Shopee's entry will send shockwaves among offline traders: CAIT

Last month, a Reuters report stated that Singapore-headquartered Sea Ltd which runs Shopee has launched a recruitment campaign for sellers to sell on "Shopee India" and is ramping up hiring in the country.

Even before the South Asian e-commerce behemoth, Shopee can put its foot in India, local traders have started raising red flags.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to look into the entry of Shopee stating that it will send shock waves through the offline traders' community which is yet to recover from the "unfair trade practices adopted by foreign-funded e-commerce companies".

"Preferential treatment to favoured sellers, private labelling, unfair and anti-competitive business models with big-ticket manufacturers, deep discounting and flash sales have become the mainstay of these e-commerce platforms and it is highly unlikely that small traders can consistently withstand these continuous assaults from such foreign e-commerce companies. Shopee’s entry into India, only means furthering these unfair trade practices," said Praveen Khandelwal, National Secretary General CAIT in a letter addressed to the PM.

Last month, a Reuters report stated that Singapore-headquartered Sea Ltd which runs Shopee has launched a recruitment campaign for sellers to sell on "Shopee India" and is ramping up hiring in the country.

While the $172 billion South Asian Group has a team in India, it doesn't offer its e-commerce service here. However, it runs gaming services in India.

Interestingly, CAIT has also flagged Sea's Chinese affiliations. Post the Galvan Valley clash last year, India has become very strict about foreign direct investment coming from China.

"Sea Holdings has significant ownership (almost 25%) by Tencent (a known Chinese investment firm). Also, the founder of Sea, Forrest Li is originally Chinese but became a naturalised Singaporean only a few years back. Sea uses Tencent cloud to store data," Khandelwal said.