Google, India Discuss Collaborating Over Open E-Commerce Network

Alphabet Inc's GOOG 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 AMZN and Walmart Inc 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.