ONDC records 14 mn transactions in Oct, marks 7.6% rise during festive season

ONDC's October Transaction Data

Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) recorded a 7.6 percent jump to 14 million transactions in the festive month of October, compared to 12.90 million in September. The numbers come in amid ONDC's move to increase each player's incentive payout by 50 percent for October.

Out of the total transaction volumes, the mobility segment contributed 5.5 million and the non-mobility segment 8.4 million which has grown by 10 percent and 7.6 percent, an industry source told Moneycontrol, requesting anonymity.

Within the non-mobility, the food and beverage category contributed the highest with 2 million transactions and groceries contributed around 1 million. Similarly, the Fashion segment on ONDC has clocked 1 million transactions as against 0.9 million in September.

On a year-on-year basis, ONDC’s transactions have shot up by 200 percent as it clocked a mere 4.5 million transactions in October of 2023.

ONDC clocked 3.2 percent month-on-month growth in transactions in September to 12.90 million, compared to a 5 percent surge in August. Out of this, 5 million transactions came from the mobility segment and around 7.9 million from non-mobility category.

"While the growth is modest, a lot of small sellers benefitted this time and the festive season demand will continue to come in. These numbers are only for the beginning of the season, " an industry source told Moneycontrol.

The growth can be partially attributed to ONDC’s strategic move to increase the incentive payout. The move came after the network recorded a slightly slower growth of 5 percent month-on-month in transactions in August to 12.58 million, compared to a 21 percent surge in July.

Previously, ONDC announced that it was cutting its maximum payout per player to Rs 2.5 crore from Rs 3 crore per month till September end. Yet, it has changed that now to Rs 60 lakh.

ONDC has been giving financial incentives to network players depending on order volumes and categories. This money is in turn used to fund discounts and offers for customers to promote rapid adoption of the government-backed network.

ONDC’s shift to reducing incentives is aimed at conserving cash, especially to offer discounts during the festive season. Sources say that the hike is exclusively for the festive season and it might be rolled back.

Over the past year-and-a-half, multiple new-age companies such as Paytm, Ola, PhonePe, Meesho, Magicpin and Shiprocket have taken to ONDC, aimed at breaking the stranglehold of a few players such as Amazon, Flipkart, Zomato and Swiggy on online retail in the country.

In fact, Bootstrapped SaaS unicorn Zoho on September 25 launched a seller-side platform on ONDC, an interoperability project backed by the government to break the stranglehold of e-commerce giants such as Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart.

ONDC has also decided to launch its own buyer app ‘DigiHaat’ through a new 100 percent subsidiary ‘Nirmit Bharat’ which will have an impact on its monthly transactions, sources said. DigiHaat will give special attention to the products from small businesses, FPOs, artisans, Viswakarmas, state emporiums, and SHGs.