The Indian government has formulated new e-commerce regulations. Sellers should pay attention to these platform changes!

A senior Indian government official said on Friday that the Ministry of Commerce and Industry is "affirming" formulating a new e-commerce policy, the specific content of which will mainly cover issues such as protecting consumer rights and the acquisition and processing of data by e-commerce platforms.

In addition, issues such as counterfeit products, product packaging and rules of origin on e-commerce platforms will also be involved. The government will discuss these issues, refine relevant standards, and establish more sound legal provisions for the domestic e-commerce industry.

In 2020, the Indian government issued warnings to e-commerce platforms such as Amazon India and Flipkart regarding the issue of the country of origin of goods, requiring sellers on e-commerce platforms to mark the country of origin of the goods sold (affected by the Sino-Indian border conflict in June 2020, this warning was mainly directed at China).

Last week, the Delhi High Court of India issued a notice to social e-commerce platforms such as Meesho and Shop101, requiring these e-commerce platforms to mark detailed information such as the origin and manufacturer of the goods sold.

Although the Indian government's first warning was suspected of targeting China, requiring e-commerce platform sellers to add detailed information such as the origin, manufacturer, raw materials, etc. for the products can indeed better regulate e-commerce platforms and introduce relevant regulations, which can effectively crack down on counterfeit and shoddy products of e-commerce platform operators, protect the relevant rights and interests of consumers, and promote healthy competition among platform sellers.

As an emerging thing, e-commerce in India is still in its infancy, so the relevant legal provisions are not sound. However, the booming industry urgently needs sound legal constraints. Therefore, the Indian government issued the draft national e-commerce policy in 2019 and further refined and improved relevant policies in the near future.

The bills and policies that the Indian government is currently formulating will also impose stricter restrictions on foreign companies, foreign shareholdings, and Indian companies infiltrated by foreign groups in order to protect the development of local e-commerce companies. Once the bill is formulated and put into practice, Amazon India and Flipkart will be the first to be affected. Therefore, the two major platforms are paying close attention to the policy being formulated.

For sellers on the platform, the release of this policy also has a significant impact. After the policy is released, the Indian government will crack down on counterfeit and shoddy products, and there will be stricter regulations on product packaging and detailed descriptions. The platform will inevitably carry out major rectification activities.

Although the specific content of the policy is still under discussion, the Indian government stated that the policy is already being formulated and will definitely be put into action, and sellers need to pay attention to this development in real time.

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