Traders demand Committee to monitor festival sales by e-commerce Cos

New Delhi, Sep 3 (KNN) The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has urged the government to constitute a 'monitoring committee' to regulate and check the festival sales held by e-commerce companies.

In this regard, the traders' body has written to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and also urged him to issue mandatory guidelines for e-commerce companies for holding " festival sales".

The CAIT has alleged that in past years, the festival sales held by e-commerce companies offered predatory pricing, deep discounting, exclusive agreements with Brands, giving preferential treatment to their own sellers in which they held equity.

According to CAIT, this practice provides preferential treatment to some brands which is against the provisions of the FDI policy.

The 2020 festival season has already begun and will continue till November 25. This period will be immediately followed by New Year festivities.

''In order to restrain such e-commerce companies from adopting mal-practices and as a matter of fair play and equal level playing field, the CAIT has urged Goyal to constitute a Monitoring Authority to monitor such festival sales and issue proper guidelines for organising any such sale including implementation of Country of Origin policy as declared by the government so that consumers are not deceived,'' CAIT said in a statement on Wednesday.

''In case of any violation of the guidelines, the above proposed Monitoring Committee should be empowered to take immediate action against any such e commerce company which is found to be violating the FDI policy or the guidelines.,'' it added.