Open Network for Digital Commerce has now launched its Beta phase in Mumbai, Delhi NCR (including Noida, Gurugram and Faridabad), Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata post scaling seller densities in these cities.
As per ONDC’s latest announcement, the network is now accessible to buyers and sellers in seven cities in India. Consumers across these seven cities will now be able to purchase from the sellers on the ONDC network through four active buyer applications — Paytm, Mystore, Spice Money, and Magicpin.
Currently, the network has more than 40,000 sellers spread across over 200 cities. More than 18,000 sellers operate from the five cities in which Beta phase has been recently introduced.
ONDC had rolled out its Alpha phase in April 2022 in five cities to test live transactions with a closed group of sellers and buyers. The network noted that the main objective to go 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.
Sharing his insights on the development, T Koshy, MD and CEO of ONDC, said, “We started with Bengaluru and Meerut and now have a sizeable 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,” he added.
Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is an initiative of the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce, Government of India. It is a set of specifications designed to foster open, unbundled, and interoperable open networks thereby eliminating the dependency on a single platform.