Technology for MSMEs: Software company Zoho on Wednesday announced the integration of its e-commerce platform Zoho Commerce with the government’s e-commerce project Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) as a technology service provider (TSP) to help sellers including small businesses leverage the open network and widen their customer base. Zoho Commerce offers businesses tools to build their own online store, accept orders, track inventory, process payments, manage shipping, market their brand, and analyze data.
Zoho Commerce users in India will be able to get onto ONDC with a single click and showcase their products on multiple platforms with equitable visibility, the company said in a statement. It will offer support to retailers for onboarding to the network and seamlessly integrate their inventory to the ONDC-enabled buyer-side applications. “We believe that ONDC will create a level playing field for small businesses and other sellers who have been vastly under-represented in the sector’s growth in recent years,” said Anand Nergunam, Vice President, Revenue Growth, Zoho Corp.
ONDC will enable sellers to tap the growing e-commerce market in India by offering an equitable and secure platform that integrates multiple sellers, buyers, and logistics players. Buyers will benefit from free access to a wider range of products and seller stores via a single application of their choice instead of being influenced by the biases of private marketplace players, said Zoho. “However, in order to be a seller on ONDC, even small businesses will need to have an online storefront.”
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The company said it will strengthen its participation in ONDC by onboarding other products from its portfolio such as Zoho Books and Zoho Inventory.
Apart from Zoho, other TSPs on ONDC included Noida-based e-commerce web development agency ENS Enterprises, and NowFloats, which enables businesses to get a location-tagged online presence, to offer related solutions to sellers while another e-commerce store builder Plotch.ai would offer solutions to buyers on ONDC. GlobalLinker and Shopalyst are seller TSPs currently integrating with ONDC, according to the ONDC portal.
In September this year, ONDC opened its network to customers in Bengaluru to place orders in two categories viz., groceries and restaurants through buyer apps participating on the ONDC network.
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