A group of seller associations in India, including the All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA), All India Mobile Retailers Association (AIMRA), Federation of All India Distributors Associations (FAIDA), organised a discussion on Thursday about the dominance and of e-commerce giants in India, and their impact on retailers and traders. Scheduled before Amazon’s four-day event for small and medium businesses, the event — Smbhav, which translates to “possible” — saw over a dozen retail representatives. Their event was titled Asmbhav, which translates into “impossible”. Over a dozen retailer representatives spoke out against unfair practices by e-commerce giants, though most of it was directed towards Amazon. Our observations and highlights from the day (quotes are paraphrased, not verbatim, and translated from Hindi in some places): Number of organisations represented: 9, including Abir Roy, who serves as the lawyer for the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) They included the Swadeshi Jagran Manch and AIOVA, but also FAIDA, All India Mobile Retailers’ Association (AIMRA) Number of speakers: 14 people, of which 9 were retailers’ & trade representatives, and 4 lawyers Number of mentions: CCI: At least 8 times Enforcement Directorate: Twice Cloudtail and Apprario: 6 times 1. Ashwani Mahajan feels India’s regulators and agencies have not enforced e-commerce regulations: The government has enough regulations in place, but they are inadequately enforced, Ashwani Mahajan, national co-convenor of the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, felt. He blamed enforcement agencies and regulators for failing to rein in e-commerce companies in their violations of India’s foreign investment and other…
