Fair Trade Regulator Studies Allegations Against E-Tailers
Mumbai: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) is looking into allegations of unfair trade practices against online retailers and a final decision on whether to probe the matter will be taken in a couple of months.
Steep discount sales offered by various online retailers have raised concerns of anti-competitive practices.
CCI Chairman Ashok Chawla said on Friday that the regulator has received some complaints against online retailers.
"Some complaints have come to us. E-commerce is an evolving new area for us. We are studying the complaint and also the issue," he said.
He was responding to queries on whether CCI has received complaints against Flipkart and other online retailers.
According to Mr Chawla, the competition watchdog might take two months to decide on further course of action on the complaint.
The CCI chairman was speaking on the sidelines of an event here organised by the Public Affairs Forum of India along with law firm J Sagar Associates.
Recently, there was an uproar over Flipkart's massive discount sale which had raised concerns of anti-competitive practices.
Last month, the government had said that it would look into the concerns and take a call on whether more clarity is required on e-commerce retail business, after concerns were raised about sale exercises undertaken by Flipkart and others.
Flipkart's 'Big Billion Day' sale on October 6, which offered steep discounts on various products, had raised concerns among small and big traders that such campaigns would badly affect players in the traditional retail market.
"We have received many inputs. Lot of concerns have been expressed. We will look into it," Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said at that time.
In recent times, many e-commerce portals have been coming out with steep discount sales.
Flipkart had said that its 'Big Bilion Day' sale saw 1.5 million people shopping at its portal. It also claimed that products worth over Rs 600 crore were sold in just 10 hours under the scheme.
