Reliance’s JioMart Testing ONDC, Might Join Soon

JioMart, the grocery platform owned by Reliance Jio, is reportedly testing the government’s Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), per a Mint report, as the platform might join the network soon.

The ONDC platform has been joined by a slew of startups including Paytm, PhonePe, Meesho, Delhivery, Dunzo, Zoho and others. Apart from them, Amazon and Flipkart might join the network soon, while international companies such as Microsoft have already onboarded.

According to a source cited by LiveMint, ONDC has around 300 companies in various stages of integration, while JioMart is still testing the waters. The person added that 5,000 merchants were already a part of ONDC.

Incidentally, this is Reliance’s second go at the digital commerce network. Last August, Reliance Retail-owned logistics platform Grab joined ONDC as a logistics provider, along with Delhivery and Dunzo.

JioMart is a platform that comes under the Reliance Jio umbrella of Reliance Industries Limited, which also houses the telco Jio, JioCinema, JioTV and other digital IPs.

The grocery delivery platform, which competes with Tata-owned BigBasket, Swiggy-owned Instamart and Zomato-owned Blinkit, provides its services through its website, mobile app and WhatsApp. In its earnings report earlier this month, JioMart said orders on WhatsApp were up 37% monthly.

ONDC, launched in late 2021, is the government’s flagship digital commerce network, built with the same principles as the United Payments Interface (UPI) for digital payments. Bringing ONDC, the government aims to break monopolies in India’s ecommerce industry by democratising the landscape for everyone. 

The network creates a common registry of buyers, sellers, logistics and tech providers, which is accessible to all stakeholders. This allows the government to prevent gatekeeping by big players.

While the network is still a work in progress, the first beta launch of ONDC happened in Bengaluru in September 2022. Since then, it has launched another beta in Meerut and is running alpha tests in 84 cities. Some of the cities hosting ONDC’s alpha testing include Noida, Faridabad, Lucknow, Bijnor, Bhopal, Chhindwara, Kolkata, Pune, Chennai and Kannur.

The government has set firm targets for ONDC’s adoption and success, as it envisions that the network would have 900 Mn buyers and 1.2 Mn sellers and achieve a gross merchandise value (GMV) of $48 Bn in the next two years.

To be sure, per multiple reports, India is set to have around 350 Mn online shoppers come 2025. However, a report by the think-tank Digital India Foundation said that ONDC may reach as many as 250 Mn users by 2027.

For now, the network is open-source and hence free to use. However, ONDC plans to charge a ‘small fee’ from users soon. This fee will contribute towards the ‘maintenance and development’ of the network, said the non-profit protocol’s managing director T Koshy during the unveiling of the office headquarters in Delhi in December.