Worlds largest retailer Walmart International, said it was disappointed by the new e-commerce regulations by the Indian government without any consultation with e-commerce market players. But also stated that the company is assured of its long term growth in the Indian E-commerce market.
“In terms of the regulatory environment in India, we are disappointed with the recent change in law but the team is working to ensure we are in compliance with the new rules. We hope for a collaborative regulatory process in the future. This will result in a level playing field,” said Doug McMillon, president and chief executive officer, Walmart.
The reactions by the retailer came as the BJP government imposed new regulations on the e-commerce platforms which has be complied by 1 Feb. The new regulations disrupted the e-commerce market badly, specially Walmart backed Flipkart had to bear the brunt of the of the new regulations.
The new rules which restricts e-commerce companies from selling products on the platform in which it has invested, entering into “Exclusive deals” with the seller, and even has put some restrictions on discount and cashback related offers.
These restrictions has forced the e-commerce biggies of India to pull back thousand of products. According to some media reports Amazon had to pull back around 400,000 from its web space, while its rival Flipkart had to remove as many as quarter of its total products, to comply with the new guidelines.
The on going move is going to disrupt the E commerce market adversely which as of now is around $35 billion industry and as per the industry experts has the potential to even surpass a record $100 billion by 2022.
Warmart also assured that these new regulations have not shaken its confidence in the Indian e-commerce market, since business has performed as per expected.
“We hope to work with the government for pro-growth policies that can allow this nascent industry and the domestic manufacturers, farmers, and suppliers to benefit from it,” said McMillon.
As per Walmart which follows the February -January fiscal year, Flipkart affected its fiscal numbers very significantly and despite taking the over all sales up, impacted the profits and operating income adversely.