Walmart-backed PhonePe on Tuesday announced its foray into local commerce with the launch of its consumer app Pincode, built on the government’s Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform.
PhonePe Founder and CEO Sameer Nigam that the Pincode app will be available initially in Bangalore and it will expand to other cities after the app achieves transactions of around 10,000 per day.
“PhonePe is launching a new shopping app that puts stores at the heart of interaction. Pincode is going to open up in Bengaluru.
“We are going to launch it city by city. We are going to first take transaction volumes like 10,000 a day before we open the next city. We are looking at 100 thousand per day by December,” Nigam said.
He said this is the second consumer app from PhonePe in about seven years.
Nigam said a separate app has been launched because expectations of customers are going to be different.
The app will pilot in Bangalore with grocery, food, pharma, electronics and home decor.
Retailers available on government supported ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce,) can join the app.
In September 2022, ONDC — the ministry’s initiative to help small retailers and reduce the dominance of e-commerce giants — was opened to the public in certain parts of Bengaluru as part of its beta testing process.
At the time, Consumers in the city could buy grocery products or order food from the stores and restaurants enabled by seller apps — Bizom, Digiit, e-Samudaay, eVitalrx, Go Frugal, Growth Falcons, Innobits Mystore, nStore, SellerApp, Ushop and Uengage. Meanwhile, Dunzo, Loadshare and Shiprocket would provide logistics services and Protean eGov Technologies Ltd will provide gateway services.