Most e-commerce websites try to game the consumers with fake reviews of the products and services. The customers cannot differentiate between the good products and the bad ones because the whole system is not organic.
However, the customer’s frustration with e-commerce websites in the next few years as Indian government has launched Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). The cancellation of the cabs & autos on Ola & Uber to delivery of wrong products or defective ones by e-commerce companies is all set to end as the companies integrate their algorithms with ONDC.
ONDC is a multi-party protocol like UPI and will disintegrate the e-commerce operations by keeping one party limited to one task. So, all the platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Ola or Uber will become just a product facilitating the transaction between the buyer and seller, and will not be responsible for other parts of the value chain like delivery, product promotion etc., thus the incentive for preferred selling will also end.
So, in the coming months and years, most of the e-commerce sites will be subsumed into the ocean of ONDC just like the payment apps before UPI were subsumed.
“The existing large etailers work with a captive set of users. With an open network, ONDC will enable all the buyers in the network to be discoverable to all the sellers. Therefore, existing platforms (too) will have an incentive to be part of ONDC,” Thampy Koshy, CEO of ONDC said.
The Modi government intends to break the digital monopolies built by the companies like Amazon (e-commerce), Google (Internet), Facebook (social media) with open networks. The Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade appointed Nandan Nilekani, Infosys chairman and Aadhar architect on the panel that has been awarded this task.
As per the government release, ONDC “aims at promoting open networks developed on open-sourced methodology, using open specifications and open network protocols, independent on any specific platform. ONDC is expected to digitise the entire value chain, standardise operations, promote inclusion of suppliers, derive efficiency in logistics and enhance value for consumers”.
The DPIIT has included some of the biggest names working at the intersection of technology and policy from the government as well as private space in the panel on Open Network for Digital Commerce.
The other members of the panel include R S Sharma, National Health Authority chief executive officer, Adil Zainulbhai, Quality Council of India chairman, Anjali Bansal, Avaana Capital Founder and Chairperson, Dilip Adbe, National Payments Corp. of India CEO, and Arvind Gupta, Digital India Foundation co-founder.
The other members are Suresh Sethi, National Securities Depository head, Kumar Rajagopalan, Retailers Association of India CEO, and Praveen Khandelwal, Confederation of All India Traders secretary-general.
While the countries around the world are trying to make people and small businesses internet friendly, India has completely reversed the system and is making internet people and small businesses friendly. The countries achieved great success in this when it comes to digital payments by building an open-source payments platform (UPI), and encouraged by this, attempting the same in different sectors. Whether it succeeds in doing so in other segments is yet to be seen but if it does, the world would soon follow India in digital technology and its regulation.
