In an interview with the Economic Times, Amazon India MD Amit Agarwal largely avoids talking about the recently announced policy on FDI in ecommerce, which mostly affirms the status quo of not allowing FDI in business-to-consumer (B2C) Ecommerce for multi-brand retail, and places additional restrictions in terms of restricting discounting. A copy of the policy here. In the interview, Agarwal doesn't go into detail about his company's point of view, and only says: We have said that if the government opens up FDI in inventory-based ecommerce, then Amazon would have to earn its spot as a seller on the platform, which we do in other markets. I genuinely believe it(inventory-based ecommerce) is good as it would allow Amazon to source products from manufacturers that sellers are unable to because they have constrained working capital. Despite that, we have a pretty good model. It's been a little over two years since the DIPP help a consultation on FDI in Ecommerce, which led to the creation of the final policy. In fact, a meeting was held at the DIPP on March 15th 2014, just a day before the current government came into power. Here's what Amazon actually wanted from the policy based on its filing with the Indian government: 1. Yes to FDI in Ecommerce, but only 51% under automatic route: Amazon recommended (expectedly) 100% FDI in inventory led B2C ecommerce, although it suggested that anything at 51% (or below) should be allowed under the automatic route. This means that it suggested that…
