E-commerce policy: Empowering Amazon, Flipkart to blacklist sellers is alarming, says sellers’ body

Online sellers’ body All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA) has found the draft e-commerce policy empowering online marketplaces to blacklist sellers if found selling counterfeit products, to be “very alarming”.

The government in the latest draft e-commerce policy has said that “if a seller is found to be selling counterfeit products, the marketplace should blacklist that seller from selling on its platform for a specified period,” under its anti-counterfeiting measures.

“The power is given completely to the marketplaces including Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal etc., even as the policy doesn’t talk about the appeal mechanism or any dispute resolution mechanism for sellers in such a scenario. This is very alarming because we have received a lot of complaints in the past that sellers were blacklisted just because one product that they didn’t even know was counterfeit. This should be looked into by the government,” an AIOVA spokesperson told Financial Express Online requesting anonymity.