Trader body calls for nation-wide protests against Amazon, Flipkart

After complaining to the minister of commerce and industry Piyush Goyal and the prime minister Narendra Modi about e-commerce platforms’ alleged violation of the Foreign Direct Investment norms, the Confederation of All India Traders now plans to organise protests and traders rally across the country.

CAIT says it will convene a meeting of its national governing council on November 10 in Delhi. The traders’ body will then submit a memorandum to all members of parliament on November 13, highlighting the issue of deep discounting and predatory practices by the ecommerce platforms.

“Both Amazon and Flipkart still continue to sell goods on their portal at a predatory pricing, deep discounting, controlling inventory, promoting preferential sellers and influencing prices and therefore this issue has emerged as a very big and serious issue for the retail trade,” said a statement issued by CAIT, quoting its secretary-general Praveen Khandelwal and national president BC Bhartia. 

CAIT had recently filed a writ petition in the Rajasthan High Court, citing a violation of FDI rules by Amazon and Flipkart.

The court has asked enforcement directorate (ED) to complete an ongoing investigation into the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) violations by the ecommerce platforms.

CAIT’s complaint also prompted the Department of Industry and Internal Trade to push ecommerce companies to disclose details of the top five sellers on the platforms and business model.