Amazon has joined and Indian government-backed ecommerce initiative that aims to ‘democratise’ online shopping in the South Asia. Amazon said it will integrate its logistics network and SmartCommerce, its platform to digitise neighbourhood stores, to Open Network for Digital Commerce, a non-profit firm set up by India’s commerce ministry in 2021.

The ecommerce giant’s vision and commitment for India is closely aligned with ONDC’s objectives of digitally enabling small businesses, and providing convenience and choice to customers across the country. Amazon’s participation in the initiative, backed by the Indian government, is remarkable because part of the ONDC pitch to date has been that it seeks to disrupt the monopoly of Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart in the Indian ecommerce market. What exactly is ONDC? ONDC is an ‘interoperable’ network, where buyers and sellers can do business regardless of the app or services they use, disrupting the consumers’ reliance on using proprietary services run by Amazon and Walmart.

With ONDC, New Delhi is seeking to replicate the success it has had with UPI, the interoperable mobile payments network, that disrupted the walled-garden mobile wallets from firms such as Paytm and MobiKwik. Paytm is a participant in the ONDC network. ONDC still in operational limbo And while it’s early days for ONDC, the model has many things left to iron out, industry executives say.

It’s unclear who bears the responsibility if a customer doesn’t get their order delivered, for instance. And unlike UPI, which saw New Delhi aggressively promote the digital payments network, ONDC has received little public praise and support. ONDC’s officials sad that they are happy that Amazon has a definite roadmap to being a part of the ONDC network and is taking its first step in coming in as the logistics partner in the ONDC network, which is a globally pioneering idea established with a view to democratise digital commerce in India.

.