ONDC To Open For Public By Early September: Shireesh Joshi

ONDC, the government’s open ecommerce ambition is likely to move on from the pilot phase and become available to the public by August end or early September. 

According to interaction with ET, Shireesh Joshi, CBO, ONDC, the network is days away from opening to the public. “We expect to go public by August end or early September. All the other organisations supporting ONDC are supporting us in this endeavour. It will be one city at a time. It may not even be an entire city.”

Currently, ONDC officials are focussing on improving customer experience, building ONDC-compatible tools for small sellers and weeding out challenges within the network.

The report quoted that the network is testing out multiple cart use cases to ensure that the experience flows consistently.

The move comes on the back of ONDC’s ambitious goal of reaching 100 cities, 30 Mn sellers and 10 Mn vendors by the end of 2022. It is currently up and running in 15 cities, with around 100 sellers.

Launched at the end of 2021, ONDC is a commerce ministry-led initiative that is spearheaded by former EY partner T Koshy. 

Notably, Koshy had also stated that the ecommerce netowrk would be opened for public use in 75-100 towns by August. “By August-September, we will start having a seed presence in at least about 75-100 towns and that will form the foundation on which the network will grow in an organic fashion. At that point, we will open up for the public at large in select cities,” he had said.

Open Ecommerce – Into The ONDC-Verse

The ONDC initiative aims to democratise digital commerce through an open network by empowering small merchants and retailers to join the $200 Bn ecommerce opportunity.

By integrating ONDC protocol within the backends, any consumer-facing app can turn into a marketplace, allowing users to shop products as well as services online. That is, ONDC aims at a UPI-style unbundling of digital commerce platforms by listing delivery partners, cab aggregators, restaurants and logistic providers, among others, under one registry and making it available to all those who join the protocol as a buyer app.

The ecommerce network will consist of two major components – the buyer app ecosystem and the seller app ecosystem. While consumer internet platforms such as Paytm, PhonePe and Microsoft have joined as buyer apps, seller marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart, Zepto and Blinkit, among others, have joined the seller app ecosystem.

As ONDC prepares to launch in August 2022 (or by early-September 2022) and reach 100 cities by the end of the year, it is reportedly in talks with 15+ platforms including Snapdeal and Shiprocket, to join the network. 

Some of the platforms that are in the advanced stages of joining the ONDC network are Kotak, PhonePe, Shiprocket, Snapdeal, Sonata, Zoho Ekart, and Bizom, among others. Further, HDFC Bank, IDBI Bank, SBI Bank, ICICI Bank, government-led postal system India Post and large Indian conglomerates such as ITC Store, Marico India, Nivea India, Delhivery and Airtel have also shown interest in joining the ONDC network. 

Reports also suggest that the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) plans to onboard its restaurants to the network. Inc42 also confirmed that the SME-body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) is likely to join ONDC by the end of 2022. 

As the ONDC ambition comes to a final launch, the onboarding of representatives of the retailer ecosystem is likely to catapult its vision of 30 Mn sellers. ONDC has also inked an MoU with the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) to collaboratively put efforts to help MSMEs access the open network ecommerce platform. If that was enough, recently, SoftBank and Sequoia India also advised their portfolio startups in India to join ONDC.