Indian sellers burn effigies of foreign e-tailers ahead of Dhanteras

Indian offline sellers on November 1 burnt effigies of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as part of their nationwide campaign "Bharat Chhodo Morcha’, demanding boycott of e-commerce brands that have foreign capital in India.

Associations like Indian Sellers Collective, Swadeshi Jagaran Manch and All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation, among others, conducted protests across states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana to urge the government and consumers to shun MNC e-commerce brands and embrace local seller’s products to help small traders this festive season.

According to the sellers, the e-tailers track bestselling products on their platforms and copy their designs to launch private brands with similar features at a competitive price.

These e-tailers also run a systematic campaign to manipulate search results to divert sales of the bestselling products on its platform to its own product lines, the sellers claim.

"MNC foreign e-commerce companies are indulging in illegal business practices in India. These firms are blatantly flouting rules through front companies like Appario Retail that indulge in predatory pricing and discounting, thereby destroying the business of offline retailers and small sellers. MNC e-commerce platforms are also manipulating the algorithm to promote their own private labels and brands such as AmazonBasics, Symbol, and Solimo at the cost of Indian sellers besides influencing the Indian judicial system to twist laws through questionable practices to suit the company’s business interests," said Ashwani Mahajan, National Co-Convener of Swadeshi Jagaran Manch.

"Foreign e-commerce retailers have taken the sheen of Dhanteras for small retailers for the past several years. Observing that the repeated attempts to get these MNC e-commerce companies to change their unethical business practices have fallen on deaf ears, Indian Sellers Collective has embarked on a nationwide campaign to galvanise consumers and the government to shun products of foreign e-commerce companies and embrace products of Indian sellers," said Abhay Raj Mishra, Member and National Coordinator, Indian Sellers Collective.

This happens at a time the Competition Commission of India (CCI) is already conducting an investigation against Amazon and Flipkart under Section 3 of the Competition Act.

“MNC e-commerce companies have contributed majorly to depressed footfalls in retail stores in the state of Tamil Nadu, thereby hampering growth plans of small retailers. They are jeopardising the businesses of small retailers by offering huge discounts, which are difficult to match. Faced with livelihood challenges, small retailers today have no but to operate on wafer-thin or zero margins to survive," said Dr. P.M. Ganeshraam, National Chief Patron, All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF).

The sellers also urged consumers and the government to buy products only from Indian sellers during this festive season.