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A comment on Launch HN: Swipe (YC S21) – Simple Billing and Accounting for India.

Re:Launch HN: Swipe (YC S21) – Simple Billing and Accounting... by sirius87 on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @06:23AM (#27982194)
Congrats on the launch!

I experienced ordering medicines over Whatsapp for the first time from the local store in Mumbai a few weeks ago. Discussing order items and them checking drawers was a PITA, so I just called them to get it done. There often is no inventory management system - it's a manual check.

It was easy to tell that the person at the store didn't quite grasp how things worked around online payment, just that they knew how to follow instructions someone had given them.

1. Generate physical invoice manually

2. Send customer a pic of the invoice over Whatsapp to reconfirm order items and total amount

3. Send customer a pic of the physical panel w/ QR code from payment provider over Whatsapp

4. Wait for SMS from bank account confirming amount paid

5. Dispatch order

https://m.imgur.com/sssuU2e

Not quite there in terms of sending UPI "collect requests" or digital invoices, but it works! Receiving a picture of a QR code was a bit odd but you can easily get around that.

This space is definitely exciting, and you can already see the impact digital payments are having on small biz. Good luck, and change the world!

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Re:Launch HN: Swipe (YC S21) – Simple Billing and Accounting... by adityadsr5 on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @07:15AM (#27982492)
Absolutely spot on.

This is the pain point we are addressing.

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Re:Launch HN: Swipe (YC S21) – Simple Billing and Accounting... by abhishekbasu on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @11:30AM (#27984985)
Pardon me if I'm not thinking about this in the right way, but how would you hold the store owner accountable for refreshing or updating their catalogue on the app if they don't already use an inventory management system for purchasing and re-stocking? Isn't that a huge shift in behavior?
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Re:Launch HN: Swipe (YC S21) – Simple Billing and Accounting... by sudhirj on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @11:49AM (#27985227)
What normally happens is that availability is a boolean yes/no, and gets set to no when the first person asks for something that's run out. The merchant then sets it back to yes after stock comes in. That's a lot less work than integration ERP systems, and achieves the same result with the collateral damage to a few customers' experiences.
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