Data-Driven Dominance and Stakeholders’ Vulnerability: An Empirical Assessment of Anti-Competitive Practices on Indian E-Commerce Platforms

Abstract

India's digital economy is doing great and today all the ecommerce players are big data-driven industry who have raised significant questions pertaining to market leaders, competition and welfare of stakeholders. This research is an empirical study on Data driven Dominance and Stakeholders' Vulnerability with reference to Indian E-commerce Companies. A mixed method research design was followed, which included filling the survey for 600 respondents (300 for online sellers and 300 for consumers), observations of the platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho and JioMart, and doctrinal research of Indian and foreign competition laws. A methodology known as Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was applied to evaluate the interconnections between the data accumulation, network effects, platform integration, algorithmic opacity and vulnerabilities of the various stakeholders: data-driven dominance. Results indicate that data can drive data-driven dominance, which may end up having a significant impact because of the accumulation of data and network effects, both sellers and consumers become data platforms that are more prone to exploitation in terms of potential. The severity of negative effects of platform dominance was seen to be reduced by regulatory effectiveness. The study offers an integrated empirical framework at the intersection of platform economics, stakeholder theory and the data advantage theory, and proposes policy solutions of regulating the platform economy ex ante, requiring transparency of algorithms, the establishment of a digital market unit in India, subjecting platform companies to the definition of gatekeepers, and specially, the set up and compulsory delegation of interoperability.