Holding an MBS in IT from Ulyanovsk State Technical University, Pravin, in his decade long career, was associated with Euronet Worldwide and Vtalkers, prior to joining ePaisa in 2019.

By now, we all know that things are moving really fast with the COVID-19 pandemic. The novel COVID 19 is caused by the contagious corona virus, affecting both the global economy and health. Many counties are acting to contain the viral spread through mass closures of businesses and orders to stay inside the home. The pandemic has presented fresh challenges for the country’s economy, causing a severe disruptive impact on both demand and supply-side elements, which has the potential to derail the growth story. Businesses are finding it challenging to cope with their day-to-day operations.

With new positive cases every day in most of the countries across Asia, Middle East and Europe, COVID-19 has become one of the major concerns for all. Governments of all the countries are taking extra steps and precautions to control the rapid spread of the virus. One of the extreme steps is the lockdown of more & more countries to prevent the spread of corona virus, with growing concerns about how to deal with the economic crisis caused by this major slowdown in productivity, particularly on small businesses.

India is in Phase-II currently, and if we don’t stop transmissions, we have to brace ourselves for the worst situation. Everything came to a halt after our PM Narendra Modi announced the world’s largest lockdown on 24 March, asking 1.3 billion Indians to stay home for 21 days to slow the spread of COVID-19. People have been advised to practice social distancing from one another to help stop the spread of infections, delay the transmission and reduce the size of the outbreak. But this has already started to impact the economy of the country, especially, the small business sectors such as grocery stores, kirana shops, SMEs, MMEs and all type of retailers globally.

During this tough time, where the virus spreads through touch, only digital business solutions can help these business sectors to continue their day-to-day tasks in the best way possible. POS Solutions have been helping many such businesses grow digitally through most of its features. Through POS solution such as ePaisa, business owners and managers are monitoring daily digital reports from anywhere remotely without any social touch. The

feature is helping them to map business growth by providing access to reports on sales, items, and customers, all in one neat summary for any date range. The merchant can access real-time data from anywhere by running the business as a location-neutral activity.

Not only that, the inventory management feature allows the staff and business owners to track stock availability. After a certain percent of the sale of that product, they receive a notification for the number of stock available on a real-time basis, thus helping them to continue with the increasing product demand.

Merchants and retailers who already have POS, are accepting card and QR payments from the buyers for quick billing, thus avoiding one-to-one touch, huge gathering and long queues

Lately, the Government of India is also urging the citizens to avoid cash transactions. One of the important features of any POS solution is the acceptance of digital payment. Merchants and retailers who already have POS, are accepting card and QR payments from the buyers for quick billing, thus avoiding one-to-one touch, huge gathering and long queues.

The cash register feature helps to simplify the billing process, so that you get paid on time. Item modifiers enable you to easily add, adjust item quantities or apply discounts at the point of sale. On the other hand, the buyers receive a paperless receipt against their purchase. All these features are serving as an alternative to manual work, preventing any social connection and also saving time.

Most of the merchants have increased the use of these features to fasten their day-to-day process, since they prefer keeping their shops and stores open for a limited time with extremely less staff or helpers. We still get merchants’ query and our customer service is helping them in the best possible way.

The panic around COVID-19 spread has led to basic necessities flying-off shop shelves. Again, due to word-of-mouth and less awareness, retailers who mostly deal with consumer products and grocery shops are witnessing a lot of panic buying happening, with crowd gathering for purchase, which is not safe for anyone present there. But this is likely to continue for at least one or two weeks more; so a systematic approach through technology or cloud-based business solutions like POS would be advisable to these business sectors.

It is also advisable to buy enough groceries for a week and not hoard, as the government has assured a regular and seamless supply of essential items. In the coming days, coronavirus outbreak will change how we shop, travel and work, with people being more cautious, and I think that is best for the human race.