Bangalore, September 18: The traders' body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has alleged that just ahead of the upcoming festive season sales, e-commerce giants are flouting India's latest foreign direct investment rules. According to an Economic Times report, the body has written to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to ban the two sale event- Flipkart’s Billion Day Sale and Amazon’s Great India Sale. E-Commerce Guidelines: Last Date to Submit Feedback on Guidelines Intended to Protect Interest of Online Shoppers is October 31.

In the letter, CAIT has claimed that Amazon and Flipkart saying that they empower small and medium sellers to decide the price and choose selection is “just an eyewash'. The traders have been demanding the e-commerce firms declare the names of top  10 sellers on their platform since last 5 years.

Praveen Khandelwal, secretary, CAIT as quoted in the report said, "It will be found that same set of entities are selling almost 80 percent of the goods and that to consumers and not business entities. The rest of the sellers are mute spectators and do not find any opportunity of doing business on these platforms which shows that these companies have direct control over the supplies, prices and inventory which is a blatant violation of the policy."

According to the revised FDI policy, it restricts exclusive tie-ups between e-commerce firms that follow the ‘marketplace model’ and vendors using their platform. In a marketplace model, the e-commerce firm is not allowed to directly or indirectly influence the sale price of goods or services and is required to offer a level playing field to all vendors.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 18, 2019 11:14 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).