The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) today alleged that MNCs and domestic Corporate Companies dealing in retail goods like Mobile, FMCG goods, electronics, electrical appliances Spirts & fitnesses centre’s and others are appears to be hand in glove with e commerce companies like Amazon & Flipkart in game of predatory pricing and deep discounting which CAIT condemns strongly and warned them either they immediately stop this unfair business practices otherwise CAIT will be forced to issue a dictate to traders to boycott dealing in products of such MNCs and corporate retailers.
CAIT National President Mr B C Bhartia & Secretary General Mr Praveen Khandelwal said that because of dual pricing and discount policy of Corporate Retail & MNc Companies , the brick and mortar traders are badly affected. These companies are offering huge discounts to e commerce companies and keeping high prices for their own Distributors & Retailers killing their business. They also said that these companies are also giving various exclusive products to e commerce companies and those products are not offered to offline market which is a serious breach of fair market practices. These practices of these companies are causing revenue loss to Government since offering deep discounts and selling goods much below the actual price to e commerce companies, they charge GST at a much discounted prices which causes substantial loss of revenue to the Government.
Mr Bhartia & Mr Khandelwal said that in the month of October, the CAIT has sent a communication to more than 200 leading Brand Companies in different vertical of retail trade asking them to clarify whether they are indulging into dual pricing. So far these companies, not a single Company has revert back and we have come to come to the conclusion that these companies are actually indulging in dual prices and becomes a culprit helping e commerce companies.
It is highly regretted that they have not realised the the fact that tens of lakhs of distributors & retailers are working with them since long years and have made huge investment in their respective businesses.
There are about 4.5 lakh FMCG Distributors and about 96 lakh retailers, about 8 lakh mobile retailers, about 5 lakh electronic retailers, about 9 lakh electrocal appliances retailers in the Country who are an important part of a strong supply chain taking goods from manufacturers to consumers. It is highly regretted that MNCs and corporate retailers are bypassing their distributor and retailers who have made huge investment in the stocks.
Both Mr Bhartia & Mr Khandelwal strongly warned these companies that if they do not stop their unethical business practices being hand in glove with e commerce Companies, the CAIT will give a boycott call of their products to its traders and will also not hesitate to make complaint in Competetikn Commission of India and also move to court of law. It’s high time now and tolerance power of the traders is now being exhausted.
