CAIT writes to Piyush Goyal, says online festival sales violation of FDI policy

New Delhi: The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Friday wrote a letter to Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, urging a blanket ban on festival sales by e-commerce companies.

CAIT in its letter said that these online portals are indulging into predatory pricing and deep discounting and are openly flouting FDI norms.

The traders body added that an investigation should be conducted as to how these companies are flouting FDI norrns and accordingly action should be taken against them.

CAIT highlighted that as much contrary to the FDI Policy, the e commerce portals are deeply engaged in B2C Business and the quan-tum of B2B Business is almost negligible.

It also questioned that the sales can be organised only by the owners of inventory and since these companies are not the owners of inventory how can they offer discounts on the products owrxed by sellers registered on their plat-form which establish the fact that these companies hold control over the inventory which is against the FDI Policy.

As per FDI E-commerce entities providing marketplace will not directly or indirectly influence the sale price of goods or services and shall maintain level playing field. By offering deep discounts ranging from 10 percent to 80 percent on their e commerce portals, these companies are clearly influ-encing the prices and create an uneven level playing field which is in direct contravention of the policy, CAIT said.