The All India Mobile Retailers Association (AIMRA) has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stressing that Amazon's operations in India should be suspended until a probe into the company is done. AIMRA, a trade union that represents more than 1.5 lakh mobile phone retailers in the country said that Amazon, along with leading mobile brands, have joined hands to derail the retail industry and put small retailers' lives in danger. The association said that Amazon is doing business in India with the strategy of deftly dodging regulators and politicians.
They also said that e-commerce companies promote sales of their preferred sellers on their platforms. "Unfortunately, e-commerce companies often are the stakeholders of these preferred sellers. Since 2014, mobile brands have had exclusive tie-ups for sales with these preferred sellers. All stocks are given to the preferred seller so that the platform can show non-involvement and do not suffer any implications," said Arvinder Khurana, National President, AIMRA, in the letter that was sent to PM Modi on Monday. "This is basically a cover up of the alliance between brands and e-commerce companies to show that the word of the law is being followed, even though the spirit of the law is absent," he added.
The mobile retailers' industry body also said that while online selling is barred for local retailers by the brands, the commission asked for by e-commerce companies is as much as the margin allotted to the seller by the brand. "Not only that, Amazon is using this ploy to register small traders but making it difficult for them to sell their products online with tough rules and miniscule margins," Khurana said.
Amazon was yet to react to the AIMRA letter.
According to Khurana, they have seven crore traders in India whereas Amazon shows only four lakh, out of which the top 35 sellers are doing nearly 80% business. "Which is why it is imperative to curtail sales of each seller at 5 lakh to put an end to the fraudulent ways of all e-commerce businesses," he said.
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has also threatened to launch a nationwide campaign against the e-commerce giants for their alleged business malpractices and issues related to GST evasion.