How to Sell on ONDC, A Practical Guide for Small Sellers

What ONDC actually is (and what it is not)

If you have tried selling online, you already know the drill. You sign up on one marketplace, learn its rules, pay its commission, and if you want to reach buyers elsewhere you start again from zero on the next platform. ONDC was built to break that pattern.

ONDC stands for Open Network for Digital Commerce. It is a government-backed open protocol, not a single app you download and not a marketplace that owns the customer. Think of it the way UPI works for payments. You do not need a GPay account to send money to someone on PhonePe, because both apps speak the same underlying language. ONDC tries to do the same thing for buying and selling goods and services. A shopper on one app can order from a seller who registered through a completely different app, because both sit on the same network.

This matters more than it sounds. On a closed marketplace, the platform decides who sees your product, what fee you pay, and whether you can talk to your own customer. On an open network, those roles get split up and no single company controls the whole chain. You still pay for the services you use, but you are not locked to one gatekeeper.

So when someone asks how to sell on ONDC, the honest first answer is that you do not sell on ONDC directly. You sell through a seller app that is connected to ONDC, and your listing becomes visible across the network. The rest of this guide walks through exactly what that means in practice.

How the network fits together: buyer apps, seller apps and the gateway

There are three moving parts, and once you picture them the whole system gets a lot less confusing.

Buyer apps

These are the apps where shoppers search and place orders. Paytm, Magicpin, some bank apps, and standalone consumer apps all act as buyer-side participants at different times. A shopper never has to know or care which network the seller is on. They just search for a product and check out.

Seller apps

A seller app, sometimes called a Seller Network Participant, is where you the merchant live. You register here, upload your catalogue, set prices, manage stock and see your orders. Mystore, SellerApp, eSamudaay, GoFrugal, Digit and Growth Falcons are examples of companies running seller-side apps. You pick one, and it publishes your products to the network.

The gateway

In the middle sits the gateway and a set of shared protocols that pass a buyer request out to relevant sellers and route the responses back. You never touch this layer. It is plumbing. But it is the reason a single listing on one seller app can surface inside many buyer apps at once, which is the whole point.

Register once on a single seller app and your products can appear across the network of buyer apps. That is the promise, and for a small seller it is the reason ONDC is worth understanding even if you also sell elsewhere.

Why ONDC matters for a small seller

Three things make the network genuinely interesting if you run a small business.

The first is cost. Reported commissions on ONDC tend to sit in a roughly 3 to 10 percent range depending on the seller app and category, against the 18 to 40 percent that gets quoted for the large marketplaces once you add up commission, closing fees, shipping and advertising. Treat both figures as ballpark. The exact cut varies by seller app, by product category, and by whether you self-ship or use network logistics. Still, the direction is clear. You keep more of each sale.

The second is that there is no exclusivity. Nobody stops you from selling on Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho, your own WhatsApp catalogue and ONDC all at the same time. The network is meant to be one more shelf for your products, not a cage. If you are already reading up on how to start an ecommerce business in India, ONDC slots in as an additional channel rather than a replacement.

The third is reach beyond one platform. Because your listing can appear inside multiple buyer apps, you are not betting your whole store on one company continuing to send you traffic. That said, be realistic about volume. The network is still young, and for most sellers ONDC today is a promising extra channel rather than their main source of orders. More on that honesty later.

What you need before you register

You do not need much to start, and most of it you already have if you run any kind of registered small business. Here is the practical checklist.

If you have not sorted your basic registrations yet, two are worth doing regardless of ONDC. Udyam registration gives you a free MSME identity that helps with loans and government schemes, and it takes minutes. And read do I need GST for a small business in India before you assume you must register, because the rules changed in a way that helps small online sellers.

The GST question, honestly

This trips up a lot of first-time sellers, so let us be precise. For a long time, anyone selling through an e-commerce operator had to hold a GST number no matter how small they were. That blocked tiny sellers from going online at all.

The rule was eased to support exactly the kind of small merchant ONDC is meant to reach. In broad terms, a seller whose turnover is below the GST registration threshold, who sells goods only within their own state, can enrol on the common portal using PAN instead of a full GST registration. You get an enrolment number, and that lets you supply through the network. The moment your turnover crosses the threshold, that enrolment stops applying and normal GST registration kicks in.

