains, and limitations on credit expansion, while retailers face insufficient credit, reconciliation issues, and lack of consolidated visibility across payments. The key insights are -
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Retailer
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Limited Credit Access: Retailers often do not receive sufficient credit from either Rupifi or distributors, forcing cash-based transactions.
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Visibility Challenges: Both distributors and retailers lack a comprehensive view of invoices, payments, dues, and credit balances.
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Cash & carry puts a limit on what they can buy and how much they can buy
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Don't have the ability to repay early and reduce the interest they are paying
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Can I use my credit limit on Rupifi across multiple distributors who are present on the Rupifi ecosystem
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Can I use my Rupifi credit limit to pay distributors outside the Rupifi ecosystem?
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Accountant
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Spends 2 hours everyday in reconciling bank statements against invoices for marking payments received in ERP
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Spends around an hour in creating & sharing reports with sales team to follow up on pending payments
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Sales Team
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Spends around 20% of their time in collecting payments on outstanding invoices from retailers
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Dependency on accounting/finance team to know how much payment is pending from which retailer
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Distributor
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Low visibility into receivables due to non user-friendly accounting/ERP products
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Losing out on critical bandwidth of team members that can be used for core business
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70-80% of distributor liquidity is locked due to credit transactions, limiting growth opportunities.
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Insights from Competitor Analysis
We conducted a detailed competitor and product gap analysis of 7 companies who are leaders in the market. Our key insights are as follows -
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Cash discounts for making early repayment
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View and manage your credit line via WhatsApp
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Automatic reminders for payment
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Integration with ERPs like Tally
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Distributors can see real-time business insights
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Distributors can see the available credit limits of retailers and prompt them to purchase items
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Minimal or no paperwork and physical visits by sales/executives
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Collect payments faster
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Same day settlements
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Can be used as a POS machine replacement
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Detailed reports and analytics
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Multi-language support
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Availability of business loans & invoice discounting
Objectives & Goals
The goal of Rupifi Payments is to digitize and streamline the payment collection and reconciliation process, offering flexible credit options like Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), and to address both distributor and retailer pain points effectively.
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Digitize Payment Collection: Enable seamless payments using BNPL and other modes, providing a better experience for retailers and addressing the liquidity challenges of distributors.
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Improve Credit Access: Expand credit options and optimize usage by allowing split payments and early repayments.
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Increase Visibility: Provide a consolidated view for both distributors and retailers on outstanding payments, invoices, due dates, and credit balances.
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Facilitate Reconciliation: Automate and simplify the reconciliation process to minimize manual efforts and risks associated with payment mismatches.
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Accountant:
We can reduce this manual reconciliation effort by providing an automatic bill by bill reconciliation
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Sales Team:
We can reduce the collections effort of sales team so that their time is well spent on expanding the business by providing automatic payment reminders and reports
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Distributor:
Visibility into overall business on any given day - how much is outstanding, how much is overdue
Design Solution
The main ideology that we followed at Rupifi was to Build Fast and Perfect Later. This enabled us to quickly create solutions, deploy them to a small set of users(beta test), and then use the learning to further improve the solution and release it for the wider audience.
Features of Rupifi Payments
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Flexible Payment Options:
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Multiple Payment Methods: BNPL, UPI, Net Banking, Split Payments, and combinations of credit options tailored to each invoice to accommodate different user needs.
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Single Payment Link for Multiple Invoices: Retailers can receive a consolidated payment link to settle multiple invoices, simplifying the payment process.
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Improved Credit Access:
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Credit Line Visibility: Retailers can see their credit balance, available limits, and repayment schedules in a single view.
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Credit Behavior Recognition: Integrating credit history from other Rupifi distributors to influence current credit limits positively.
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Reconciliation Automation:
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Automated Reconciliation: Payment statuses are updated automatically in the Rupifi Dashboard, and WhatsApp integration enables quick confirmation messages after payments are made.
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PDC Management: Simplified tracking, reminders, and status updates for post-dated cheques to reduce manual errors and bounced cheques.
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Enhanced Visibility:
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Single View Dashboard: Retailers and distributors get a comprehensive dashboard that displays invoices, payment statuses, due dates, and outstanding balances in one place.
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Early Repayment Options: Retailers can choose which invoices to pay early if they have surplus funds, with the flexibility to allocate payments as needed.
