Expect transactions to surge multifold by April: ONDC CEO
1 min read 21 Mar 2023, 11:58 PM ISTT. Koshy, chief executive of ONDC, said the non-profit Section 8 company expects to ramp up from the current 200-300 transactions per day to thousands of daily transactions by this month-end or early April
PremiumNew Delhi: The government’s Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) expects a surge in the number of transactions conducted on the network by early April.
Addressing the Mint India Investment Summit 2023 in Mumbai, T. Koshy, chief executive of ONDC, said the non-profit Section 8 company expects to ramp up from the current 200-300 transactions per day to thousands of daily transactions by this month-end or early April.“In December, we were doing 30 transactions a day, and today, we’re doing, maybe, 300 transactions a day, and by the beginning of April, we’re trying to see that this will rise to a few thousands, and then probably tens and thousands. That’s the way we’re expecting it to pick up," he said.
He added that ONDC has witnessed significant adoption, with multiple entities--both big and small--and will continue to encourage smart investments in e-commerce in the coming years.“Like HTTP was for the worldwide web, this is loosely like HTTP for e-commerce. It will allow individual companies and platforms to come, and make specialized offers for their customers," Koshy explained.
To be sure, the ONDC network is running alpha tests in 181 cities as of 9 March, with beta tests being held in two cities--Bengaluru and Meerut. In April 2022, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) went live with a test run of ONDC in cities like Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Coimbatore, Bhopal, and Shillong. In August, Microsoft became the first big technology company to join the network, aiming to launch social e-commerce in the Indian market.
A number of other participants are also currently live on the ONDC network, offering a number of services in the e-commerce supply chain such as buying, selling, and offering logistics services. These include Paytm, which has joined the platform as a buyer, and Reliance-backed Dunzo, which is offering logistics services for hyperlocal deliveries.
“This is an idea that is being attempted for the first time anywhere in the world. When you try to attempt something of this nature for a country of this size, it is going to be a big challenge," Koshy said.
