E-commerce platforms have to display country of origin on imported products: Centre to HC

New Delhi: E-commerce sites like Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal have to ensure that the country of origin is displayed on imported products sold on their platforms, the Centre told the Delhi High Court on Wednesday, July 21.

Read More ... E-commerce platforms have to display country of origin on imported products: Centre to HC

E-commerce orders gradually scaling back to pre-lockdown level: Industry executives

E-commerce orders gradually scaling back to pre-lockdown level: Industry executives

New Delhi: Sales of non-essential items on e-commerce platforms in the first week of May were lower than last year on account of lockdown, but orders are scaling fast with people buying apparel, smartphones, and grooming products among other items, according to industry executives.

E-commerce companies have been permitted to sell all items in orange and green zones starting from May 4, 40 days after the nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 25.

In the first two phases of the lockdown, e-commerce companies like Flipkart, Amazon, and Snapdeal were allowed to sell only essential items like groceries, medicines, and healthcare products.

Depending on the number of cases of coronavirus infections, areas have been divided into red, orange, and green zones.

However, in the red zones that include top e-commerce hubs like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, and Hyderabad, e-commerce companies can still ship only essential items.

While people are going online to buy items like chargers, extension cords, notebooks, and pens to facilitate work and study from home, they are also picking up grooming products like trimmers, games like chess, monopoly, and carom, and books across genres, a senior industry executive said.

The person added that since the delivery of non-essentials is still not allowed across the country, the volume is less compared to the previous year. However, against March numbers (pre-lockdown), the growth is certainly healthy.

Another challenge facing the industry is the availability of limited manpower for warehouses and delivery.

“Our order volumes grew rapidly and swiftly reached 50 percent of pre-lockdown volumes within five days of expanded operations. Compared year-on-year, the order volumes for the first 9 days of May 2020 was 52 percent of volumes in the same period last year,” a Snapdeal spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that another clear indicator of demand was conversions (from visitors to buyers), which was more than double of pre-lockdown average and even though demand estimation is a complex process right now due to multiple variables, the intensity and speed of demand restoration exceeded expectations.

Home use categories like utensils, mixers and grinders, mops and brooms, and mosquito nets featured high in both search and sales. Snapdeal gets more than 75 percent of its business from non-metro cities.

The spokesperson said that locations like Panipat, Ambala, Panchkula, Amritsar in north; Udaipur, Valsad, Jamnagar, and Goa in west; Coimbatore, Visakhapatnam, Pondicherry, Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode and Tuticorin in south; Cuttack in India and Guwahati in North-East have emerged as current high demand zones.

An Amazon India spokesperson said sellers on its platform have received orders for smart devices, electronics, kitchen appliances, clothes, toys and games, and other work and study from home items.

Paytm Mall Senior Vice President Srinivas Mothey said that the company has seen demand for non-essentials steadily picking up in all the orange as well as green zones.

“There has been a surge in searches and the sale of mobiles, masks, trimmers, laptops as well as other consumer electronics. There has been a 1.5X increase in sales as compared to March,” he said.

“Northern region of the country, few cities of south and eastern region are doing extremely well for Paytm Mall and the company is increasing the number of sellers and suppliers to meet the demands,” he added.

E-commerce cos gear up to deliver essential, non-essential items from Apr 20

E-commerce cos gear up to deliver essential, non-essential items from Apr 20

New Delhi: E-commerce companies are gearing up to deliver products like mobile phones and refrigerators to customers in areas that do not fall under COVID-19 hotspots from April 20 as government takes steps to revive the economy.

Apart from e-commerce platforms, brands are also looking scaling up efforts to meet the pent up demand amid the nationwide lockdown that has now been extended to May 3. However, the government has provided relaxation and said some activities will be allowed in certain locations.

When contacted, a Snapdeal spokesperson said the company is preparing to scale up operations to meet the requirements of both buyers and sellers.

“Summer apparel, kitchen accessories, small appliances like headsets, tablets for school work, home printers, competitive exam books etc will be in high demand,” the spokesperson said, adding nearly 50 per cent of its sellers will be in a position to resume operations and more are likely to follow the lead after assessing the local situation in their respective areas.

An Amazon spokesperson said the company is focused on supporting the immediate need of consumers and also participating in the resumption of economic activity, post the Ministry of Home Affairs notification.

“We are working closely with all our partners – brands, manufacturers, sellers, small businesses and local shops – helping them to offer the most needed products to customers. While we will increase selection that customers can safely shop from their homes, we will also continue to ensure safety of our delivery associates and our teams at our facilities,” the spokesperson said.

Walmart-owned Flipkart also said it is working with lakhs of sellers, small businesses and artisans that are present on its platform and helping them prepare their business and workforce to make products available for consumers.

“Through this, we are not only helping promote social distancing but are also keeping the economic engine running for millions of people who depend on us, be it the employees of our seller partners, MSMEs, farmers or in the last-mile supply chain,” a Flipkart spokesperson said.

Under the first phase of lockdown between March 24-April 14, the government had only allowed delivery of essential goods, including food, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment through e-commerce platforms.

The government on Wednesday issued detailed guidelines allowing e-commerce companies to operate. However, companies had sought clarity on what items were allowed to be sold through these platforms.

Following the guidelines by the Home Affairs Ministry, states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Odisha have issued directions for e-commerce operations in the state.

Maharashtra, in its circular, said e-commerce delivery of all goods and commodities – including food, pharmaceutical, medical equipment, electrical and electronic appliances – will be allowed.

Rajasthan government said all e-commerce/home delivery companies supplying all items/goods will be allowed to operate.

Previously, Odisha government has allowed home delivery by operators/ online delivery services such as Amazon, Flipkart, Bigbasket, Grofers, Urbanclap, Zomato, Myntra and Swiggy.

Home delivery of all goods through e-commerce/online platforms has been allowed, while retailers of food and grocery items like Big Bazaar and Reliance Fresh are also allowed to provide home delivery services, as per the notification by the state.

These relaxations come with the condition that these companies will have to ensure that all precautions are followed to ensure safety of staff and customers.

Grocery and essential items accounts for a relatively smaller chunk of the revenues of ecommerce companies that count electronics, apparel and household electronics as larger categories.

For brands too, the decision will come as a breather as retail stores have not been allowed to operate to ensure social distancing.

Smartphone maker HONOR said the move will not only make the necessary services such as digital payment and grocery accessible to users but also help them stay connected with loved ones during the stay at home period.

“At HONOR, our consumer and their interest has always been our priority, hence, we did not increase the price of our top smartphone models even after GST hike and extended the warranty period till June 30, 2020 for all HONOR phones, wearables, headsets and accessories whose warranties expire between March 21 and June 21, 2020,” the company said.

EY India Partner and National Leader E-Commerce and Consumer Internet Ankur Pahwa had said the government’s move is the first step of returning to the “new normal”.

He had pointed out that there could be some challenges for e-commerce companies across the value chain – from manpower availability to supply chain and fulfilment.

Pahwa had also noted that companies will also struggle in the near-term as consumer sentiment will be muted especially on discretionary spends, and they will take time to reset their category and product mixes and ultimately, manage unit economics at scale.

Industry body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has objected to the move saying allowing e-commerce companies to trade into non-essential commodities will “tantamount to create an uneven level playing field and will give rise to unnecessary conflicts”.