The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), a project of the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), said on Friday that it has successfully opened its network to customers in 16 sites in Bengaluru.
Customers may first place orders in two categories using buyer applications connected to the ONDC network: grocery and restaurants.
A significant first step toward operationalizing a network approach to e-commerce as an alternative to a platform-centric system is ONDC’s beta test in the city of Bengaluru. According to the government, this will make the e-commerce environment more inclusive, reachable, and experience-driven for buyers and merchants.
On Friday, the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade’s (DPIIT) Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), an initiative, said that it has successfully opened its network to users in 16 locations around Bengaluru.
Customers can first place orders in the grocery and restaurant categories via buyer apps linked to the ONDC network.
The ONDC beta test in Bengaluru is a critical first step toward operationalizing a network approach to e-commerce as an alternative to a platform-centric strategy. The government claims that by doing this, customers and merchants would have a more inclusive, accessible, and experience-driven e-commerce environment.
The ONDC has consulted industry experts, the current ecosystem, and best practices for adapting and evolving the best approach to build trust in an unbundled decentralized network to foster trust among buyers, sellers, and Network Participants (Buyer Apps, Seller Apps, & Gateways) in the open web. This is outlined in a consultation paper posted for public comment on the DPIIT, ONDC, and the website’s official social media accounts.
Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), a Section 8 company established on December 31, 2021, is a project of the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce, Government of India. Its goal is to develop a model that will facilitate the revolutionization of digital commerce and further the penetration of retail e-commerce in India. ONDC is not an application, platform, intermediary, or software, but a set of specifications designed to foster open, unbundled, and available, interoperable networks, thereby eliminating the dependency on a single platform.
