ONDC Received 65,400 Retail Orders During India’s World Cup Match Against Pakistan

According to sources close to the events, as India faced Pakistan in a World Cup 2023 match on October 14, the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) saw its order volumes climb to 65,400, more than double the previous month’s average of roughly 30,000 orders per day. This was also the most retail orders—all transactions other than ride-hailing—that ONDC has logged in a single day.

On match day, Delhi received 7,852 orders, Bengaluru received 7,586, Mumbai received 3,770, Pune received 3,729, Hyderabad received 3,231, Jaipur received 2,013, Thane received 1,763, and Gurugram received 1,732. While orders came from 600 cities, 70 of them placed more than 100 orders apiece.

Food and beverage accounted for 47 percent of orders, fashion for 25%, electronics for 9%, groceries for 8%, home and kitchenware for 7%, beauty and personal care for 3%, and health and wellness for 1%.

Moneycontrol previously reported that ONDC reached a new high of 53,000 orders during India’s first World Cup match against Australia, owing to a slew of promotions and discounts launched for the holiday season.

With the government-backed e-commerce network increasing its incentive levels for platforms beginning October 3, industry sources believe players such as Magicpin, Paytm, Ola, and PhonePe will have an added incentive to boost sales during the festive season, which coincides with the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup.

According to an internal ONDC slideshow obtained by Moneycontrol, retail sales on the network increased over 500-fold from 1,281 in January to 608,307 in September. Aside from ONDC-funded promotions and discounts, industry insiders believe that cheaper network commissions than e-commerce giants like Amazon, Flipkart, Zomato, and Swiggy have allowed merchants and network providers to offer better pricing to customers.

According to Moneycontrol,(Open Network for Digital Commerce) ONDC’s mobility experiment in Kolkata, which began in July, has already resulted in over 250,000 completed trips, 365,000 registered customers, 18,600 registered driver partners, and approximately Rs 7 crore in driver revenues.

The network is aiming to reach 200,000 transactions per day by the end of 2023, up from the current high of 160,000, and the government is also trying to introduce financial items to ONDC in the next months.

ONDC has many initiatives in place for its next phase of expansion. To popularise the network in tier 2 and 3 cities and beyond, for example, it has begun an online instructional course for merchants that will be distributed in 14 to 18 languages. Furthermore, the public broadcaster Doordarshan will soon begin regular programming to educate consumers and sellers throughout the nation about ONDC.

ONDC, which is backed by the government, aims to prevent a few giant platforms, like as Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, and Zomato, from dominating the e-commerce and food delivery industries.

Over the next two years, the government intends to increase e-commerce penetration in the nation to 25% by connecting 900 million customers and 1.2 million vendors via the network. It is expected to create $48 billion in gross merchandise value.

ONDC relies on three essential pillars to minimize the cost of doing business for all stakeholders, including retailers: dynamic pricing, inventory management, and delivery cost optimization.