Flipkart is uniting e-tailers against brick-and-mortar giants. Here’s why

Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal is making an attempt to unite all Indian e-commerce companies and form a lobby against offline retailers such as Aditya Birla Group and the Future Group.

As per Bansal, the brick-and-mortar giants influence government policies through organizations like the Retailers Association of India (RAI).

TOI reported that Bansal and other heads of several e-commerce and internet-based companies met Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha and discussed issues concerning the online marketplaces.

"All key players are realizing the effect an association like RAI creates on the whole ecosystem. Most of us have our own different paths and strategies, but some issues are common to all and these could be addressed better as a group," a senior executive who was present at the meeting told TOI.

Reportedly, Amazon was not invited for the meeting, while Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl skipped it owing to a previous engagement.

The need to create a lobby came after the government, in its new norms, stated that foreign-funded e-commerce platforms could operate as a marketplace and cannot deal in goods, this, allowing third-party sellers to be on their platform.

The new policy could be a move to protect the interests of the traditional offline retailers.

Foreign-funded e-commerce companies or foreign venture capital were using their funds to discount products and some had helped create large third-party vendors who could more efficiently deal with products.

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