Following a demand by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) to formulate a national policy for retail trade, Indian Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu has agreed to formulate one to include all verticals of retail trade — small business, big retail, e-commerce and direct selling — under one umbrella, the confederation said in a statement. In a recent meeting between Prabhu and a CAIT delegation, the industry body complained against e-commerce platforms for indulging in deep discounting and loss funding, thereby violating the government’s Foreign Direct Investment Policy (FDI) 2016, according to report.
CAIT said e-commerce platforms are directly selling to consumers with predatory pricing and mass scale public advertisements instead of selling to businesses, which is unfair and works to the disadvantage of offline markets. These e-commerce portals are circumventing the law and engaged in business-to-consumer (B2C) activities, which is prohibited for e-commerce marketplace portals, CAIT added.
