Surprised that ONDC has been tried by 60% users to order food: BofA

According to the survey, Zomato remains the preferred food delivery app with about 50 percent of users using it

The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) has been tried by 60 percent of e-commerce users to order food through apps like Magicpin, Ola and Paytm, according to a survey by Bank of America (BofA).

The survey showed that 11 percent did not like the ONDC service experience and stopped using it, 16 percent are willing to give it a try and 12 percent do not intend to use it.

“What surprised us is 60 percent users have tried ordering from ONDC and would likely continue to do more,” BofA analysts wrote in a note.

Monthly retail purchase volume on ONDC has grown by over six times since September last year to 3.6 million orders. In April, the retail segment logged a record-high of 1,71,000 orders in a single day, propelled by strength in the grocery and fashion sectors. We previously reported that ONDC completed a week with an average of 1,50,000 daily retail orders for the first time last month.

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.

With ONDC, the government hopes to increase e-commerce penetration in the country to 25 percent in the next couple of years, reaching a gross merchandise value of $48 billion.

Quick commerce makes a dent 

"Quick commerce traction continues to improve. 45 percent of the users indicated that they now buy less on horizontal platforms and buy more on quick commerce. Further, 50 percent said they end up buying different kinds of products on e-commerce & quick-commerce," the BofA report said.

"Use cases on quick commerce are well diversified from grocery (60 percent), festive purchases (43 percent), FMCG (43 percent). What surprised us is that 40 percent of users said they buy beauty products," it added.

According to the survey, Zomato remains the preferred food delivery app with about 50 percent of users using it. Interestingly users are in-principle okay to pay higher delivery fee -- 79 percent of the survey respondents are willing to pay Rs 8-20 as platform fees.

BofA conducted an online survey of 1,000 plus users (using Survey Monkey) to understand preferences while using digital offerings. It said that as the sample was skewed to upper middle class in terms of income, the overall survey results may not be representative of pan India consumer behavior.