The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Thursday sent a letter to the Union Commerce & Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goel has strongly urged for early rollout of ecommerce policy, ecommerce rules under the Consumer Protection Act and a new press note replacing Press Note No 2 of FDI in retail policy to streamlining ecommerce trade in India.
According to the apex body, the implementation of these three policy initiatives is keenly awaited by the traders of the country since they are facing great harassment at the hands of foreign ecommerce companies and an uneven level playing field because of predatory pricing, exclusivity and owing inventory.
The CAIT is organising a traders conclave on 4 August in New Delhi to discuss strategy on ecommerce and other crucial trade issues which are being confronted by the business community.
“The trading community is deeply anguished over the rampant violation of laws and rules by several global e-commerce giants. It is deeply regrettable that it is all happening despite your unequivocal warnings several times expressed on various national & international platforms for more than two years. Such a scenario has created a ” Highway or My Way” type situation in the Country in the field of e-commerce,” said CAIT National President B C Bhartia & Secretary General and Praveen Khandelwal.
Bhartia and Khandelwal said that through ecommerce no substantial FDI is entering India rather the money which comes under the guise of FDI is used for cash-burning or to support huge losses incurred by global e-tailers.
Both trade leaders further added that it has been duly established that several foreign-funded ecommerce companies are indulging in predatory pricing, deep discounting, loss funding, exclusivity, owning inventory and preferential seller systems in their business practices.
CAIT highlights that the considered the opinion that provisions prohibiting deep discounts and flash sales, making ecommerce marketplaces responsible for the quality of goods sold on their platforms, setting up robust grievance redressal mechanisms by the e-commerce companies, stoppage of market-distorting discount offers, mis-selling of goods and services , equal treatment of all sellers registered on their platforms and no adoption of algorithms having liberty to select sellers for the sale of goods or services, should be the integral and noncompromising points of the trading community which duly validate the principle of natural justice and ecommerce freedom in India.
