Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and other online shopping firms will resume selling “non-essential” items to customers in India starting 20th April, few days after Prime Minister imposed a lockdown in the country. Looking to this, few associations urged the Government to consider the other other retailers too, not only e-commerce.
“The MHA guidelines bring the focus that the Government has on maintaining social distancing while ensuring that consumers get what they want in a safe and contact less manner. It demonstrates the intent to support the safety of the people while also enabling the movement of goods required to ensure economic activity. We urge the Government to strongly consider that all forms of home delivery across retailers be allowed the benefit of doing business via contactless home delivery.
Allowing this for all retailers, and not just e-commerce players will facilitate the availability of all the goods at the doorsteps of customers. This will ensure that there are fewer reasons for the public to step outside of their homes. It will also ensure greater availability of supplies and help conform to the requirement of social distancing. This move will further support the economic revival for the country as well as allow for new avenues of job creation in the market”, said, Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India (RAI).
Brick and Mortar business has been in deep trouble from last few years as they run establishments with a small investment and their stocks pile up, due to the online sellers schemes and cash back offerings. The announcement of Government to start selling non-essential products by the e-commerce sellers is again a shock to the local dealers. This will damage much more at this time when they are feeling tough to to pay salaries of their employee and shop rents due to lockdown. One of the major chunk of taxes to the government are paid by small and medium business people, and in this time of crisis government should make a priority to protect them first. When Online sellers can deliver why not the local dealers delivers, Said, Kaushik Pandya, President, Federation of All India IT Association (FAIITA).
We all are well aware of the effort and commitment shown by the small retailers of India serving the country in such unfriendly circumstances risking their lives and thereby benefiting the society. It is totally unfair that e-commerce portals has been given the permission to start selling non-essential products from 20th April. India’s small retailers are like true warriors in lockdown and they should be protected first, and if not then it will create further imbalance in level playing field and give rise to unnecessary conflicts. Small retailers should also permitted for home delivery of non-essential products, said, Praveen Khandelwal, National Secretary General, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT).