Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CEO and founder of Paytm parent One97 Communications, said on Monday that the company is considering bringing 10 million merchants by 2025 to the government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce, adding that the firm has routed around 11.8 million customers from its products from the platform, news agency PTI reported.
“Paytm’s ecosystem is built around small merchants and our mission is to help small merchants and small businesses be part of the mainstream economy. We have done that through payments. We have paid new customers who want to get new customers. That’s where ONDC comes in. We plan to bring 10 million merchants to ONDC before the end of 2025,” the Paytm founder said on the sidelines of an ONDC event.
It may be noted that the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is a government-backed platform open to all e-commerce stakeholders to launch their services. Digital payment companies such as Paytm, PhonePe’s Pincode and hyperlocal e-commerce firm MagicPin are present on the platform.
Sharma also mentioned that ONDC has more than 10 million customers onboard which is one-fifth of the country’s total e-commerce market.
“If you bring in a large number of merchants, the customers are there and looking for them. Obviously, the trust and discovery issue has to be solved but there are a large number of customers who are ready to come online and buy.” The report quoted Sharma as saying.
ONDC Managing Director and CEO, T Koshy said that the government-backed platform started its operations recently.
“We had about 1,200 transactions in January. We’ve had about 5 million transactions this month. We’ve already seen transactions from 600 cities. People are figuring out how to shop whenever they get access from national-level apps. It’s starting. It is the beginning of an avalanche in the next 1-2 years. We aim to add another zero to the current level of transactions in a year,” Koshy was reported to have said.