The exemption is genuine but narrow. It generally covers intra-state sale of goods below the threshold. Sell across state lines, or cross the turnover limit, and you are back to needing a GSTIN. Tax rules also change, and your category or state may have its own wrinkles. Confirm your own position with a CA or the official guidance before you rely on the exemption. Do not treat a blog, including this one, as a tax ruling.

Choosing an ONDC seller app

Your seller app is the single biggest practical decision you make, because it shapes your daily experience, your fees and your support. Several providers have joined the network to bring merchants on board. Here is a rough guide to a few real ones and who they tend to suit. Features and pricing shift often, so verify current terms directly with each provider before committing.

When you compare seller apps, look past the marketing and ask four things. What is the all-in commission and are there monthly or listing fees on top. Does it support your category and your state. What logistics options does it give you. And how responsive is support when an order goes wrong, because it will at some point. A slightly higher fee with real human help often beats the cheapest option running on autopilot.

Step-by-step: registering and going live

Once you have chosen a seller app, the actual ONDC seller registration flow is fairly standard across providers. Here is the shape of it.

• Sign up on your chosen seller app and create your seller profile.
• Complete KYC by uploading PAN, Aadhaar, bank details, a cancelled cheque and address proof, and enter your GSTIN or small-seller enrolment number.
• Wait for verification. Approval commonly takes a couple of working days, sometimes a little longer if a document needs a re-upload.
• Build your catalogue: add products with clear titles, prices, weights, images and stock counts.
• Set inventory and pricing rules, plus your return and cancellation policy.
• Connect logistics, choosing self-ship or a network logistics partner (covered next).
• Preview, then go live so your listings publish to the network.

The single most common cause of delay is messy KYC. Blurry document scans, a name mismatch between your PAN and bank account, or a wrong GST detail will bounce your application back. Get these right the first time and most sellers are approved and listing within a few days.

A note on catalogue quality

Your catalogue is your shopfront on a network where the buyer never meets you. A product with a sharp photo, an accurate weight and a truthful description converts far better than a rushed listing, and it also cuts returns. Spend real time here. It pays for itself.

Fulfilment and logistics: self-ship or network

When an order lands, someone has to pick, pack and deliver it. On ONDC you generally have two routes, and you can mix them.

Self-ship

You arrange delivery yourself. For a local seller shipping within a city, this can mean your own delivery person or a courier you already trust. You keep control over packaging and timing, and for nearby orders it can be cheaper. The trade-off is that everything is on you, including tracking and failed deliveries.

Network logistics

The network also connects logistics providers, so your seller app can hand the shipment to a delivery partner automatically. This scales far better once orders grow, and it reaches buyers outside your immediate area. You pay a delivery charge, which eats into margin, so factor it into your price rather than absorbing it silently.

For small, local, perishable or heavy items, self-ship often wins on cost and speed. For lighter goods going to distant pincodes, network logistics usually makes more sense. Many sellers start self-shipping locally and switch on network delivery as demand spreads.

Payments and settlement

Buyers usually pay at checkout inside the buyer app, most often through UPI or a card. That money does not sit with you instantly. It flows through the network settlement process and lands in your registered bank account after a settlement cycle, minus the applicable fees and any delivery charges you opted into.

Two practical habits save you grief. First, keep your bank details spotless and matched to your PAN, because a mismatch is the usual reason a payout gets stuck. Second, reconcile. Check that the amount that hits your account matches the order value less the fees you agreed to. Do this weekly at first. It is how you catch a wrong commission slab or a delivery charge you did not expect before it becomes a pattern.

ONDC vs Amazon, Flipkart and Meesho

This is the comparison every seller wants, so here it is with the honesty each platform deserves. The fee figures are reported ranges and vary heavily by category, so read them as direction, not as a quote.

So when does a marketplace still win. If you sell a mass-market product and you need volume tomorrow, the big platforms have the traffic and the ad tools to buy visibility today, and their processes are well trodden. Our guides on how to sell on Amazon in India, how to sell on Flipkart and how to start a reselling business on Meesho walk through each of those.

ONDC fits best when your margins are thin and every extra percent of commission hurts, when you want to keep a direct relationship with buyers, or when you are already running your own channels and want another low-cost shelf. The smart play for many small sellers is not either-or. It is to list on ONDC for margin and on a marketplace for reach, and let each do what it is good at.

A worked margin example

Numbers make this concrete. Meet Anuradha, who runs a small home-fragrance brand out of Pune and sells handmade soy candles. Her cost to make and pack one candle is ₹180, and she sells it at ₹499. Let us follow that same candle down two channels. These are illustrative figures to show the mechanics, not a promise about any platform.

On the same candle at the same price, Anuradha keeps roughly ₹80 more per unit on the network, driven almost entirely by the lower platform cut. Sell 300 candles in a month and that gap is around ₹24,000 of extra profit, which for a small brand is the difference between a hobby and a wage. The catch, and it is a real one, is that the marketplace may send her more orders because of its traffic. Her actual best move is to run both, price for each channel, and watch which one earns her more per hour of effort.

Getting your first orders and ratings

A live listing is not the same as a selling listing. On a young network especially, you have to help your first orders along.

Start by telling people who already trust you. If you sell through WhatsApp today, point those buyers to your ONDC listing; our guide to WhatsApp Business for small business shows how to turn that chat list into repeat orders. Price your first few products sharply, even accepting a slim margin, because early sales and honest reviews are worth more than the profit on those units. Deliver those first orders as if your reputation depends on them, because it does. Pack carefully, ship on time, and follow up.

Ratings compound. A handful of genuine five-star deliveries early on lifts your visibility and makes the next buyer more comfortable. Ask happy customers, politely, to leave a review. Do not fake them. The network is small enough that reputation travels.

The honest challenges

A guide that only sells you the upside is not much use, so here is the other side plainly.

Discoverability is the big one. On a mature marketplace, millions of shoppers arrive every day with intent to buy. On ONDC the buyer-side audience is still growing, and your product can be live yet quiet simply because fewer people are searching. The network is maturing, and coverage across buyer apps, categories and pincodes is uneven. Some days a buyer app you counted on may not surface your category well.

Then there is the catalogue and quality work, which is ongoing rather than one-time. Keeping stock counts accurate, images fresh and policies clear takes effort, and a stale catalogue quietly kills conversions. Buyer-app fragmentation adds friction too: your listing may look or behave slightly differently across apps, and support can feel less centralised than the one-window experience of a big marketplace. None of this makes ONDC a bad bet. It makes it a channel you grow into, not a switch you flip.

Common mistakes to avoid

Most early stumbles are avoidable. Watch for these.

• Treating ONDC as a magic traffic tap. It is a low-cost channel you have to feed, not a marketplace that hands you customers.
• Sloppy KYC that delays approval, usually a name mismatch between PAN and bank account.
• Pricing without counting delivery. If network logistics costs eat your margin, build them into the price up front.
• Ignoring the GST nuance. Assuming you are exempt when you sell across states, or assuming you must register when you qualify for the small-seller enrolment.
• A thin catalogue. Poor photos and vague titles convert badly and raise returns.
• Going quiet after listing. Not chasing first orders, first reviews or reconciling settlements.
• Betting everything on one channel. Dropping your marketplace or WhatsApp store the day you go live on ONDC.

Is ONDC right for your business?

Here is the plain-language verdict. If you run a small or margin-sensitive business, want to keep more of each sale, and are willing to put in the catalogue and early-order work, ONDC deserves a place in your channel mix right now. The lower cost is real, the lack of exclusivity means you risk almost nothing by adding it, and the direct relationship with buyers is worth having.

If you need large volume this quarter and your product is mass-market, lead with a big marketplace for reach and add ONDC alongside for margin. The two are not rivals in your business. They are different tools. Set up your ONDC seller registration this month, list a handful of your best products, and treat the first ninety days as a learning phase rather than a revenue target. For more founder playbooks and channel ideas, browse our business ideas for women in India guide and the founder journeys in our stories. The sellers who win on this network are the ones who start early, stay patient, and keep their listings honest.