ONDC services are to go live in Delhi followed by Mumbai

• Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is an innovative platform that allows local vendors to sell online and get products delivered to their doorstep. 
• This initiative was undertaken by the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPI). 
• The service is currently available in Bangalore and will expand this month into Delhi followed by Mumbai. 

What is ONDC?

Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is a network-based open protocol. It is an innovative platform that will enable the local commerce of various segments such as grocery, food order and delivery, travel, and hotel booking to be discovered and engaged by any network-enabled application.

This noble initiative was undertaken by the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPI) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to address the growing demands of the Indian consumer.

The rise of online shopping in India

The government picked up on the raging winds of online shopping in our country before taking this step to launch ONDC. Although one can understand the situation of online commerce in the country without going into the statistics, India was noted as one of the biggest online shoppers bases on multiple studies.

The e-commerce market in the country is estimated to be at 40 billion dollars by the end of the month and is expected to reach 50 billion dollars by the end of 2022.

According to a study by Flipkart, India could soon replace the United States of America as the country with the second-largest online shopping base behind China. Around 190 million Indians shopped online in 2021 alone and this number is estimated to grow even further.

In the year 2021, almost 45 million online shoppers were added and about 60% of those shoppers are from Tier 2 cities or lower.

Festive seasons are notably a time when we see a very big boost in online shopping. Sites such as Flipkart, Amazon, and Meesho break all their previous records during this time. During the big billion sales this year Flipkart gained more than 10-15 times their business during their normal tenure.

The growth chart for ONDC

The main aim of the launch of the ONDC protocol is to not only curb the birth of digital monopolies but also to support micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

This is a blessing for small traders to get on such online platforms and push their businesses further. In today’s world online business has taken over like a storm and nobody would trade the comfort of things getting delivered to their doorstep by the push of a button for anything.

ONDC is set to go live in some of the selected areas in our capital followed by Mumbai.

This beta program was first made public in Bengaluru in around 16 selected pin codes and by the mid of November, the people of Delhi will be able to avail of the services and place orders for groceries.

According to the plans set in place for ONDC, users will be able to order other products such as electronic gadgets and beauty products by the end of this year.

Currently, the delivery partners of this government-backed initiative are LoadShare and Dunzo. Sources close to this project added that Ekart, Ecom Express, and Grab are also in line and will be working from November to meet the customer needs.