NEW DELHI: Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday accused large e-commerce players, such as Amazon, of indulging in predatory pricing to grab a bigger share and violating FDI rules, while calling for a review of policies to ensure that small shops were not put out of business because of the rapid growth of online commerce.
Goyal alleged that Amazon was passing off fund infusion to write off losses as investments into the country.”If you make Rs 6,000 crore loss in one year, does it not smell of predatory pricing to any of you? What is the loss for, they are not allowed to do any B2C (sales). E-commerce platforms legally cannot do any business with consumers,” he said.
Current FDI rules do not allow foreign-owned entities such as Amazon or Walmart-controlled Flipkart to sell directly to consumers or hold inventory. They are only allowed to set up platforms where sellers can hawk their goods. In the past, too, Goyal has raised doubts over the operation of e-commerce companies.
Goyal alleged that Amazon was passing off fund infusion to write off losses as investments into the country.”If you make Rs 6,000 crore loss in one year, does it not smell of predatory pricing to any of you? What is the loss for, they are not allowed to do any B2C (sales). E-commerce platforms legally cannot do any business with consumers,” he said.
Current FDI rules do not allow foreign-owned entities such as Amazon or Walmart-controlled Flipkart to sell directly to consumers or hold inventory. They are only allowed to set up platforms where sellers can hawk their goods. In the past, too, Goyal has raised doubts over the operation of e-commerce companies.
#Goyal #accuses #ecom #players #predatory #pricing #FDI #violation #Times #India
