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.
Online shopping may not be cheap anymore as govt looks to regulate deep discounts
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.