How Google quietly became India's third-biggest e-commerce player

Google taps online market for ad revenue: joins hands with top brands, helps over 100,000 new sellers to set up online shops, while Flipkart and Amazon fought new FDI norms

During the festive season in December last year, when country’s two biggest online marketplaces, Amazon India and Flipkart, scrambled to save their businesses from the onslaught of the new foreign direct investment (FDI) norms in e-commerce, search giant Google quietly went on expanding its merchant base through its platform Google Shopping. 

Following a “true” marketplace model of e-commerce, experts believe, helped Google virtually escape unscathed from the changes in FDI in e-commerce norms. While Amazon India and Flipkart were revamping their business models over the past two months, Google utilised that time to bolster its e-commerce business. This will help