ONDC will begin beta testing in portions of Delhi on November 28, with an emphasis on food delivery
- ByStartupStory | November 11, 2022
Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is preparing a similar launch in sections of Delhi-NCR on November 28, almost two months after beginning its beta testing phase in Bengaluru. According to a number of sources close to the development, the emphasis would be on South and Central Delhi, where the most important government offices, officials, and ministers dwell. “Details about the launch are still being worked out, and after November 15 there will be more clarity on the matter.” Another round of early testing might begin on November 20, while the beta launch is scheduled for November 28,” said a source with knowledge of the situation. “While the emphasis of the Bengaluru launch was on groceries, meal delivery would be the top priority in Delhi,” he said.
After the beta phase, which might occur in late January or early February, ONDC is reportedly working diligently to transition to a more widespread and expansive launch. This may include senior ministers and government personnel. In Delhi, there will be two groups of participants for the beta launch. Paytm on the buyer side; SellerApp, eSamudaay, Digiit, Ushop, GrowthFalcons, and GoFrugal on the seller side; Loadshare and Dunzo as logistics service providers; SellerApp, eSamudaay, Digiit, Ushop, GrowthFalcons, and GoFrugal. In addition, additional participants are anticipated to join the Delhi launch, including IDFC, Kotak, Spice Money, CraftsVilla, and Mystore on the buyer side; Innobits, Uengage, Bizom, and Nstore on the seller side; and Shiprocket as the logistics service provider.
About ONDC
After the beta testing debut in October, ONDC participants have been handling 50 to 60 orders per day in Bengaluru, according to sources close to the situation. During this period, the network has resolved a number of early technical obstacles, such as the inability of applications to reply to the protocol or to monitor the position of orders. “This expertise will facilitate a much smoother beta launch in Delhi. In addition, early adopters of a prior version of the protocol have migrated to a new and improved version that was released in August, according to a source familiar with the situation.
SellerApp, a company that onboards merchants to ONDC, would prioritize D2C brands during the beta testing phase in Delhi, while its primary emphasis during the Bengaluru launch was on kirana shops. “While we have had a positive reaction from kirana retailers, they must be continually on hand as they adjust to the digital media.” Nearly one-third of the grocery businesses we have onboarded have stayed active and are progressively becoming more digitally aware, according to SellerApp co-founder Dilip Vamanan.
“Because you must be in constant contact with them to assist them with the transition, we would like to do this for fewer food businesses in Delhi. On the other side, given Delhi is something of a D2C capital, the emphasis will be on D2C. Up to 25 D2C players, including Kapiva, Boyo, Three Clive Road, and others, would be available,” he said.
On the culinary side of things, restaurant digitalization platform Uengage plans to already have sixty or so restaurants connected to its network in Delhi. Within the next couple of weeks, it hopes to reach 100.
The four-year-old startup views its integration with ONDC as a natural extension of its main business strategy, which is to provide restaurants with an alternative to food aggregators such as Zomato and Swiggy for digitally collecting orders, marketing automation, and logistics management. “We’ve created a do-it-yourself app so restaurants can download it and onboard themselves in a matter of hours, depending on the size of their menus,” said Sameer Sharma, the creator of Uengage. The layout of separate purchasing and selling platforms is one of the primary distinctions between the closed-loop and open network models of e-commerce. As many e-commerce platforms, including Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, and Zomato, are of the former kind, they can regulate which vendors are given priority in the listings and have gated user communities.
ONDC proposes to deconstruct this system into a modular type of e-commerce in which any user on any platform might possibly purchase from any merchant on any other platform. It wants to increase e-commerce penetration to 25 percent of India’s consumer purchases over the next two years, up from 8 percent now. In the next five years, it expects to attract 900 million customers and 1.2 million vendors to the shared network, while generating a gross merchandise value of $48 billion.
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