Small Traders Complain to CCI on Flipkart Etc. Fair Enough?

Dozens of small brick-and-mortar retailers have banded together to seek protection from e-commerce companies, which they say are undercutting them with predatory pricing. The retailers, mostly from Bangalore - home base for Flipkart, India's largest e-tailer - have written to the Competition Commission of India, complaining that their online counterparts are selling goods below cost and skirting Indian laws on foreign direct investment in retail.

Hari Rastogi, a Bangalore-based seller of electronic goods who is galvanising support among traditional retailers, argues online commerce firms are gambling that they will capture market share by selling below cost during the initial years. Moreover, in his letter to CCI, he questioned the legality of operations by foreign-funded online retailers. "When venture capital funding is not allowed in e-commerce, these companies are registering offices in Singapore and routing the money in for the same business," he wrote on October 20.

Source:Price War: Retailers write to CCI; accuse e-tailers of predatory pricing - The Economic Times

Dear Small Local Vendors,
If you are jealous at Ecommerce Sites Product pricing and the Quantity they sell please follow the Ecommerce Model Route or Kiss my a*s

If flipkart is selling items below cost price at a loss then it sucks. As now take all market share, kill all sellers, then later price higher ?
Well somebody better beat FK ass with new model and keep prices always low...

win for me.

What? Flipkart is selling products at lesser price?
They even cancel a bought product, and make the same product reappear with a higher price.

Flipkart's success is mainly of the online trust, they've gained over the years.

At first the traders were worried about foreign retailers undergoing predatory pricing...Looks like the indian retailers have taken a leaf out of that book...

they must fear about arrival of foreign companies, not flipkart or like e-retailers.

Prices on flipkart are usually higher compared to local prices for me.

they should fear wallmart and amazon iMO :mrgreen:

Flipkart pricing was Bad earlier but from a month or so, their pricing is equally competitive with Snapdeal and Amazon.in

I do not Get what's the problem with these Guys if Flipkart or other Site is selling it for cheap. There was Indeed a FDI violation by flipkart and other Cos that Respective Investment boards have fined them.

Look at the website of People who support the cause? You'd Realize they're none other Ch***ya's doing Business at MRP.

Let’s now punish them:
1- Let's place Cash on delivery orders for Rs.40000.00 rupees items every alternate day and cancel when delivery boy comes to delivery. This will make them to lose their fat by Rs.1000.00 at least.

2- Whenever you are free call to their customer care and waste their time. This will increase their customer care expenses.

Some online retailers in India are like BIGDE BETE of their BIG PAPA of USA. They are getting so much money for doing so much of experiment in India and kind of playing GAMBLING. Every six months they are changing their business models, spending heavily on advertisements, selling everything to everyone at much below their cost prices, running business in huge operating losses and that is adversely affecting the traditional physical retailers.
There can be possibility if some enemies of our country or terror outfits giving funding to these MONKEYS to do so much drama and make lakhs of retailers loose their piece of mind and livelihood.

About

V

Pity on retailers , cant see a future for them.

Why the f*** does the court even accept such cases. It's pure business. The consumer will buy the product from wherever he wants to.

swatkats said:
or Kiss my a*s

Someone sounds like a corporate ass kisser

Gearbox said:
They even cancel a bought product, and make the same product reappear with a higher price.

Happened to me, twice. Not that its a big deal or something, but it does leave a bad taste.

A fair competition always keeps the market healthy. If market and pricing gets biased for one vendor , it's most likely going to hurt customer's a$$ ultimately.
But i don't think anyone is establishing monopoly in this context. It's a battle between E-Commerce websites , and not just one vendor vs the world.

Brick and mortar stores are more expensive to run per item than online stores.

Don't forget that. So sometimes there might be a small price difference where the local retailer will be higher priced.

One should use both places to keep competition and the economy healthy.

.jRay. said:
Why the f*** does the court even accept such cases. It's pure business. The consumer will buy the product from wherever he wants to.

+1...its really as simple as that...

Maybe if the brick and mortar store owners treated their customers properly, didn't try to fleece them at every turn and were a bit knowledgeable about the stuff they were selling, they wouldn't be crying their eyes out now. For what its worth, they can go forth and multiply.

A lot of brick and mortar stores now have their own e-commerce websites. The lesson is simple, adapt or die. That's the idea of a free market. This same nonsense was thrown about by these stores when Big Bazaar was expanding. Most standalone retail shops(most, I say) are basically thugs charging what they want for products. Most of the times, products are sold over the MRP. Cold drinks is a good example, "sir the cost is for the fridge". Fridge my ass.

I'm happy to see them go out of business. The sad part is, there are many honest retailers too and while they may survive because the community likes the store and buys from it out of loyalty, in the long run, the internet will simply take over.

Adapt or die.

Evolution of Indian market.

"Adapt or die" as tubelight rightly said.

its like Shishio Makoto said :

Survival of the fittest : the strong shall survive & the weak shall perish..

ashs1 said:
Survival of the fittest : the strong shall survive & the weak shall perish..

Does the strong here mean rich? or having a rich investor to save their asses?

cyborg47 said:
Does the strong here mean rich? or having a rich investor to save their asses?

