New Delhi: Alphabet Inc.‘s Google In talks with the Indian government to integrate its shopping services with the country’s open e-commerce network ONDCTwo sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
India soft-launched late last month Open network for digital commerce (ONDC) as the government is trying to end the dominance of American companies Amazon.com and Walmart in the fast-growing e-commerce market.
The government estimates that the e-commerce market was worth over $55 billion in gross merchandise value in 2021 and will grow to $350 billion by the end of the decade.
ONDC CEO T. Koshy told Reuters that Google was one of several companies that were discussing collaboration with the project.
Google’s talks follow the success of its payments business due to government initiatives for financial transactions, unified payment interfaceOne of the sources said, the two declined to be named as they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.
Google’s existing Shopping business operates entirely as an aggregator of online listings and does not perform any order fulfillment like delivery, which the likes of Amazon do.
A Google spokesperson declined to comment on whether it was in talks with the government.
Referring to its payments service, the spokesperson said, “We are committed to focusing on enabling small and medium businesses to leverage digital for deep search and payments capabilities with Google Pay.”
Partners of the ONDC project, which currently includes fintech firm Paytm, will show listings from each other on their platforms in search results. The government aims to level the playing field by reducing the cost of doing business for any seller who wants to list their products online.
ONDC Program Aims to connect 30 million sellers and 10 million merchants and cover at least 100 cities and towns by August
India soft-launched late last month Open network for digital commerce (ONDC) as the government is trying to end the dominance of American companies Amazon.com and Walmart in the fast-growing e-commerce market.
The government estimates that the e-commerce market was worth over $55 billion in gross merchandise value in 2021 and will grow to $350 billion by the end of the decade.
ONDC CEO T. Koshy told Reuters that Google was one of several companies that were discussing collaboration with the project.
Google’s talks follow the success of its payments business due to government initiatives for financial transactions, unified payment interfaceOne of the sources said, the two declined to be named as they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.
Google’s existing Shopping business operates entirely as an aggregator of online listings and does not perform any order fulfillment like delivery, which the likes of Amazon do.
A Google spokesperson declined to comment on whether it was in talks with the government.
Referring to its payments service, the spokesperson said, “We are committed to focusing on enabling small and medium businesses to leverage digital for deep search and payments capabilities with Google Pay.”
Partners of the ONDC project, which currently includes fintech firm Paytm, will show listings from each other on their platforms in search results. The government aims to level the playing field by reducing the cost of doing business for any seller who wants to list their products online.
ONDC Program Aims to connect 30 million sellers and 10 million merchants and cover at least 100 cities and towns by August