Hard lobbying by trade bodies shuts doors on e-commerce

Emails from small and regional retailers across the country to officials at the Centre and state chief ministers, accompanied by hard lobbying by their national bodies with the prime minister’s office (PMO) and key ministers may have played a part in the governmentnot allowing resumption of sale of non-essential products on ecommerce platforms from Monday.

“Grateful to Hon’ble PM @Narendra Modi ji for the clarification that ecommerce companies can only supply essential goods during the lockdown. This will create a level playing field for small retailers,” Commerce and Industry minister Piyush Goyal tweeted on Sunday.

Grateful to Hon’ble PM @NarendraModi ji for the clarification that e-commerce companies can only supply essential g… https://t.co/eS9ON9ybUd

— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) 1587281797000

Mobile retailers body, All India Mobile Retailers Association’s president Arvinder Khurana said it would take at least 10-12 months for retailers to bounce back after the lockdown. “If the ecommerce companies were exempted (from the lockdown), the damage would have been irreparable,” he said.

ET spoke to four senior trade leaders to understand what the brick-and-mortar retail lobby, comprising 200 national and state bodies, did since Wednesday, when the ministry of home affairs initially permitted ecommerce companies to sell both essential and non-essential products from from April 20.

After the Wednesday notification, the first thing which the apex body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) did was to approach Goyal. It also wrote to the PMO describing how disadvantaged the seven crore traders felt with the government only allowing ecommerce even though 40 lakh kiranas were operational during the lockdown.