Now, online shopping to get costlier: Here's why

New Delhi, Dec 19: Shopping through online portals like Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra would now be costlier as the government is planning some major amendments in e-commerce policy of the country.

Major e-tail giants, over the past, have adopted deep discounts and cashback offers to lure customers and boost their sales, which highly affects the business model of tradition brick-and-mortar retails.

These offline retailers, on several occasions, have complained about the huge discounts offered by e-commerce majors on the back of massive investment they raise in order to fund their losses.

According to the report, the e-commerce policy draft is likely to propose restrictions on deep discounting policy and pricing strategy used by online retailers including Amazon, Flipkart, Paytm and others.

"The formulation of e-commerce policy in under consideration of the government for which no timeline has been fixed," Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu told Lok Sabha on Monday, in response to a question around when the draft e-commerce policy is expected to be out.

In September this year, the government appointed a group of secretaries to overview the concerns pertaining to the draft e-commerce policy and issues raised by various trade organisations. The group of secretaries was headed by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotions (DIPP) secretary Ramesh Abhishek.