Now you can officially file a complaint against Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal

The commerce and industry ministry is in the process of setting up a grievance redressal mechanism to look into complaints of brick-and-mortar players against leading e-retailers such as Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon offering hefty discounts in alleged violation of foreign direct investment (FDI) norms.

Sitharaman said that on the lines of the 'Twitter Seva' of this ministry, there is now going to be grievance redressal akin to the (hashtag) '#mociseva' which will have the consumer affairs people on board. The minister said that people can raise their issues and the ministry's team along with officials of the consumer affairs ministry would respond to those complaints.

THE DIPP would train the staff of the consumer affairs ministry on handling such grievances taking on board e-commerce companies alleged to have hurt traders. DIPP secretary Ramesh Abhishek has also discussed the matter with e-commerce companies and asked them not to violate e-commerce guidelines, Sitharaman added. "Some companies responded by saying that they are not giving those discounts. We are still a marketplace model. Companies whose products are coming on their platform are giving that and it is not in violation of the policy," she added.

Sitharaman said that the mechanism will temporarily be part of #mociseva and after that, consumer affairs ministry officials will go back and start operating themselves. "The consumer affairs ministry should actually be attending to such grievances coming on the issue of e-commerce because it is a commercial transaction between a consumer Grievance redressal mechanism being set up to look into complaints against e-tailers ' As per the guidelines issued by the DIPP, foreign direct investment has not been permitted in inventory-based model of e-commerce. Discounts in firing line as festivals near and a company," she explained.

The minister also said, "At this stage, we do not think that there is a case for ED. The DIPP has asked online retailers to strictly comply with the e-commerce guidelines. The ministry has received lot of complaints by stakeholders, including traders body Cait."

Cait had in its compliant on August 10 said that these companies via big advertisements in the media were announcing sale on their platform, which is a violation of FDI guidelines on e-commerce. These companies are allowed to do B2B business but they are doing B2C for which they are not authorised, the complaint had alleged.

In March, the government had allowed 100 per cent FDI through automatic route in the marketplace format of ecommerce retailing. As per the guidelines issued by the DIPP, FDI has not been permitted in inventory-based model of e-commerce.

The guidelines also state that such entities will not directly or indirectly influence sale price of goods and services and shall maintain a level playing field. It had asked the ministry to "take immediate action against these companies".

"The policy seeks to provide a level playing field. In defining the marketplace based model of ecommerce, it states that a marketplace should be a technology platform. Based on this, marketplaces cannot anymore claim to be retailers or online stores," a senior official had said.

The policy also lays down the condition that an e-commerce firm will not be permitted to sell more than 25 per cent of total sales from one vendor or its group companies in order to prevent marketplaces from behaving like pseudo retailers and ensure that they stay true to their claim of being technology platforms.

In association with Mail Today Bureau