While companies and e-commerce platforms like Amazon sell a variety of products from other brands and companies, they also sell products from companies that they have a vested interest in. This is normal and to a certain extent, a lot of companies do that too, but over in India, it seems that the government wants to ban such practices.Starting in 2019, it seems that the Indian government will be banning e-commerce companies from selling their own products. The new ruling is also expected to prevent these companies from entering into exclusive agreements with sellers, meaning that these companies will not be able to use exclusives as a way to attract more customers.
According to India’s commerce ministry, “An entity having equity participation by e-commerce marketplace entity or its group companies, or having control on its inventory by e-commerce marketplace entity or its group companies, will not be permitted to sell its products on the platform run by such marketplace entity.”
While this does sound like it would make the market more “fair”, some believe that this could affect the country’s e-commerce industry in a negative way. This follows complaints from various Indian retailers who feel that giant e-commerce companies such as Amazon and Flipkart are using their size to their advantage to sell products at extremely low prices that they are unable to match.
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