A handful of platforms dominated Indian e-commerce, charging high commissions and controlling who buyers could reach. ONDC (2022) borrowed UPI's idea: an open protocol so any buyer app can connect to any seller app.
e-Commerce · ONDC
e-Commerce · ONDC
ONDC — the Open Network for Digital Commerce — does for shopping what UPI did for payments: it 'unbundles' e-commerce so any buyer app can connect to any seller app over an open protocol. Launched in 2022, it lets small kirana stores, artisans and local businesses reach customers nationwide without being locked into, or paying heavy fees to, a couple of giant platforms. This timeline traces its rise.
2022
ONDC launched
Open
Protocol — 'UPI for commerce'
18.2 mn
Orders in October 2025
ONDC orders processed (to Oct 2025)
2021
ONDC is born
The Open Network for Digital Commerce is incorporated to 'unbundle' online shopping — letting any buyer app talk to any seller app, so small sellers aren't locked into a few giant platforms.
2022
Pilot in five cities
2023
Scaling across categories
2024
Millions of monthly transactions
2025
326 million orders
2026
India Post joins as logistics provider
2021
1milestones
20212026
Latest
ONDC is born
The Open Network for Digital Commerce is incorporated to 'unbundle' online shopping — letting any buyer app talk to any seller app, so small sellers aren't locked into a few giant platforms.
Why it matters By breaking the 'walled gardens' of big platforms, ONDC can lower fees, widen choice, and give millions of small sellers a fair shot at the digital economy.
- Open protocol for e-commerce (launched 2022)
- 326 million+ orders processed to October 2025; 18.2 million in October 2025 alone
- Source: DPIIT Year End Review 2025 (PIB)
History
Unbundling commerce
On ONDC a small kirana store, weaver or restaurant can be discovered by shoppers on many different apps, without joining any single giant. It has scaled to retail, food, groceries and mobility, with retail sellers live in 630+ cities and 18.2 million orders in October 2025.
How it works
ONDC tries to break e-commerce out of a few walled gardens. Instead of a seller being locked inside one platform, ONDC is an open network: any buyer app can connect to any seller app through shared protocols, the way any bank's UPI app can pay any other. A small shop lists once and becomes visible to buyers across many apps — so a kirana store or artisan can reach customers without being trapped in, or squeezed by, a single dominant marketplace.
Outlook
ONDC has grown quickly across mobility, food delivery and retail, with millions of transactions a month flowing through the network. The next stage is scale: quality standards, reliable delivery and dispute resolution across the network, and onboarding small sellers and buyer apps in volume — the same open-network playbook that took UPI from a standing start to the world's largest real-time payments system.
By the numbers
Open commerce protocol, pilot launched April 2022; 326 million+ orders processed to October 2025 (18.2 million that month); retail, food, mobility; retail sellers live in 630+ cities (December 2025). Sources: DPIIT, PIB.
Data current to: Cumulative orders to October 2025
Source: DPIIT Year End Review 2025, via PIB (10 December 2025, linked) — the Open Network for Digital Commerce, incorporated on 31 December 2021 as a not-for-profit Section 8 company, had processed more than 326 million orders cumulatively by October 2025, including 18.2 million in October 2025, since its pilot began on 29 April 2022. Milestones 2021–2026. · link