Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal are currently engaged in a war of words on Twitter.
The issue at hand is a user who ordered food on Zomato and paid via netbanking. Soon after placing his order, he got an SMS from Paytm referencing his exact order, and asking him to pay via the Paytm app.
I ordered food from @zomato and paid via net banking. Now I get this text from @Paytm. Is Zomato trading my order details with Paytm? WTF. pic.twitter.com/BtDzpXvg4x
— Shubhashish (@shubHASHISH) November 17, 2016
The user was understandably taken aback – he’d not dealt with Paytm during his entire transaction, yet he got a message from them about his order amount and the restaurant he’d ordered from. When brought up the issue on Twitter, Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma himself replied with an explanation.
@shubHASHISH @mehulved @deepigoyal
Restaurant uses sm 3rd party order management system & they sold the order confirmation inventory to us.— Vijay Shekhar (@vijayshekhar) November 17, 2016
Sharma seemed to imply is that Paytm purchased the “order confirmation inventory” from a third party order management system that the restaurant used. As such, Paytm immediately knew that the user had placed an order, and was able to target him with a relevant message.
The user, though, wasn’t happy with the explanation.
. @vijayshekhar I am sorry but this isn't squarely acceptable. You just bought data and bombarding people with texts who aren't using Paytm.
— Shubhashish (@shubHASHISH) November 17, 2016
At this point, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal joined in, and implied that Paytm shouldn’t be buying third party data to target users. He went on to say that Paytm’s tactics meant poor user experience for Zomato users, and Paytm shouldn’t “stoop” to the level of other companies which were engaged in similar practices.
@vijayshekhar @shubHASHISH @shakeyiyer @akm1410 sir. If someone is ready to sell their soul, doesn't mean that should buy it.
— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) November 17, 2016
@vijayshekhar @shubHASHISH @shakeyiyer @akm1410 this is poor user experience, our users are getting confused about payment options.
— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) November 17, 2016
@vijayshekhar @shubHASHISH @shakeyiyer @akm1410 so you will stoop to someone else's level? That's what this has come down to now? ??????
— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) November 17, 2016
Vijay Shekhar Sharma sought to smooth things over with a “Theek hai, Lay low bhaiya.”
@deepigoyal @shubHASHISH @shakeyiyer @akm1410
Theek hai, Lay low bhaiya.— Vijay Shekhar (@vijayshekhar) November 17, 2016
Deepinder Goyal, though was in no mood to relent, and clarified that Zomato had nothing to do with the message being sent.
@akm1410 @shubHASHISH @vijayshekhar We have nothing to do with paytm getting access to this data. Just clearing Zomato out here.
— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) November 17, 2016
While the Paytm CEO has said he’s going offline because it’s late in the timezone he’s in, the whole incident does raise a lot of questions. Deepinder Goyal thinks that Zomato isn’t at fault in the whole issue, but the order was placed on Zomato, and if the restaurant uses third-party merchants, shouldn’t it try to ensure that their data isn’t shared? And should Paytm be using data on other sites to send immediate, hyper-targeted messages to users? While the immediate conversation around this seem to have stopped, one senses the issue isn’t quite resolved.