Now that we have been in the e-commerce space for a long time, we have noticed how the governments around the world are trying to regulate e-commerce companies. Now, we are not saying that regulation is bad for e-commerce since some sort of regulation is necessary as well. However, there is a thin line between regulation and too much regulation which should not be crossed. As far as the latest update regarding regulation is concerned, the news is from India where the country’s competition watchdog has sprung into action.
We have reports from India’s Competition Commission or CCI who has drafted self-regulation guidelines for e-commerce sector in the country. It is believed that these guidelines can have a lot of impact on companies such as Amazon as well as India’s Flipkart which is now owned by Walmart as well. The main aspect of framing these guidelines by the CCI is to regulate e-commerce companies to become more transparent.
The watchdog organization reveals that the aim with these guidelines is to “Bring out clear and transparent policies on discounts, including inter alia (among other things) the basis of discount rates funded by platforms for different products/suppliers and the implications of participation/non-participation in discount schemes,”. One thing that we have heard against the ecommerce sector in India is the deep discounting that is done on products which is said to be killing the retail sector of the country.
CCI also says that e-commerce sector firms should increase transparency in search rankings, collection and use of data and user review and rating mechanisms. As per the report in The Economic Times, CCI also wants ecommerce firms to notify businesses if there is a change in their terms and conditions and that they should be given a sufficient notice period before those changes take place on the platform.
