The government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) saw retail orders plunge by over 50% last Sunday as deep discounts on logistics were watered down.

What Happened? ONDC’s retail orders on Sunday sank to 12,000 orders, which was less than half the number of orders it received the previous weekend, Moneycontrol reported, citing sources.

Last week, the platform trimmed down discounts of up to ₹75 per order that it was initially offering on logistics costs.

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The sources also told the publication that some of the drop in orders was because seller-side apps were unprepared to handle the massive surge in volumes on the network.

“Some sellers and seller-side apps selling grocery were not able to handle a sudden surge of orders during the day due to a ₹100 discount coupon run by a large network participant. While a few grocery stores didn’t have the requisite inventory at their disposal, the seller side apps didn’t have automatic scaling on cloud servers,” one source said.

The birth of the ONDC has been viewed by many as an existential threat to the likes of Swiggy and Zomato. However, several analysts have brushed off concerns about any major threat to the businesses of these foodtech giants from the open network.

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