E-commerce and digital marketplaces: Chokepoints and risks

Online marketplaces and apps linking sellers, payments, warehouses and delivery fleets

Platform concentration: a few marketplaces and ad platforms set fees and visibility for millions of sellers.
Payment rail concentration: UPI handled 24.07 billion transactions in one month (September 2026), so outages or fee changes affect almost all Indian online checkout³.
Quick commerce has roughly doubled each year and Bain forecasts it will supply 45-50% of incremental India e-retail GMV to 2030 (forecast), a bet that depends on dense, costly urban dark stores².
Regulation of foreign-owned marketplaces, gig worker welfare and data protection can change platform economics quickly.
Cross-border e-commerce (about US$ 2.5 trillion of digitally ordered exports in 2021, roughly 13% of world exports; an uncertain estimate) is exposed to tariffs and customs changes¹.