Open platform needed to tackle unfair practices of big ecommerce
Bangladesh needs to establish a platform like India's Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to help small and medium enterprises sell products through online platforms without having to give in to the dominance of a few big players, said experts yesterday.
"The ONDC received tremendous response among the small and medium-sized Indian e-commerce sellers," said AKM Fahim Mashroor, chief executive officer of Bdjobs.com and AjkerDeal.com.
He was speaking at a roundtable titled "ONDC: the new future of digital commerce" organised by the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) at its conference room in Dhaka.
The ONDC is a private non-profit company backed by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of India to promote open networks for all aspects of the exchange of goods and services over a digital network.
It was launched on a pilot basis in five cities on April 2022 and then expanded to over 85 others. Later it was officially launched in Bengaluru on September 30.
The ONDC will empower e-commerce merchants as they will not have to accept unilateral terms of top e-commerce platforms, said Mashroor.
"Although the internet was founded on the principles of openness and decentralisation, global ecommerce is facing the challenge of market concentration," said Thampy Koshy, chief executive officer of the ONDC, who joined the roundtable virtually.
Some 42 per cent of global ecommerce is owned by four Chinese companies and two large international companies control 63 per cent of the ecommerce market in India. This has led to digital monopolies, he said.
"This is leading to market concentration, with many adverse effects, creating high entry barriers for new players and limiting innovation," he said.
The ONDC is enabling local commerce across segments, such as mobility, grocery, food order and delivery, hotel booking and travel, among others, to be discovered and engaged by any network-enabled application, reports Indian newspaper Business Standard.
Through the ONDC, merchants will be able to save their data to build credit history and reach consumers.
The network aims to create a level playing field for e-commerce behemoths such as Amazon and Flipkart and offline traders who have been crying foul at the unfair trade practices of these e-tailers.
The ONDC is not a platform, rather a network or system through which all the partners involved in digital commerce communicate with each other through a common protocol, said Koshy.
"The government should work together with the private sector to implement this new network in Bangladesh like India," Russell T Ahmed, president of the BASIS.
"In this regard, the BASIS is ready to provide all kinds of technical assistance to all, including the Ministry of Commerce and Bangladesh Bank," he said.
The ONDC can act as a shield against large foreign platforms who end up driving many small traders out of the market, said Hafizur Rahman, additional secretary to the Ministry of Commerce.
"The Ministry of Commerce will use the experience of other countries in this regard and will soon start the work of creating an open network policy suitable for digital commerce in Bangladesh. This policy will be developed in consultation with stakeholders," he added.
Md Mezbaul Haque, director of Payment Systems Department of Bangladesh Bank, also spoke at the programme.
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