Whether you’re a small-time seller operating out of a bedroom or a huge MNC with dealings that span continents, cash flow is an important part of keeping your business alive.
Selling anything usually comes with an upfront cost. You’d often have to cover the price of the materials, production, stock, marketing, and handling on your own first, especially if you’re a smaller business or a social seller.
If you’re using a payment gateway, when you don’t have large reserves to draw back on you’d want to be able to get access to payments from customers quickly.
Otherwise, you could end up with difficulties for funds when it comes to getting and producing new stock, paying staff, and other overhead costs.
“To help our clients have a healthy cash flow, we transfer the settlement proceeds to our clients the next business day, which is almost unheard of for an online transaction,” said Baskar Subramanian, the CEO of mobi.
mobi is the creator of EZYLINK, a cashless and contactless payment solution that enables businesses big or small to accept payments anywhere and anytime.
A quick check of some of the larger players and ewallet partners showed us that the industry norm leans towards 5-7 days for the settlement transfers, with the exception of ewallets set up by banks. So we can see why a next day transfer could be an attractive value proposition to smaller businesses.
According to mobi, they said that the funds are drawn from their wallets first and sent to the customers because they believe cashflow is critical during these difficult times. The funds will then be released to mobi much later.
Selling With A Single Link
Simply put, EZYLINK is a payment link that businesses can send to their customer via email, SMS or even WhatsApp as a prompt for payment. The transaction can be completed in just a few easy steps:
- Open up the mobi app (Get it here on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store),
- Key-in the amount you want to charge your customer,
- Enter the details, and click on EZYLINK
- mobi will then send the link via WhatsApp to the number or email you provided instantaneously,
- The customer gets the link and keys in their banking details,
- Transaction complete.
To get started with EZYLINK, there will be a RM100 setup fee. And there will be additional charges when a customer checks out through EZYLINK.
Depending on your needs, payment transfers can be done to both business or personal accounts.
You might wonder about the reliability of a completely new platform. However, EZYLINK is not mobi’s first rodeo in payment solutions.
Stepping Up In The Hard Times
Before the MCO hit, mobi focused on helping hotels streamline their payment process, but because of the current situation, the tourism industry has been hit hard from the drop in footfall and lack of travellers.
As soon as the MCO was announced, the mobi team realised that they had to pivot and focus on a different market. It took the team 7 days to launch their new payment solution, EZYLINK to the masses.
Baskar told us that the team had to design the user interface, the backend services and modify the mobile app to fit this new business strategy. The team also had to endure long hours of work to get it up and running—with tests being done on the fly too.
They understand that a lot of businesses will be going through tough times and even potentially letting go of some of their staff just to stay afloat. mobi predicts that social commerce or C2C commerce will rise even more post-COVID-19.
So far, more than 100 businesses have signed up for EZYLINK in the past 3 weeks, with more businesses signing up daily.
“We have made it simple for businesses to apply and get this service. Our aim is for businesses to apply and start using EZYLINK the same day.”
However, Baskar notes that the average time for businesses to get online is within one or two days, which he says is still one of the fastest in the industry.
Life After The MCO
Baskar believes that the MCO won’t be fully lifted in its entirety, as he predicts that it’ll exist in different forms and intensity and become a way of life until a vaccine is found.
“EZYLINK is an answer for businesses who want to maintain social distancing while conducting their business. Even after the MCO is relaxed, would one want to wave or tap their card [to a terminal] that would have been accessed by hundreds or thousands of people?”
mobi is not entirely abandoning hotels from their business. They see EZYLINK as a way to help local businesses tide over the MCO and beyond.
It could even allow businesses to explore markets they’ve never thought of as they can use EZYLINK for international customers as well.
After all, with the economic struggle predicted to come ahead, having access to different and wider markets could be a key advantage many businesses would want to grasp.
- To get more info on EZYLINK, drop by their Facebook here. Alternatively, you can visit their website here.
- Register for EZYLINK here.
Featured Image Credit: mobi
