India To Launch Open E-Commerce Network To Take On Amazon, Walmart

Hmmmmmm shares a report from Reuters: India will on Friday launch an open network for digital commerce (ONDC) as the government tries to end the dominance of U.S. companies Amazon.com and Walmart in the fast-growing e-commerce market, a government document showed. The launch of the platform comes after India's antitrust body on Thursday raided domestic sellers of Amazon and some of Walmart's Flipkart following accusations of competition law violations.

The government's so-called ONDC platform will allow buyers and sellers to connect and transact with each other online, no matter what other application they use. It will be soft-launched on Friday before being expanded, the trade ministry told Reuters. The government document said that two large multinational players controlled more than half of the country's e-commerce trade, limiting access to the market, giving preferential treatment to some sellers and squeezing supplier margins. It did not name the companies. The document said India's ONDC plan aimed to onboard 30 million sellers and 10 million merchants online. The plan is to cover at least 100 cities and towns by August.

Play stupid games win stupid prizes

[ghoul]

Keep lecturing India on buying Russian oil. India knows to squeeze where it hurts Biden's big tech donors.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The Americans will just cut them off from the banking system if they try to "squeeze" anything

Re: Play stupid games win stupid prizes

[shm]

Learn about UPI. Thereâ(TM)s nothing to stop that from going international.

fair trade

[algaeman]

I'm sure a marketplace run by the Indian government is going to be fair and free of corruption. They will be very effective competition for Amazon and Walmart.

Re:fair trade

[ghoul]

UPI has already eaten Visa and Mastercard's lunch so yes open standards work better than proprietary. India has no plans of running the marketplace. It is creating an open standard which every marketplace will have to follow so if you do a search on Flipkart everything in Amazon's inventory also shows up. And same for any other online commerce app. So Marketplaces cant have exclusive deals with suppliers to only list on one marketplace. The govt will create a reference implementation so that Amazon and Flipkart cant say its too difficult to implement but the plan is not to take over the market.

Re:

[rantrantrant]

Ah, standards & rules that apply to everyone. Yes, that sounds like a good way to "level the playing field" & prevent abusive terms of service.

Re:

[cascadingstylesheet]

UPI has already eaten Visa and Mastercard's lunch so yes open standards work better than proprietary. India has no plans of running the marketplace. It is creating an open standard which every marketplace will have to follow so if you do a search on Flipkart everything in Amazon's inventory also shows up. And same for any other online commerce app. So Marketplaces cant have exclusive deals with suppliers to only list on one marketplace. The govt will create a reference implementation so that Amazon and Flipkart cant say its too difficult to implement but the plan is not to take over the market.

What does that mean in practice though?

Can't I just shop Amazon if I want to? Or do I have to slog through some "marketplace" that is forced to be "fair" and show me stuff from everybody?

Re: fair trade

[NewID_of_Ami.One]

Yes you can shop anywhere. Obviously.

This is just an alternative more open competiting system with some interoperability mandated (just like telcos are mandated to work with each other)

It does tend to push monopolistic players to be less evil in most cases and completely open in some cases if u r lucky

Doesn't always work though.

But the Govt managed to set up 3-4 similar things quite successfully, like a Visa Mastercard alternative called RuPay and then an online payment system called UPI where all banks, ap

Re:

[rantrantrant]

And you think Amazon & Walmart aren't already taking advantage of govt corruption? At its worst, this is govt protectionism so that Indians can get a bigger slice of the e-commerce pie. Who knows, perhaps it'll work out better for Indian traders & customers?

Re:

[gtall]

India crowed about getting out from under the British then went on to keep the British bureaucracy and expand upon it.

Re: fair trade

[junglee_iitk]

India fought for freedom to be treated equally and when it resulted in violent backlash, Gandhi started Quit India movement. It was never against British per say and Gandhi requested them to stay.

British in their glorious wisdom left most fertile land full of resources to maintain white majority on a cold wet rock and also broke India so that Russians can't take the whole pie.

Very different from what you said.

Lose, lose

[NedHamson]

This will not do what India wants it to do. It will result in sellers on that market pressing the government for more control and that will not end well - it will be back to the era when government controls impeded an open market and increased trade and profit for all.

Re:

[gtall]

So you are saying it will work as intended. The Indians always think ahead.

Hmm

[backslashdot]

Instead of getting ripped off by a corporation, get ripped off by the government? At least the corporation doesn't own a police.

Re:

[ghoul]

Nah Corporations just own governments who own the police

I'm sure they'll do it right

[ttyX]

And not favor Ambanis & Adanis