The government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is in advanced discussions with Flipkart as the e-commerce major may soon foray into food and beverages (F&B) category on the platform.
It could mean that users may soon be able to order from a wide range of restaurants and fast-food outlets.
While the food and beverage is just the starting point, logistics is to soon follow, promising good prices and immediate responses. Despite advanced stages of integration with ONDC, Flipkart’s logistics subsidiary Ekart has not been very active. The company plans to operate on the buyer-side of ONDC, meaning shoppers can order food while searching for fashion and apparel on Flipkart.
ONDC is also in talks with Amazon to set up storefronts on their home pages to help the network scale up operations, facilitate deliveries and address any issues or delays.
It comes at a time when ONDC hit a fresh peak of 8.9 million transactions in May across retail and ride-hailing segments. This represented a 23 per cent month-on-month increase in total transaction volume.
In the retail segment, the Network hit a new peak of 5 million orders in May, up from 3.59 million in April. The Open Network also saw a single-day record of 2,00,000 retail transactions during the month.
The grocery and food delivery categories each crossed the 1 million order mark for the first time, while home and kitchen had 6,30,000 orders, fashion had 3,30,000 orders, and other retail sub-categories added up to 2 million orders.