The sheen is wearing off traditional ecommerce. For all their size and scale, platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Zomato, and Swiggy are grappling with user fatigue, seller disillusionment, and a workforce walking a tightrope.

Customers now routinely question whether “guaranteed delivery” means “next day” or “next neighbour”. Sellers feel increasingly like contestants in a game show where rules change without warning — navigating shifting commission structures, opaque algorithms, and arbitrary suspensions. And platform workers? They’re often treated like code — easily replaced, endlessly scalable, yet largely invisible.

Even ultra-fast delivery — once a novelty — is starting to feel unsustainable. Blinkit, the 10-minute grocery darling now backed by Zomato, is shifting expectations for speed across the sector. But with that acceleration comes questions: Who bears the cost? What happens to small stores when the demand for instant gratification overrides considerations of locality, price transparency, and worker welfare?

This is the tension at the heart of today’s ecommerce: Convenience versus control, speed versus sustainability, and platform power versus participatory access.

Experiments galore

Enter the idea of open networks. Around the world, experiments are quietly taking place that challenge the platform monopoly model. In Nairobi, Wasoko (short for “people of the market”) connects over 50,000 informal retailers with manufacturers across six African countries, offering real-time order fulfilment and credit access to small vendors traditionally left out of digital systems.

In Europe, PrestaShop — an open-source ecommerce builder — powers over 300,000 shops. Merchants own their storefronts and data, while a thriving developer ecosystem helps businesses customise everything from UX to inventory flow. It’s a modular toolkit.

In Indonesia, platforms like Warung Pintar digitise mom-and-pop stores, equipping them with point-of-sale tech and helping them join larger distribution networks without being absorbed by them.

In Latin America, Tiendanube (Nuvemshop) enables more than 100,000 small businesses to set up customised online shops. It connects them with local logistics and payment providers in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina — without locking them into a single app or interface.

Opening the pipes

The most influential open network model, though, may be UPI (Unified Payments Interface) from India. With over 13 billion monthly transactions, UPI has redefined payments — not by centralising them, but by opening the pipes. Any bank, any app, any user — plug and play. UPI proved that when infrastructure is open, innovation blooms. You need a system that lets everyone build.

That’s the promise of the next wave of digital commerce: interoperability, data portability, and network fairness.

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has launched Solid — a project that lets users store their personal data in decentralised “pods”. Apps must request access; users decide what to share. Your Amazon cart, Flipkart returns, and Myntra wishlists could all live with you, not inside a server farm owned by a trillion-dollar firm. Sellers can control their inventory and pricing without fear of deplatforming. And buyers can shop across apps.

Built to decentralise

India’s ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) is a digital public infrastructure, built to decentralise. It aims to ensure that anyone can build an ecommerce platform.

DigiHaat is a buyer app built on ONDC rails. A handloom artisan in Varanasi, for instance, can use DigiHaat to list products, store their catalogue in a shareable format, and reach buyers using any ONDC-compatible app.

Rahul Vij, COO of DigiHaat, says, “This is about giving every seller a digital voice, without asking them to speak someone else’s language.”

In a world of walls, open networks are offering bridges — one interoperable connection at a time.

(The writer is an independent consultant at Nirmit Bharat, ONDC)

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Published on April 20, 2025