The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), the government’s marquee e-commerce network project, has already created a lot of buzz among merchants as it promises to create an inclusive marketplace.
While on the buyer side, only Paytm is active, on the seller side, Digiit, eSamudaay, Gofrugal Technologies, Growth Falcons, and Seller App have gone live.
Dunzo and LoadShare are currently the only two logistics service providers ONDC has onboarded.
ET spoke to network participants to understand how the commission structure works.
There are three levels of commission: at the buyer level, seller level, and logistics level, Dilip Vamanan, the co-founder of Seller App, told ET.
Seller App is one of the five seller-side apps on ONDC.
Currently, Paytm is the only app that is live on the buyer side, and it charges a 3% commission.
Since buyer apps will be customer-facing platforms on the network, they will also charge a buyer finder fee.
Paytm declined to comment.
However, ET reviewed one of the orders on Seller App’s dashboard and found the commission to be 3%.
Apart from this, a seller fee will also be charged as merchants will be linked to the network via seller apps, and they will be managing the inventory and orders.
Sellers can also decide to have zero delivery fees or levy it depending on the distance.
“We will be charging a 0.5% to 1.5% transaction cut but for the next six months we will not charge any seller fee,” Vamanan said about Seller App’s charges.
Seller App won't charge any retailer who earns less than Rs 1 lakh in revenue per month for a lifetime.
Seller App is currently waiting for retailers to understand how to accept orders, digitise their catalogue and manage their inventory.
On how these rates compare with that of established marketplaces, he said the rates are “on par” or even “slightly better than Amazon or Flipkart”.
However, there are no onboarding charges on Amazon or Flipkart currently.
Onboarding on ONDC is free for now but may have tier-based charges in future, he said.
Amazon charges sellers $39.99 per month in countries like the United States.
Depending on factors like warehouse storage, category, size of the product, short term or long-term storage, and several other factors, the commission is 15% to 26% on every order at Amazon.
Amazon did not respond to ET's queries.
Girish Pai, CEO, GrowthFalcons, said, “We focus on the food and beverages sector, and charge 10% plus GST which is the lowest in the industry.”
Explaining how the charges work, he said, currently when restaurants get discovered on Paytm, for a food order worth Rs 100, logistics charges will be Rs 30.
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