PhonePe is aiming 100,000 orders a day by December on Pincode.
PhonePe on Tuesday launched its new shopping app called ‘Pincode’ which is built on the Indian government’s Open Network for Digital Commerce or ONDC platform. With a focus on hyperlocal commerce, Pincode will offer users the convenience of online shopping at local stores they usually buy from.
The Pincode app will begin its pilot in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru with grocery, food, pharma, electronics, and home décor. PhonePe plans to include more stores in the coming days and also says to launch the app in other cities soon. The app is available on Google Play Store and App Store.
“Pincode is a brand-new shopping app and offers a revolutionary new approach to e-commerce, which puts all the local stores and sellers at the heart of the digital shopping growth story,” said PhonePe founder and chief executive officer Sameer Nigam. “Pincode is built on the ONDC network, which allows us to generate demand for merchants digitized by various seller platforms in an inclusive manner, while creating new opportunities for growth and driving innovation at scale.”
Talking about ONDC, it was launched last year with the aim to promote open networks for all aspects of the exchange of goods and services over digital or electronic networks and is expected to make e-Commerce more inclusive and accessible for consumers. Touted as the next UPI, ONDC democratizes processes and technologies typically deployed by large e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart. The government says the platform increases freedom of choice for customers as they can now discover any seller, product, or service by using any compatible application or platform.
Back to PhonePe’s Pincode, the digital payments platform is aiming 100,000 orders a day by December and hopes to launch the app in more than 10 cities in the first year, according to a Reuters report that cited the company’s chief Nigam. The company already has an e-commerce platform ‘Switch’ on its app that offers different services like grocery shopping, travel, hotel booking, and more.
Last month, the company raised $200 million from Walmart at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion As a part of the ongoing fundraising of up to $1 billion in the capital. PhonePe had raised a total of $450 million in January and February at the same valuation.
