Online Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) has surpassed the milestone of 5,000 daily orders in the retail group, including foods and beverages (F&B) and grocery, creating a 25-fold growth in the last two months after it resisted to cross a few hundred orders in the first six months of its launch.

Last month, the network on-boarded mobility bunch platform Namma Yatri did not take any commission from drivers. ONDC said that the open mobility foundation would permit clients to book rides from multiple apps, becoming multi-modal where various modes of transportation like cabs, metro, and buses will be integrated into the app.

ONDC went live in Bengaluru’s pin codes on September 30 and has since extended to several cities, including Bengaluru is in the beta stage and 181 in the alpha stage.

The network also sows consumer demand by giving discounts of Rs 50 per order. Meanwhile, the merchant base on ONDC rose to 85,000 from 800 in December after launching an incentive scheme for seller-side apps to register merchants. A total of 31,000 are from non-mobility groups like food, grocery, home decor, and electronics.

Backed by the government, ONDC prevents the dominance of a few big platforms in e-commerce and food delivery zones like Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, and Zomato.

Thus, the government hopes to upsurge e-commerce penetration in the country to 25% in the next two years, accomplishing 900 million buyers and 1.2 million sellers, reaching a gross merchandise value of $48 billion.

ONDC is banking on three key pillars to decrease business costs, with retailers’ dynamic pricing, inventory management, and delivery cost optimisation.

In April 2022, the network directed a soft launch in five cities – Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Shillong, Bhopal, and Coimbatore. Thus, ONDC started a Beta pilot in Bengaluru and Tier-II cities.