- Alphabet Inc's (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google and the Indian government have discussed integrating its shopping services with India's open e-commerce network ONDC, Reuters reports.
- Google's talks follow the success of its payments business due to the government's initiative for financial transactions, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
- An expert emphasized ONDC's need for a consumer player to drive mass adoption, which Google Pay did for UPI.
- Google's existing shopping business works solely as an aggregator of listings online instead of order fulfillment like Amazon.
- The government looks to level the playing field by reducing the cost of doing business for any seller who aspires to list their products online.
- The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) program aims to join 30 million sellers and 10 million merchants online and cover at least 100 cities and towns by August.
- India soft-launched its ONDC to end the dominance of U.S. companies Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Walmart Inc (NYSE:WMT) in the booming e-commerce market.
- Price Action: GOOG shares traded higher by 0.46% at $2,175.80 in the premarket on the last check Friday.
