Shiprocket Becomes first Inter-City Logistics Provider to Join ONDC Network

Shiprocket is the first inter-city logistics provider to plug into the ONDC network, enabling sellers from all segments to ship products to cities and towns across India. Shiprocket, a shipping and logistics solutions provider, has gone live on the government’s Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) and made its first successful transaction on October 22.

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What Has Been Said:

Shiprocket said it is the first inter-city logistics provider to plug into the ONDC network, enabling sellers from all segments to ship products to cities and towns across India. “We are really excited to partner with ONDC as the first inter-city logistics provider to enable sellers from all segments to ship products to cities and towns across India. With an increase in digitization in India, sellers from tier 2 & 3 cities are emerging and they need logistics support, hence we are creating an inclusive and open-access tech ecosystem for them to ease their business,” said Saahil Goel, co-founder of Shiprocket.

About Shiprocket:

Shiprocket, which serves more than 100,000 customers, will enable sellers from 24,000 pin codes to select delivery partners to ship products across India, through both cash-on-delivery and pre-paid options.

“ONDC’s mission is to enable an inclusive eCommerce ecosystem for all of India where a business in a small village in a remote corner of India can have the confidence and the opportunity to sell their products to customers anywhere in the country. With Shiprocket and ONDC working in tandem, this is now a reality,” said T Koshy, chief executive officer of ONDC. ONDC and Shiprocket are working to enable warehousing-as-a-service on the network. This will allow small and medium businesses to provide same-day shipping services to their customers.

About ONDC:

The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is a government-backed project which is aimed at enabling small merchants and mom-and-pop stores in parts of the country to access processes and technologies that are typically deployed by large e-commerce platforms.

• It is an initiative aiming at promoting open networks for all aspects of the exchange of goods and services over digital or electronic networks.
• ONDC is to be based on open-sourced methodology, using open specifications and open network protocols independent of any specific platform.

ONDC is a private non-profit Section 8 company established by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) of the Government of India to develop open e-commerce.

The foundations of ONDC are to be open protocols for all aspects of the entire chain of activities in exchange for goods and services.

• It will be similar to hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) for information exchange over the internet, simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) for the exchange of emails, and unified payments interface (UPI) for payments.

Significance of ONDC:

ONDC is a global first-of-its-kind initiative to democratize the digital commerce marketplace.

• These open protocols would be used for establishing public digital infrastructure in the form of open registries and open network gateways to enable the exchange of information between providers and consumers.
• Providers and consumers would be able to use any compatible application of their choice for the exchange of information and carrying out transactions over ONDC.

Thus, ONDC goes beyond the current platform-centric digital commerce model where the buyer and seller have to use the same platform or application to be digitally visible and do a business transaction.

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