The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), which has been steadily witnessing adoption from users and network partners, recently crossed the 2 lakh transactions per day-mark. The network is also looking to bring in a mechanism of “scores and badges” for feedback as well as to strengthen confidence of buyers and sellers.

Shireesh Joshi, Chief Business Officer, ONDC told businessline, “By April, we had hit the 5000 orders per day-mark and by July-August we got to about 50,000 transactions. In the week leading up to Diwali, we saw orders averaging around 1.5 lakh per day and we saw nearly 12 lakh transactions happening in those seven days. Even after the festival season, we have been seeing steady growth in order momentum. A few days ago we hit a new milestons as we crossed the 2 lakh orders per day-mark.”

Multiple categories

With a large number of restaurants onboarding ONDC through seller network participants earlier this year, nearly 90 per cent of transactions were food driven but that is changing. “ Multiple categories now have a decent presence and under 40 per cent of the transactions are food-driven. While it remains the leading category, contribution from several other categories is growing. This includes fashion, electronics, beauty & personal care among others,” he explained.

Some of the key FMCG companies also have a presence on ONDC now. This includes players such as Hindustan Unilever, ITC, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola India.

“Close to about 2 lakh providers of service or goods have now come onboard which includes over 70,000 retail sellers,” Joshi said. The mobility piece has also been growing on ONDC with various city-centric taxi & auto associations getting integrated into the network.

Responding to a query on plans for additional categories, Joshi said, “We are actively looking at the services segment as there is a lot of interest in this space. We are also looking to expand the depth and width of B2B transactions. Financial services have taken a start with gift coupons being made available and we are in active conversations for other financial services to get onboarded.”

ONDC is also looking at introducing a mechanism of “scores and badges”. Some elements of the scores will be like ratings and will be judgment-based such as users’ experience with a brand. At the same time, some elements will be performance-based. “We are looking at developing mechanisms of scores and badges as measures that can help buyers and sellers have higher trust in terms of transactions. Besides scoring mechanism, we are also looking to have some sort of system of labels and badges. For instance: a GI tag that can be verified by buyers. This is under development,” Joshi added.

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