| | SEPTEMBER 20248FLIPKART JOINS POLYGON TO INITIATE METAVERSE USE CASES IN E-COMMERCE SPACELogistics solution provider Shiprocket announced that it has gone live on ONDC, enabling first ever inter-city logistics on the government-backed e-commerce network.The first successful transaction was fulfilled on October 22."Our mission is to reach every independent retailer in the country and enable them with state of the art technology that can help them better manage their delivery and customer experience and be able to compete on even keel with the larger platforms that are out there," said Saahil Goel, Co-Founder, Shiprocket.Shiprocket serves over 1,00,000 sellers in the country.The company said it will enable sellers on ONDC to select a trusted delivery partner to pick up their products from 24,000 pincodes, with both cash-on-delivery as well prepaid shipping facilities available to the customers.Small and medium logistics providers, operating in towns and cities, can now offer their services through Shiprocket on the ONDC network."ONDC's mission is to enable an inclusive e-commerce ecosystem for all of India where a business in a small village in a remote corner of India can have the confidence and the opportunity to sell their products to customers anywhere in the country," said T Koshy, CEO, ONDC.ONDC and Shiprocket are also working to enable warehousing-as-a-service on ONDC.This will allow small and medium businesses to provide same-day shipping services to their customers.ONDC, a Ministry of Commerce initiative, will enable sellers to tap this massive market by offering an equitable and secure platform that integrates multiple sellers, buyers and logistics players. Flipkart on Friday joined Ethereum-based Blockchain platform Polygon to set up a centre of excellence (CoE) that will work on research and development of Web3 and metaverse commerce use-cases in India.Still in its early days, decentralised technologies are yet to become more mainstream.However, the partnership will be an opportunity to create a large impact and deliver on the promise of Web3 for all, the firm said."With the COE, we look forward to working with Polygon and leveraging their expertise and technical know-how to successfully onboard users not just to the value proposition of Web3 or Metaverse commerce but also Web3 in general," said Jeyandran Venugopal, Chief Product and Technology Officer, Flipkart.Earlier this year, the e-commerce platform declared Flipkart Labs to incubate various solutions to bring innovation to the e-commerce space in the country.With Labs, Flipkart ventured into Web3 and metaverse commerce to explore non-fungible tokens (NFTs), virtual immersive stores, and other Blockchain-related use cases.Flipkart has launched FireDrops, an easy-to-use NFT platform for brands to explore community building and pivot the value of NFTs around utilities.During the festive sale, Flipkart also partnered with eDAO to launch a virtual shopping experience in the metaverse called Flipverse.Sandeep Nailwal, Co-Founder of Polygon, said the aim is to bring the next billion users to Web3 and "this partnership will pioneer research and development at the intersection of Web3 and experiential retail"."We see the Blockchain-eCommerce Centre of Excellence as an engine for the evolution of e-commerce in the years to come," he added. IN FOCUSSHIPROCKET ENABLES INTER-CITY LOGISTICS FOR SMALL MERCHANTS ON ONDC
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