Thousands of merchants whose non-essential item orders were cancelled on Amazon India and Flipkart have to wait longer to get their payments cleared. The development comes even as these e-tailers start initiating refunds to thousands of customers who had to scrap their orders of non-essentials made before the lockdown, two people aware of the matter said.
Online grocers Bigbasket and Grofers, besides top e-tailers like Flipkart and Amazon India, are beefing up operations for delivery of essentials as they struggle to fulfil increasing consumer demand due to lack of delivery personnel on the ground. These platforms are operating at about half their original capacity as they struggle with the availability of curfew passes in a few cities.
E-commerce operations came to a grinding halt on Wednesday morning as two of the largest e-commerce platforms Flipkart and Amazon India virtually shut operations here due to on-ground difficulties to source products from warehouses and deliver them to consumers.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) slammed Amazon India in the Karnataka high court (HC) on Thursday, saying its arguments were “mischievous” and that it is not answerable to the Seattle-based technology major before it begins a probe.
Amazon India has moved the Karnataka HC, seeking a stay on a probe by the Competition Commission of India. The e-tailer has slammed the probe, terming it “perverse, arbitrary and untenable in law”. On Jan 13, CCI had ordered a probe into the operations Amazon India for various trade practices, including deep discounts and favourable terms to select sellers.
