ONDC Off To A Slow Start With 161 Orders On Day 1 In Bengaluru

The government’s ambitious digital commerce project, the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) went live in Bengaluru on September 30 across 16 pin codes in the city, attracting 161 orders across two categories – groceries and food & beverages.

Of the total orders placed, 55% were grocery orders while the rest were F&B orders, per figures from the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

The Ministry of Commerce said on the occasion, “ONDC’s beta test in the city of Bengaluru is a major first step in operationalising a network approach to e-commerce as an alternative to platform-centric approach. This will make the ecommerce landscape more inclusive, accessible and experience-driven for all consumers and sellers.”

Anil Agarwal, additional secretary of DPIIT, said, “ONDC is a government of India startup. We are looking forward to feedback from all stakeholders on all aspects of ONDC.”

The ministry added that more applications will join the network over the coming weeks, increasing the number of participants in the ONDC. The network aims to reach around 100 cities, 30 Mn sellers and 10 Mn vendors by the end of 2022.

“ONDC is not an application, platform, intermediary, or software, but a set of specifications designed to foster open, unbundled, and interoperable open networks thereby eliminating the dependency on a single platform,” the Ministry of Commerce added.

ONDC Order Breakup

Several companies were part of the beta testing start of the network. Buyer-facing apps including Paytm, IDFC First Bank, SpiceMoney and Mystore are working as a gateway for online shopping.

Paytm saw the most orders with 88, followed by IDFC First Bank with 42, Mystore with 16 and SpiceMoney with 15. Of the 161 orders placed on the first day, 59 were delivered while the rest were being processed as of September 30, 2022, 5:30 PM IST.

Further, seller apps participating in the ONDC’s launch in Bengaluru included Bizom, Digiit, e-Samudaay, eVitalrx, Go Frugal, Growth Falcons, Innobits Mystore, nStore, SellerApp, Ushop, and Uengage.

Dunzo, Loadshare and Shiprocket are providing logistics services to the ONDC. The government’s Protean eGov Technologies Ltd (Formerly NSDL e-Gov) is providing payment gateway services. To tie everything together, NowFloats and Plotch are offering technology services.

While the ONDC’s senior management has stated repeatedly that it won’t compete with the likes of Amazon and Flipkart, it is still poised to bring over a significant chunk of India’s ecommerce users once it goes fully operational.

India’s ecommerce market is expected to become a $400 Bn opportunity by 2030, per an Inc42 report.

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