E-commerce policy to focus on small businesses

According to Khalid Raza Khan, CEO & Founder, YourLibaas, the upcoming e-commerce policy will focus on small businesses and retailers who have struggled to remain afloat. It will fix the preferential treatment accorded by marketplaces to its subsidiary sellers. It will also push to onboard more offline sellers to these marketplaces and the open up government backed e-Marketplaces (GeM) to consumers, adds Khan. Government has also collaborated with India Post to introduce express delivery services and ease exports for eCommerce facilitated sale of goods.

Another major change that the policy will bring about it is transparency, opines Khan. It would mandate marketplaces to stop favoring large sellers who can afford to cut down prices and lure in more users – a win-win situation for both the sellers and the platform. These players operate on the network model wherein an increase in the number of sellers or consumers leads to a proliferation of the other party. It could have a spiral effect wherein smaller and niche eCommerce players are benefited.

Khalid founded eCommerce company YourLibaas in 2014. A market leader in the lawn apparel segment, the company moved operations to the UAE recently.