CCI to study e-commerce market, reveal findings in August

The Competition Commission of India today said it is conducting a study on India’s e-commerce market and will disclose initial findings by the end of August.

The final study report will be published in the third quarter of 2019-20, the CCI said in a statement.

The study is designed by a market study team at the CCI and will be implemented by EY. It will cover e-commerce platforms, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, hotels, restaurants and payment systems.

The study is focused on understanding business practices and contractual provisions in e-commerce and emerging distribution methods. It will rely on a combination of meetings with enterprises and industry bodies, and a survey for the stakeholders. According to media reports, the CCI has already started sending out the survey questions to certain marketplace platforms.

The study is not part of any investigation or inquiry. Some media reports had suggested that the study was a consequence of the All India Online Vendors Association appealing to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal regarding the CCI’s clean chit to Walmart-backed e-commerce marketplace Flipkart operating through subsidiaries and deriving an unfair price advantage.

This comes at a time when minister of commerce and industry Piyush Goyal held a meeting of industry representatives from Indian and foreign e-commerce as well as technology firms to hear their concerns related to the draft e-commerce policy and issues of data localization. The minister has asked representatives of the e-commerce industry to send in their concerns in writing to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade within 10 days.