Strong means the one with more power , eg: Ronnie Coleman, that guy can leg press 1000kgs

.jRay. said:
Strong means the one with more power , eg: Ronnie Coleman, that guy can leg press 1000kgs

Ronnie retired(weakest).... check out Phil & Kai the strongest now

takemein said:
Ronnie retired(weakest).... check out Phil & Kai the strongest now

They may be as big as big ron but not stronger, he squats 800lb for reps,leg presses 1000kgs for reps nobody does that.

S

Flipkart is bleeding money left and right. They are not gonna survive either at this rate.

.jRay. said:
Why the f*** does the court even accept such cases. It's pure business. The consumer will buy the product from wherever he wants to.

And then you cry for about economy.

sandeep410 said:
Flipkart is bleeding money left and right. They are not gonna survive either at this rate.

They've got over $200 million in funding, that's not what happens to a dying company.

Nipun said:
And then you cry for about economy.

FK is very much Indian.. What are you trying to say?

quagmire said:
FK is very much Indian.. What are you trying to say?

FK is, but what about the people who made the 200mil investment? I heard they aren't Indian.

Hope you guys didn't forget letsbuy. Their discounts made Flipkart look like greedy hounds.

Sarath said:
Hope you guys didn't forget letsbuy. Their discounts made Flipkart look like greedy hounds.

When did Flipkart buy off letsbuy?! :shock:

cyborg47 said:
When did Flipkart buy off letsbuy?!

It's been quite sometime. Between 6m to 1 year. Their massive discount trip burned them down or was it poor CC.

I still have their 500 off 2500 coupons. They had no competition then.

^^ Yes, their CC sucked big time. Though their discounts were competitive. FK f*cked letsbuy.

S

tubelight said:
They've got over $200 million in funding, that's not what happens to a dying company.

The funding was done by previous investors and not any new investors. They did it bec otherwise their invested money would gone down the drain so they had no other option but to put more money in it to see if it can survive and get thier invested money back.

^^ Source please.......

S

Was in Times of India 2-3weeks i go i think

sandeep410 said:
The funding was done by previous investors and not any new investors. They did it bec otherwise their invested money would gone down the drain so they had no other option but to put more money in it to see if it can survive and get thier invested money back.

You have no idea how funding works my friend. You should quit while you are ahead. This is not a blackjack game where now that you are at 17, you have to hit and let it all sink on a risk.

S

This is how it works dude. they cant quit now they would loose lot of money. I suggest you go and read times of India article it gives in detail about how flipkart is bleeding money and why investors pumped more money in it.

R

a_k_s_h_a_y said:
If flipkart is selling items below cost price at a loss then it sucks. As now take all market share, kill all sellers, then later price higher ?
Well somebody better beat FK ass with new model and keep prices always low... win for me.

Do u seriously think FK is selling below CP?? I hope you have atleast checked thier pricing on electronics before believing so..

Sarath said:
They had no competition then.

furious_gamer said:
Though their discounts were competitive.

I got my 55k lappi at 45k, thanks to letsbuy

nop, no window shop, just assuming the claims made if true, then that conclusion.

dashing.sujay said:
i got my 55k lappi at 45k, thanks to letsbuy

amexlb

G

Who cares? These retailers sell with so many business malpractices and complain abt online stores.

gopi_vbboy said:
Who cares? These retailers sell with so many business malpractices and complain abt online stores.

This + Why don't these people to move to E-commerce,Open facebook pages after all this is the future, 95% of these people don't understand the idea behind E-Commerce and how it works out cheaper for them.

Not all of them are involved in malpractices.
And moving to e-commerce is not that easy for them. Number of customers who go and buy from shops is far more than the ones who would order online. We don't even prefer going for comparatively big online retailers because they are not heard of or their service is pathetic. Just wonder what would happen in case of small retailers. I don't think it's a good idea for small retailers to shift to e-commerce prematurely.

gopi_vbboy said:
Who cares? These retailers sell with so many business malpractices and complain abt online stores.

exactly.

Sarath said:
amexlb

Not for me, I got 5% flat using some other coupon which I don't remember. amexlb was for amex.

theserpent said:
This + Why don't these people to move to E-commerce,Open facebook pages after all this is the future, 95% of these people don't understand the idea behind E-Commerce and how it works out cheaper for them.

The biggest drawback of e-commerce is that there is no longer any black money for the shops

You can see how it would sway them from not doing it.

Even reliance Digital and some other big retail too came against Flipkart and other ecommerce website .,2-3 months ago

dashing.sujay said:
Not for me, I got 5% flat using some other coupon which I don't remember. amexlb was for amex.

AMEXLB worked with any CC. 10% off.

It was supposed to support only Am Express cards but they corrected that only in the last two months before going bust.

ssdivisiongermany1933 said:
Even reliance Digital and some other big retail too came against Flipkart and other ecommerce website .,2-3 months ago

How about their Pricing? I didn't find any marketing about Online Store.

Sarath said:
Hope you guys didn't forget letsbuy. Their discounts made Flipkart look like greedy hounds.

i miss letsbuy :cry:

ssdivisiongermany1933 said:
Even reliance Digital and some other big retail too came against Flipkart and other ecommerce website .,2-3 months ago

Reliance digital is much cheaper than Flipkart most of the times