ONDC expands beta testing to five more cities

ONDC expands beta testing to five more cities.

The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) has expanded its beta testing to five major cities in India, adding on to the cities of Bengaluru and Meerut where it is currently operational. With the beta testing expansion, the network will go live in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata. There have been tests in limited pincodes of Delhi as well.

In an announcement, ONDC said that the cities will go Beta live “post scaling seller density”, and is currently live in the five cities in question.

The beta test started in Bengaluru in September 2022 and in Meerut in December 2022.

The government-backed interoperable e-commerce platform started alpha testing in a phase in April last year, and alpha testing is currently live in over 273 cities.

ONDC said in a statement that customers can buy products through the buyer apps of Paytm, Mystore, Spice Money and Magicpin.

“We started with Bengaluru and Meerut and now have a sizable number of sellers, enough to extend the network to other cities. We hope that with this Beta announcement, more and more businesses will be inclined to join us, benefiting from an early-mover advantage. Additionally, as we touch more consumer territories, it also gives us the insights and opportunities to improve the network,” Chief Executive Officer T Koshy said in a statement.

The beta testing is to test the network and collect feedback before its full rollout.

Over the June 12 weekend, ONDC saw retail orders of 30,000, a feat that it accomplished despite reducing spending on incentives. A bulk of the retail orders are in the food and beverage category and a limited number in grocery.