ONDC Hopes To Reach 100,000 Daily Orders In Coming Months: Report

Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) plans to reach 100,000 daily orders in the retail sector in the coming months as it prepares to introduce a second iteration of its network design and agreements, which is expected to add new features and significantly improve customer experience, according to a Moneycontrol report.

The goal of 100,000 orders was declared earlier this week at the ONDC Elevate event, which was attended by all network participants (NPs) and high-ranking government officials, according to the report.

This is expected to happen in the next months as NPs implement a new set of network requirements. According to sources, the current version, 1.1, is in use, and the future 1.2 version will, among other things, improve order tracking, provide more choices for order fulfilment, such as in-store pick-up by consumers, and automate the grievance redressal process to a larger extent.

The ONDC specs, version 1.1, were released in March as a minimal template for getting the network up and running with the bare minimum of capabilities and technical needs for NPs. The next version should be out in a few weeks.

According to another industry source, the 1.2 version is expected to be implemented by June, after which development on the 1.3 version will begin, with a release date of September, just in time for the holiday shopping season.

The ONDC has yet to respond to enquiries concerning the most recent developments.

It was previously reported that retail orders on ONDC dropped by more than half to around 12,000 last Saturday, compared to the previous weekend, due to a change in incentives offered by the network last week.

According to sources, the issue of discounts was raised at the ONDC event earlier this week, when a top government official stated on stage that the network will eventually wean itself off of large incentives for customers, citing how large e-commerce platforms have harmed small sellers in the country.

Another key concern addressed was the nature of the integration of large e-commerce enterprises with ONDC. The government previously stated that platforms that solely connect buyers or sellers to the network by developing an ONDC-specific app should be prohibited.