Non-essentials removed from e-commerce cart

“The new guidelines will disappoint not only the consumers whose list of essentials had expanded to work from home and study from home products but also thousands of small businesses, sellers and manufacturers who had geared up in the last 48 hours to provide millions of people with safe access to products,” an Amazon representative said.

A senior government official told ET while the government had initially “permitted an extensive list, (it) didn’t want Covid to spread unnecessarily and so after assessing the situation and by looking at the circumstances right now we decided against allowing delivery of non-essential items through the ecommerce platforms”.

Marketplaces in a Quandary

Allowing supply of non-essential items through ecommerce would have defeated the purpose of lockdown, according to a joint secretary in the MHA who said that “a review of non-essential items (that can be allowed through ecommerce) was held and it was ascertained that their numbers were very high”.

The reversal has thrown ecommerce firms into a quandary. Flipkart, for instance, had already begun moving shipments of smartphones and other electronics to its fulfilment centres. As several state governments had also sent out written notifications in line with the MHA directives, etailers accepted consumer orders for non-essentials.

Flipkart did not respond to ET’s queries on the developments until the time of going to press. Company executives ET spoke to said that the development is likely to further choke ecommerce supply chains that have been severely disrupted by the pandemic. Meanwhile, consumer demand for non-essentials like laptops, phones, and other work-from-home products are rising following severe month-long lockdown across the country.

Big Setback

“All the logistics companies, sellers, and teams across online retail platforms were working overtime to get operations in order in record time… this is a big setback…,” said the CEO of an ecommerce firm on the condition of anonymity.

In a bid to untangle the knotty situation, ecommerce firms are asking for more items to be added onto the list of essentials. “The ambit of essential goods should be increased to include laptops, mobile phones, accessories, computer hardware, webcams,” said Srinivas Mothey, senior vice president at Paytm Mall.

“If the lockdown continues, lack of proper technical support would hinder the efficiency of employees which in turn will affect a company’s operations,” he said.

Snapdeal, which has been accepting orders for non-essentials all through the lockdown with a promise to deliver once the market opens, had alerted all its sellers to ship those items. However, the Gurgaon-based company said it will now comply with the latest guidelines. “We will continue to operate in complete compliance with the guidelines issued by the government in this regard,” a Snapdeal spokesperson said.

Experts are of the view that the reversal is an unfortunate step. “(It) will not ease the burden on the economy or the people of India,” said Kazim Rizvi, public policy researcher and founder, The Dialogue. Meanwhile, the All India Online Vendor Association, which counts around 4,000 sellers as its members, said around 30% of sellers were ready to start business from Monday.

Pressure from offline retailers

“Thousands of our seller partners in the domestic apparel sector were eagerly looking forward to the opening up on the April 20,” said Suchi Mukherjee, CEO, LimeRoad, which claims to have 5,000 sellers and make 1.2 lakh shipments a month.

Government officials also cited mounting pressure from offline retailers and traders to permit local stores to also sell non-essentials items just like the ecommerce companies.

The Retailers Association of India, which represents offline and online retail firms, said in a statement, “We believe that to fulfil consumer needs in these trying times, rules for direct customer delivery need to be broad-based and all types of retailers including neighbourhood stores should be allowed to operate.”