Publication - The Hindu Business Line
Edition - Online
Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), an initiative of the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce, has gone Beta live in five additional cities of Mumbai, Delhi NCR (including Noida, Gurgaon and Faridabad), Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. This was done post the seller apps density had scaled up in these cities. The main objective of going Beta live is to allow consumers to experience the open network for the first time, collect real-time feedback, and test the network at scale before the pan-India rollout. Bengaluru and Meerut were chosen for the Beta live in September 2022 and December 2022, respectively. The network is now accessible to buyers (consumers) and sellers in these additional five cities. “Consumers will be able to purchase from the sellers on the ONDC network through four active buyer applications — Paytm, Mystore, Spice Money, and Magicpin,” the official statement added. T Koshy, MD and CEO, ONDC, said, “We started with Bengaluru and Meerut and now have a sizable number of sellers, enough to extend the network to other cities. We hope that with this Beta announcement, more and more businesses will be inclined to join us, benefiting from an early-mover advantage. Additionally, as we touch more consumer territories, it also gives us the insights and opportunities to improve the network.” Last month, Koshy said that he hoped the network would see one lakh daily transactions. Currently, the network has 40,000+ sellers live in 200+ cities, out of which 18,000+ sellers operate from these five cities. ONDC had its alpha rollout in April 2022 in five cities to test live transactions with a closed group of sellers and buyers while gradually expanding its footprint.
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