Journal of African Development

This study examines the adoption of digital payments, particularly the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), and its impact on retail sales performance and supply chain payment practices. The analysis uses primary data collected through structured surveys from 49 retailers and 39 distributors. The results indicate moderate adoption of digital payments among retailers: 67.3% reported that 25–50% of their customers use UPI, and 73.4% experienced either a slight or significant increase in sales after accepting UPI payments.A regression model was used to assess the relationship between digital payment usage and sales performance. The results show a positive coefficient for customer UPI usage (β1 = 0.63), suggesting that higher digital payment usage is associated with improved sales performance, although the relationship is statistically weak. The coefficient for distributor UPI acceptance (β2 = –0.13) is slightly negative, indicating that distributor digitalization currently has no significant measurable impact on retailer sales outcomes. The model’s explanatory power is limited (R² = 0.7).

In contrast, digital payment adoption among distributors remains low. 84.6% use mixed payment methods, while only 2.6% prefer UPI as their primary payment mode, highlighting a gap between digital payment adoption at the consumer–retailer level and within the retail supply chain