Walmart-owned fintech major PhonePe, which formally separated from its parent entity Flipkart earlier this year, on Tuesday announced the launch of its ecommerce consumer app Pincode, built on the government’s Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform.

The fintech player’s online commerce ambitions aren’t new. ET had reported in August last year about its plans to enter the ecommerce space. The fintech previously made attempts to enter the space with Switch, loosely based on a superapp concept, and Stores, which was aimed at facilitating hyper-local discovery of merchants.

The app will pilot in Bangalore with categories such as grocery, food, pharma, electronics and home decor, a statement from the company said.

The company added that the app would promote local shopkeepers and sellers and hopes to digitally connect each city’s consumers with neighbourhood stores they usually buy from offline, with the convenience of online ordering.

“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’s founder and CEO Sameer Nigam, speaking at the launch event in Bengaluru. “Pincode is built on the ONDC network, which allows us to generate demand for merchants digitised by various seller platforms in an inclusive manner, while creating new opportunities for growth and driving innovation at scale.”

“We feel that if we put the local business at the forefront, the consumer-merchant dynamic changes. Our first motto is to start local,” Nigam added.

ET reported in August last year that the company had earmarked up to $15 million for its ONDC entry, and was planning to deploy the capital over a period of 18 months.

The app hopes to bring out the inherent strengths of neighbourhood stores, offering both national brands and locally manufactured products.

“This will not only provide a stimulus to local retailers, but also to the entire local ecosystem powering commerce including the MSME’s [sic] and farmers,” the company added in its statement.

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