Publicis Groupe and Digital India Foundation have released a report to highlight how Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) can help democratice e-commerce.
ONDC is a private non-profit company established by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) of Government of India to develop open e-commerce.
The report reveals that India's e-commerce traffic has grown by 175% in the last five years and the number of real-time online transactions were at INR 48 billion in 2021.
The report adds that even though it has achieved such numbers, there's scope to grow as only 20% of the internet users in the country are online shoppers.
In India the digital sales is still only 7.8% of the total retail sales; versus 46.3% in China and 36.3% in the UK.
The reason for this according to the report is that a large portion of the retail sector is not digitally enabled and digital commerce is further limited in small towns and rural areas.
The report by Publicis and Digital India Foundation believes that the next level of growth for e-commerce will depend on the rollout of ONDC, how it augments the current digital commerce landscape and how the consumer interfaces with it. This was based on a Publicis survey involving the C-suite in which 91% of respondents reported that ONDC is relevant to their business while 82% of respondents cited increased customer reach. 64% of respondents cited product discoverability and 64% saw reduced dependence on large marketplace providers as the benefits of ONDC.
Arvind Gupta, co-founder and head, Digital India Foundation, and board member, ONDC, said, “The joint report with Publicis highlights the vast potential of ONDC and enabling digital public infrastructure for SMEs, local neighbourhood stores and brand leaders and how it will revolutionise the e-retail, e-transactions, and logistics domains and offer more value for consumers. The report is packed with new insights and information; it helps the MSMEs owners, local shopkeepers, C-Suite and top executives to re-imagine the e-commerce landscape and pivot to new opportunities. The report launch event opened up dialogue and exchange of ideas with various stakeholders on the possibilities presented by ONDC and how companies, small business owners and civil society can best leverage them.”
Lalatendu Das, CEO, Performics India, said, “ONDC opens up exciting and innovative avenues for marketers to drive e-commerce in India. During our research, we found general optimism towards ONDC. While the jury is still out on how quickly ONDC can attain economies of scale, many of the marketers we spoke to, have started making calculated bets. In the report, we have outlined a structured approach for marketers to get the best out of their ONDC investments. In Publicis Groupe, we are keenly observing developments on ONDC and the e-commerce landscape in general to bring the latest insights to our clients.”
Anupriya Acharya, CEO, Publicis Groupe South Asia, said, “Pivoting to Commerce capabilities is a top priority for us. Our focus in recent months has been to gear our vast pool of Commerce specialists, to help our clients prepare and deliver for ONDC. UX for search-based app navigation, content and taxonomy best practices for product discoverability, technology know-how to build on the Beckn protocol, the right data architecture to manage and turn first party data into insights, and store operations for smooth last mile delivery are just some of the things that our teams have been skilled for.”
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