Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT)

CAIT demands probe into trade practices of e-commerce firms | Free Press Journal

In a communication sent to Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the CAIT has demanded a thorough probe in to the working and business model of e-commerce companies. It has demanded setting up of a special task force of experts to conduct an in depth probe of working of such companies. The traders’ body has sought the investigation as to how the e-commerce companies are able to sell “same brand and quality of goods much cheaper than brick-and-mortar shops”.
It further said that if required, the body may lodge a complaint with Competition Commission of India, alleging that the online business is “indulging into unfair competition practices”.
The body has also raised a question of “diversion of VAT tax” by these companies which is causing great revenue loss to the state governments.

Click to expand...

Isn't vat paid on the items bought from e commerce stores?
Its mentioned on the bill.

I think they are just trying to get the attention of the government by spreading FUD about tax evasion. Some states are already angry about losing sales tax because retail stores are based in another state so tax benefits go to that state. For example, I am guessing Karnataka gets the benefit of all sales made by Flipkart considering it is based in Bangalore.

Waiting for acche din for GST

Liquor sale should be made only against digital payment: CAIT

In a letter to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has said the linkage of digital payments with sale of liquor could also curb black money to a great extent.

"Any person purchasing liquor from any shop should be made obligatory to make payment through digital mode," it said, adding that liquor sale is largely carried out in cash.

Click to expand...

I know what will happen. A guy will stand outside the store with debit card, take the cash from customers and buy liquor from his card.

Keeps 1-5% 😀

^ Im all for foreign investment but clearly this is very important issue. walmart killed mom and pop stores thru their stores and basically fucked up entire american communities' economy. if same thing happens in india, it will take time but it surely is happening. If we dont deal with this issue now, it'll be too late in the future

All the big marketplaces used SMEs to gain traction here in India. Now they are throttling traffic for us and diverting it into their own subsidiaries. Govt is sitting silent as some officials are getting "fees".

^ can you explain more, perhaps with an example? Im also looking to export tee shirts abroad but it looks like Ihave to pay a bribe fee whereever I encounter red tape

There are multiple big players in India. They are Azn,Fk,Ptm,Sdl,Shpcls. Due to the legal maze & red tape w.r.t FDI these companies couldn't & still can't sell directly in India. So these guys initially worked with small businesses who helped them to offer loads of products at affordable prices. One of my very good friend took his small traditional apparels business online and has fulfilled nearly 2.5 million+ orders (worth ~175 crores) on these platforms in 3-4 years. A remarkable feat considering that the brand was absolutely new with no brand recall whatsoever.

These companies made the small sellers to introduce new designs/offerings and they used their funding to do deep discounting, used manpower & sophisticated software algorithms to study what sells and what doesn't sell without maintaining inventory. Then they slowly started showing their true colours by introducing proxy sellers by finding some loophole in law, launching private labels, forcing sellers to opt for their fulfilment network, contacting the sellers to provide stuff at wholesale rate to their proxy companies with insanely long credit periods, ban or throttle traffic/sales of each and every small seller who doesn't agree to their terms. I have lost count of people in our seller associations (including the ones selling their own brands) who got banned for fake trademark/copyright infringement complaints.

While all these things were being done a small faction of sellers through All India Online Vendors Association and CAIT kept on approaching top most officials in Commerce Ministry, Ministry of Finance, DIPP, RBI, Competition Commission etc. Spoke with J.Sinha, N.Sitharaman, S. Prabhu, Arun J etc. And somehow tried to get the draft e-com policy released. These were quickly put to backseat by these companies using their influence. Even Competition Commission Of India refused to act whereas every other country's competition commission equivalents (especially in EU) are beating this biggies left, right and centre. Our only hope now is "The One Who Must Not Be Named aka Mota Bhai" who is having some grand e-commerce plans and some right-wing swadeshi organisations who have the cult following.

These people have spoiled the situation to such an extent that it has almost become impossible to sell anything offline or online without doing artificial price inflation and show fake discount. Offline store buyers are saying we get stuff at cheaper rates online. And online customers ask for discounts for each and everything and start blackmailing to leave negative feedback if we don't give discounts. Don't know why people have become so dumb!. There is no such thing as free meal and you will never get discounts every alternate day without some short term or long term catch.

If you guys don't believe my words, look at the balance sheets of these companies and see how much they spend in the name of "Legal Fees", follow articles by The-Ken and follow AIOVA+CAIT on Twitter.

@dextermorgan - Please don't get into apparels export sector unless you have your own factory to manufacture. You won't be able to compete.

Thanks for reading my rant.

Regards
Sai

P.S: The greatest help you can do is to buy from small niche brands with their own stores. If you know how to search and where to search, you will actually get stuff at much cheaper rates than all marketplaces with faster delivery and very friendly customer support.