"Can the e-commerce industry come forward and say we are willing to self regulate so the interference of the government is minimum," Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce and Industry and Minister of Consumer Affairs, asked at the Economic Times Startup Awards Ceremony on March 12. Goyal pitched this idea while confessing that the government is grappling with a lot of questions when it comes to e-commerce regulations such as - should India have completely new e-commerce legalisation, should the government make benign rules or stricter rules, etc. Goyal also shed light on the status of the proposed amendments to the E-Commerce Rules. Why it will be hard for the e-commerce industry to self-regulate The e-commerce industry is vast and includes multiple stakeholders that might have opposing interests. For example, marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart have different priorities compared to inventory-based e-commerce players like Reliance. For instance, earlier this year, Reliance called for tighter e-commerce rules for foreign marketplace platforms, whereas Amazon and Flipkart advocated for lighter norms. While much of the criticism is generally pointed towards foreign platforms like Amazon and Flipkart, JioMart's entry has shown how money and muscle power of domestic players also pose threats to the traditional retail model and small businesses. These threats are different from the threats posed by Amazon and Flipkart, indicating that different types of regulations are needed to address them. The e-commerce industry also includes sub-categories like food delivery, quick commerce, ed-tech, and hotel aggregators, which need sector-specific regulations that might not necessarily apply to…
