While the trader community in the country has been up in arms over the e-commerce players eating into their businesses by offering deep discounts, the mobile phone retailers body appears to have found the solution. They have managed to get commitments from at least 3 leading brands that they will not offer any exclusive rights to online retailers starting January 2020. These brands are Realme, Oppo and Vivo. This is a significant development since Amazon and Flipkart have been enjoying this privilege of mobile phone models being launched in the market on online exclusives on one of their platforms. There will be a time lag before such models are made available in the offline stores. The two major players Xiaomi and Samsung are yet to offer any commitment of this nature.
The complaint by the offline retail traders has been that they would order and stock new mobile phone models launched by various brands. However, the company would enter into exclusive arrangement with the ecommerce players who would offer enormous discounts. By the time the market is thrown open, and the retailers are allowed to sell the models, the customer interest is gone. Some new model would have been launched by then. This leads to slow moving stocks being accumulated at the offline retail points. The absence of a level playing field has been the main complaint.
Oppo, Vivo and Realme have now said they understand that the level playing field is a must for their brands to prosper in the market and since their agreements for exclusivity will expire only in December this year, January 2020 onwards, whenever these three brands launch a new model, it will be sold at the same prices whether online or offline. The release of the device will also be made simultaneously. These three brands account for 30% of the Indian market.
The All India Mobile Retailers Association (AIMRA) has been the body that has been fighting this issue and now found some semblance of success. The association claims more than 30,000 offline retailers of mobile phones have shut their shops due to loss of sales.