ONDC to Be Open to Public Soon to Counter Amazon's Dominance: ONDC Exec

The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) — India’s e-commerce network to end the dominance of US companies Amazon and Walmart — will be soon open to the public, said an official, as per a report. The pilot phase for India’s domestic digital commerce initiative began in April. In cities including Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Coimbatore and Shillong, the customers were allowed to do transactions on the UPI-type protocol. Through the ONDC platform, the government will mostly promote the small merchants and rural consumers. For the ease of customers in India, the app will be available in various Indian languages.

Speaking at the Saral 2022 Mega E-commerce Summit, ONDC’s Chief Business Officer Shireesh Joshi mentioned that the digital network will be open to public soon, as per a PTI report. The government has been continuously working on the platform and will schedule the availability to general public in the coming time.

ONDC is India’s domestic effort in the e-commerce space to curb the dominance of two large multinational e-commerce players — Amazon and Walmart. Both the US companies currently control more than half of India’s e-commerce trading.

ONDC will provide platform and space to small merchants and rural consumers by steeing up standards for voluntary adoption by sellers, logistics providers or payment gateways.

The platform was launched in April. The move was taken after India’s antitrust body raided several domestic sellers of Amazon and some of Walmart’s Flipkart following complete law violation accusations.