ONDC To Improve Inclusion, Ecommerce Penetration: CBO Shireesh Joshi

The idea behind the creation of the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) was not just recreating transactions, but to improve inclusion and ecommerce penetration in the country, its chief business officer Shireesh Joshi said on the second day of Inc42’s ‘The D2C Summit 3.0’.

The conversation revolved around the genesis, need and motto of ONDC. Joshi said that the ecommerce sector evolved after the onset of pandemic, leading to ideation of ONDC.

“It [ONDC] was much more than recreating transaction, it would actually create inclusion and a lot of ecommerce penetration,” Joshi said about the network’s objective.

The makers banked on the success stories of NPCI’s UPI and Aadhar’s biometrics and vaccination drive and decided that they could create an ‘unbundling’ offering for the ecommerce ecosystem as well.

“We knew that it was possible to create a secure digital infrastructure that allowed two parties to transact. And so, it was the idea to just simply take that same principle to ecommerce,” Joshi said during the session.

Earlier also, officials have called the open network a protocol. It is not a super app or a competitor to the existing ecommerce platforms. It just aims to bring all sellers (offline and online) together to interoperably sell on every consumer-facing platform.

Joshi said that ONDC may also help in ‘outdating’ the current ecommerce infrastructure and its ‘closed’ network practices.

The idea is to build what the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) built in terms of UPI. Now, UPI counts more than $10 Bn worth of digital payments monthly. 

ONDC aims to generate 3 Bn orders per month, bring 15 Bn neighbourhood shops online, sign up 900 Mn digital buyers, and reach a gross merchandise value (GMV) of $48 Bn over the next five years after opening to the public.

While ecommerce giants Amazon and Flipkart together hold over 60% share in the ecommerce market consisting of 190 Mn online shoppers, ONDC aims to digitise at least 40%-50% of the total retail segment in the country in the next five years.

As ONDC is expected to change the online shopping experience, there is already a lot of interest in its working and operations. However, the network is expected to face some challenges in the initial period and evolve over time. 

‘The D2C Summit 3.0’ saw discussions on a variety of topics – the changes in the ecommerce sector, the rise of D2C brands,  ways to turn a D2C brand profitable, among others. If you missed out on the sessions of the two-day summit, you can watch the recordings.