Amazon, Flipkart Flouting FDI Norms: CAIT

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has accused Flipkart and Amazon India of flouting foreign direct investment (FDI) norms by hosting festive season sales.

The body has urged the Union Commerce Minister to look into this violation as it clearly affected brick-and-mortar business.

“Holding such sales and offering deep discounts are clear violations of Press Note No.2 of FDI policy 2018. The CAIT has earlier written to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to ban the declared festival sales by these e-commerce portals,” a CAIT statement said.

While Amazon and Flipkart said that they empower sellers on their platforms to decide discounts and offers, CAIT termed it as an “eyewash”.

The policy states that e-commerce platforms can’t influence prices.

CAIT alleged that e-commerce companies wereo “deep discounts” on the inventory held by the sellers registered on their platform. And according to the policy, the sellers should be deciding the discounts but the e-commerce companies are directly or indirectly influencing the prices.

Amazon India is holding its ‘Great Indian Festival’ sale from September 29 and Flipkart starts its ‘Big Billion Days’ sale from the next day.