Draft e-commerce policy has no word on local majors

Small retailers have criticised the draft e-commerce policy as they now fear domination by their bigger domestic rivals such as Reliance and Future Group. The smaller players fear the local giants will be indulging in exclusive deals and predatory pricing tactics as used by Amazon and Flipkart in the marketplace model.

However, a forum representing domestic retailers said the issue of FDI in multi-brand retail had been addressed by the policy.

“The policy seems to be silent on domestic e-commerce players, which is undesirable. They should also be brought under the policy,” Praveen Khandelwal, secretary-general of the Confederation of All India Traders said.