Meta launched a marketplace with the bold goal of disrupting small businesses eight years ago. Every month, at least one billion people utilise the Facebook marketplace. Since its conception in 2004, Facebook has grown at a breakneck pace, becoming a strong player in the social media sector. The Facebook marketplace, which was launched in 2016, has quickly gained user acceptance, making it the top choice of its users for commercial activity. For selling and buying things, Facebook Marketplace is available in over 70 countries and over 228 locations globally. In India, particularly for social sellers. While Meta’s ambitious Facebook marketplace is going to market for all of their product launches, it is currently mired in several scandals due to counterfeit issues. With a vast supplier directory, Meta is focusing on India’s ambitious ONDC.

What exactly is ONDC?

The acronym ONDC stands for Open Network Digital Commerce. With the success of UPI, which changed the way people trade money digitally. For Buyers and Sellers, the government has already launched an open source ECommerce platform. To register with ONDC, vendors must first register with platforms such as Zupain (ONDC Coming Soon in Zupain) and then push their products to the ONDC platform. Sellers should be aware that in order to sell on ONDC, they must have valid GST and, in the case of food products, FSSAI certification.

ONDC and Meta

On Tuesday, Meta and the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) launched a collaboration to enable small companies to use the power of digital commerce as a Money control official website. 

Through an ecosystem of Meta’s business and technical solution providers, the alliance aims to enable and educate small business operators to develop conversational buyer and seller experiences on WhatsApp.

ONDC will assist these business solution providers in becoming seller apps, allowing them to put the businesses they serve onto the ONDC network and generate commerce.

The Meta Small Business Academy would also train five lakh MSMEs in digital skills over the next two years.

Meta’s Academy will help you learn more about ONDC.

Meta Small Business Academy offers a certification to enable entrepreneurs and marketers to obtain digital marketing abilities to expand on the Meta apps, in accordance with Meta’s ambitions to upskill 10 million small companies across the country.

Sandhya Devanathan, Vice President of Meta India, observed that the country’s digital story is at a crossroads.

“Our partnership with ONDC builds on supporting the government’s vision for Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and furthering our ongoing commitment to skilling small businesses and aiding this rapid digital transformation and growth story in the country,” she said in a statement.

Under the terms of the agreement, Meta will also assist Sahayak, ONDC’s WhatsApp chatbot, in improving the services provided by the bot as ONDC’s single point of seller and customer communication.

T Koshy, CEO of ONDC, remarked that marketing oneself and reaching a larger audience is crucial for any firm to succeed.

“Our partnership with Meta will not only digitally upskill these businesses, but will also enable them to connect with a customer base far and wide,” Koshy said, confident that the collaborative efforts will enable millions of small businesses by providing the right impetus for growth.