Amid rising debate over the expansion of e-commerce in India, the latest clarion by Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal dispels rumors: the government is not against this sort of business. However, what is important is that they are fair to small retailers, giving them a fair shot at competing.
Goyal made the statement on August 22, 2017, after he had expressed his uneasiness with the business models of large e-commerce players, such as Amazon’s investment of over a billion dollars in India, which may look like a great benefit to India‘s economy but is not.
Admittedly, Goyal recognised merits such as convenience and speed of e-commerce. He added that the government’s policy is for “fair competition and legal compliance.”
However, Goyal stressed that to strengthen the sale of online products, small retailers might find it quite challenging to compete against large e-commerce platforms. He said that predatory pricing gravely threatened the government, a practice favored by the e-commerce goliaths. These companies charge ridiculously low prices that create unbearable losses for their counterparts, hence locking out small traders.
“What the government wants is to let there be equity and integrity and see to it that our citizens have an equal opportunity to engage in business such as this online business,”
Goyal said.
This clarification by the minister shows that the government is trying to support both e-commerce majors and small traders in the right development of the e-commerce domain in the Indian economy.
