Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) partnered Meta to train MSMEs to bring them onboard and help leverage the benefits of ever-expanding digital e-commerce ecosystem in India fueled by digitisation.
Created by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) in 2022, ONDC is a platform to promote open e-commerce. In this open network, sellers (apps) and buyers engage hyper-locally to get products and services at fair and competitive price.
Meanwhile, Amazon, Flipkart, Zomato, Swiggy, Uber, Ola and many other utilities apps are still not a part of ONDC. The non-availability of partner apps and service providers pan India is still a concern for ONDC.
People often get confused as how to use ONDC or be a part of it. Here is how you can use it:
(For top technology news of the day, subscribe to our tech newsletter Today’s Cache)
Yes, there is an app, ONDC Official Guide, on Play Store but you can’t directly shop on to it. ONDC has an official website but you cannot shop directly on it. Nothing directly on the App Store either.
To shop using ONDC open network one has to go through partner apps like Paytm or Pincode.
Currently, the ONDC’s ‘How to Shop’ domain offers ‘Products’ and ‘Travel’ options with ‘Services’ listed as coming soon.
For example (in Delhi), if you click on ‘Products’ tab, Food & Beverages, Grocery, Fashion, Electronics and Appliances, Home & Kitchen, Beauty & Personal Care, Health & Wellness options can be found with Toys & Games as upcoming.
And if you want to buy from any of these filters like ‘Electronics and Appliances’, a list of buyer apps will come like Paytm, Craftsvilla and Spice Money. The list might be different at your location.
When you proceed, like on Craftsvilla, it will redirect you to their website where you can choose and confirm delivery details and upon selecting payment options, it will get delivered.
For Paytm users, they can directly use the app to shop on ONDC network.
Similarly, in ‘Travel’ tab, Auto and Cab options are there (Delhi). And when you click ‘Cab’, only two options appear, ‘Yatri’ and ‘Yatri Sathi’. The same redirection will happen here again before you can opt where to go.
Locations can be manually entered or fetched by service provider using GPS.
Seller onboarding can even happen through ONDC’s Sahayak chatbot through WhatsApp.
Published - December 20, 2023 03:19 pm IST