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Prototyping and Testing
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Wireframes & Low-Fidelity Prototypes: Created initial wireframes for payment flow, including multi-invoice payment links, credit line visibility, and automated reconciliation features.
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User Testing: Conducted usability tests with 3 distributors and retailers to gather insights into how they interact with the new features.
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User Feedback:
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Distributors: Appreciated the reduced effort in managing payment reconciliation and the flexibility in credit management.
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Retailers: Valued the ability to split payments, see credit limits clearly, and the “Remind Me Later” option for due dates.
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Iterations: Enhanced the user interface to include options for early repayment and consolidated payment views based on retailer feedback .
Confirming the technical feasibility of creating a bridge between Rupifi database and a major ERP used by distributors was key to the project. We were able to confirm that we can develop a plug-in for Tally (the most popular ERP used by our distributors) which can FETCH data as well as WRITE data into the Tally of the distributor.
Rupifi Pay Later x Tally
Final Design - Distributor Dashboard
Tally Plug-in & Sync Status
The Accountant of the distributor can download and install the Tally plug-in from their store. By connecting the Tally plug-in to their Rupifi Payments account, any invoice or payments recorded against a customer in either system gets sycned. This also allows us to send automated notifications to retailers based on the due dates.
Bulk Upload
A simplified bulk upload feature was also created which allows any distributor to manage retailer payments using Rupifi Payments, even if they don't use any ERP or use ERPs other than Tally.
Invoices
This section provides visibility of all invoices to the distributor as well as upcoming dues and collection statuses. They can manage the order and track the payment for each invoice. They can also create new invoices and the coomunication will automatically triggered to the customer's WhatsApp.
Payments
All payments received to the distributors account can be tracked here.
Customers
This view helps the distributor track each of their customers and gives them a quick view of their current outstanding, due date, BNPL balance, sales manager etc.
Final Design - Retailers
Paying for Multiple Invoices
If there are multiple outstanding invoices, the retailer can select all of them and pay for them completely or partially via this flow. The payment will be adjusted to the invoices in FIFO order.
Split Payment for Invoices
If the retailer doesn't have enough balance in their credit account, they can choose to do split payment. This allows them to pay for invoices partially using the avaialble credit and remaining amount from their own bank account (can pay via cards, UPI, net banking).
Learnings, Results & Impact
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Credit Behavior Matters:
Recognizing good payment behavior across different distributors improves retailer trust and credit utilization.
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Automation is Essential:
Automated reconciliation and PDC tracking reduced human errors and increased operational efficiency.
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Unified Visibility Drives Adoption:
Both retailers and distributors valued having a single dashboard to track payments and credit, leading to faster adoption of the platform.
160+
Distributors
3000+
Retailers
57%
Credit Utilisation
$0.1 M
Revenue Generated
86%
Increase in on-time payments of invoices & 62% increase in on-time repayments
This reduced the overdue payments and made sure distributors had high liquidity
75%
Reduction in manual reconciliation efforts
This saved accountants upto 10.5 hours weekly
Next Steps
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Launch of Reports Section:
The distributors wanted the ability to download their business data as reports so that it can be shared with CAs as well as can be used for analysis. -
Sales Manager View:
Distributors wanted to have a view of all their Sales Managers and deep dicve into them to understand how they can optimise their costs and better use their resources. -
New Header for Retailer View:
It was observed that some retailers were facing risk because the payment links were manually forwarded by distributors and there were manual errors in the link. Having the retailer information at the top of the page ensures that retailers don't end up making payments to the wrong invoices. -
Sales Manager Reports:
Automated reports will be sent to the Sales Managers to help them understand retailer ledgers and take actions where necessary. -
Expand Cross-Distributor Credit Integration:
Recognize retailer credit behavior across a wider network for better credit profiling. -
ERP Integration:
Fully integrate Rupifi Payments with popular ERPs to further streamline reconciliation. -
Introduce AI-Powered Insights:
Implement predictive analytics to help distributors forecast cash flow and identify potential credit risks. -
Enhanced WhatsApp Features:
Expand WhatsApp functionality to include customer support and distributor catalogue. -
Add Dispute Management System:
Provide retailers and distributors with tools to manage invoice disputes seamlessly within the dashboard
