After Dunzo, Reliance's Grab.in joins ONDC to offer 'smooth delivery experience across sectors’

New Delhi: Marking Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance’s formal entry into the government’s counter to major e-commerce players in the country, logistics provider Grab.in has joined the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) network, according to a senior company executive.

Launched in 2013, Grab.in is a subsidiary of Reliance Retail which holds around an 80 per cent stake in the company. The logistics company was acquired by Reliance Industries in 2019 and is now housed under Reliance Retail.

Before this, another Reliance Retail-backed company had already integrated its platform with ONDC. Dunzo joined the ONDC as one of the logistics partners and now Grab's entry marks Reliance's formal entry into the much-hyped network.

India’s ambitious open e-commerce initiative is currently in a pilot phase in 5 Indian cities ‑ Delhi, Bengaluru, Coimbatore, Bhopal, and Shillong. It went live in the sixth city of Lucknow in June and would soon add at least four more cities including Chennai, Thrissur and Kannur.

Pratish Sanghvi, a cofounder of Grab.in, told Economic Times that they will support intracity hyperlocal deliveries. “Currently, we are in the process of initiating the pilot project with the ONDC and it is at a nascent stage. We look forward to growing our partnership with the ONDC and our focus will be to provide a smooth and efficient delivery experience for our clients across sectors,” Sanghvi said.

Reliance-backed Grab.in caters to restaurants, online grocers, offline and online retail, ecommerce platforms, kirana stores and pharmacies.

It is worth stating here that logistics providers such as Flipkart’s logistics arm Ekart have already integrated with the ONDC. The integration with Shiprocket went live in Lucknow in June.

“The focus right now is on integrations and making sure the consumer experience is good when they try it, because that’s critical. Platforms like PhonePe are focusing on the buyer side integration fully that’s why as the network is getting ready to scale,” one of the people aware of the matter said.

ONDC is targeting to go live in 100 cities by the end of August. Its chief executive had shared in June that several players were planning to join the ONDC on the buyer and seller side and over 150 apps would be integrated with the network soon.