This Diwali, here's how Gujarat traders made e-commerce firms suffer

Hundreds of traders in south Gujarat are giving India’s biggest e-commerce companies a firecracker they don’t want.

As a mark of protest against the deep discounts offered by their online counterparts, brick-and-mortar retailers and traders, led by the Surat Mobile Traders Association, are ordering products worth hundreds of crore on ‘cash-on-delivery’ from Amazon, Flipkart and Alibaba.

Once the goods arrive though, the traders refuse to take delivery and send it back instead.

In doing so, the members of the association claim, they are causing huge losses to India’s online retail firms, as the e-commerce companies take a hit on packaging and courier costs when items are returned.

Till date, according to Surat Mobile Traders Association, they have allegedly refused products to the tune of over Rs 500 crore, with plans to ramp their boycott during the Diwali season.

“Online companies which are offering various [discount] schemes during this festive season are being targeted. We are in the process of increasing the orders to the online companies… and when they will arrive we will refuse citing various reasons so that they suffer huge losses. This time we are ordering goods worth Rs 500 crores up to Diwali,” association president Vinit Agarwal told The Wire. Read Complete Article

Business Standard