BENGALURU: From just 1,000 transactions a day in March, last week, the food and grocery domain on the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) has witnessed 20,000 transactions.
ONDC CEO T Koshy told this newspaper that with many players entering the space, the number of transactions on the open network have increased, and this will continue in other domains - grocery and mobility- too. The food and grocery space on the open network started functioning from January this year. Already, the mobility space is gaining significant transactions with the launch of Namma Yatri, which integrated with ONDC, in Bengaluru.
“We are operating in two cities- Bengaluru and Kochi- in the mobility domain, and we are already seeing 35,000 rides a day,” he said. According to him, these are early stages and that whenever seller applications join the network, there will be huge transactions. Recently, Magicpin joined the network and became the largest restaurant aggregator with many restaurants being onboarded.
With more sellers joining the food and grocery space, the price war is continuing, and it is expected that this will continue in ecommerce and other domains in the coming months. When asked about it, Koshy said it is an open network and that each one- buyers and sellers will have different strategies. “ONDC brings efficiency and innovation,” he said.
The platform now has over 35,000 merchants and of which about 65% are operating in the food space. Rural fintech company Spice Money is one of the early buyer side apps to join the network. Its co-founder, ED and CEO Sanjeev Kumar told TNIE that this is a big opportunity for small players as ONDC is democratising e-commerce.
“Consumers will have a bigger price range to choose from and in the long-term, hyperlocal logistics prices will reduce, “Kumar said. With huge opportunities in the ecommece space, there is space for both big and small merchants. According to industry experts, ONDC is not charging right now but might do so in future. Meesho integrated with ONDC in November last year to help connect buyers with hyperlocal sellers.