The federal government plans to roll out its indigenously developed on-line e-commerce community for the general public in 100 Indian cities by Diwali to supply hundreds of thousands of kirana shops and shoppers a substitute for multinational platforms resembling Amazon and Flipkart.
Union commerce and trade minister Piyush Goyal on Friday introduced the test-launch of the open-source system. The beta launch will unveil the IT purposes of the Open Community for Digital Commerce (ONDC) and registry masking a small variety of retailers and clients initially in Bengaluru on Friday, two folks immediately related to the challenge mentioned.
“After UPI (Unified Cost Interface), one other sport altering thought to democratise commerce – ONDC comfortable launch right now to pick shoppers, sellers and logistics suppliers. Prepare for a world of alternative, comfort and transparency,” the minister mentioned in a tweet on Friday.
The challenge is very large as it’ll present a large option to all shoppers and retailers and the formal launch will happen after profitable testing of the system, mentioned Anil Agrawal, the extra secretary within the division for promotion of trade and inside commerce (DPIIT).
“Finish-to-end testing is being completed to create a playbook with an goal to launch it in 100 cities in six months [by October 2022],” he mentioned.
About 15 eating places and grocery shops have been registered in Bangalore together with choose shoppers to start the trial with precise supply of merchandise, ONDC chief govt officer Thampy Koshy mentioned in Bengaluru on Friday.
“That is the sphere trial with actual transactions. Within the coming week, we are going to cowl two large and three smaller cities. Based mostly on the expertise, we are going to step by step scale it up,” he mentioned.
The ONDC system is totally different from the operational fashions of current e-commerce firms in India and overseas the place consumers and sellers are restricted to their respective platforms, Koshy mentioned.
“Our mannequin is platform-agnostic. That is distinctive, it’s by no means been completed anyplace on the earth. Therefore, a thought-about method,” he mentioned.
“ONDC relies on interoperability the place all platforms will discuss to one another,” Koshy mentioned.
The system can have a number of selections for each retailers and clients by way of cataloguing, inventories, warehousing, suppliers, logistics and funds, he mentioned. The preliminary take a look at launch, which was began in Bengaluru, may even cowl cities resembling Delhi, Coimbatore, Bhopal and Shillong.
Amazon India mentioned they’re “carefully participating with the ONDC group to raised perceive the proposed mannequin”. “We stay dedicated to the federal government’s imaginative and prescient of digitizing kiranas, native shops and creating alternatives for companies throughout India by simplifying expertise adoption to assist native shops and companies contribute to India turning into a $5 trillion financial system. We’re carefully participating with the ONDC group to raised perceive the proposed mannequin and consider the position Amazon can play to raised serve Indian clients and sellers,” an Amazon India spokesperson mentioned.
Flipkart didn’t reply to e-mail queries on this matter.
Specialists who want to not be named mentioned the ONDC mannequin can also have some challenges such because the return coverage, which is at present the duty of the e-commerce platforms.
The opposite problem might be associated to shopper grievance redressal.