Festive Sales By e-tailers Come Under Govt Scrutiny

Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce and Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the government has received several complaints against Flipkart and other e-tailers regarding their online sales.

Earlier, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) had asked the government to constitute a regulatory authority to monitor e-commerce business in India. In a letter to Sitharaman, CAIT National General Secretary, Praveen Khandelwal, referred to the heavy discounts being offered by e-tailers.

On October 6, Flipkart hosted ‘The Big Billion Day’ sale, under which, products like electronics, being sold at discounts as high as 70%. Several other e-commerce giants are also offering heavy discounts to cash in during the festive season. According to some media reports, brands like LG, Sony, Samsung, etc are boycotting Flipkart until it commits to not dropping the prices to ‘unrealistic’ levels. In April this year, Dell had issued a warning against buying its laptops and tablets from e-tailers. But it withdrew this warning in August.

The unprecedented heavy discounts have led the offline sector to worry about how to face the challenge from their online counterparts, especially since they cannot compete on the price front.