Ecommerce: Love it or hate it?

Do consumers love e-commerce platforms, or do they approach them with suspicion? Is there a need to protect consumers from ecommerce players?

- AMBI PARAMESWARAN

An editorial in this paper (January 28, 2025) pointed to the draft guidelines put out by the Bureau of Indian Standards. Is there a need to further regulate e-commerce players?

Ecommerce has been both a blessing and a curse. It is well known that the bookshop business, both in India and around the world, has not recovered after the onslaught of Amazon. Prophetically, the owners of the much-loved bookstore Landmark sold their business to the Tatas just a year or so before Flipkart was launched. But e-commerce has also been a boon for numerous small businesses that can now access consumers across India. At a seminar organised by the Ayurvedic Product Producers of India, Amazon made a presentation on how they are helping many of these businesses take their products across the world.

However, there is a problem that some small brand owners are worried about. Since platforms like Amazon and Flipkart own customer data, what happens if they launch their own copycat products as a 'basic' line? To protect small businesses, there is a regulation that a platform cannot be a merchant. Unfortunately, there are ways to work around this issue. But by and large, companies, big and small, are satisfied with this rule and are not feeling overly threatened.