Following news appeared today :
Extract :
The
applicability of the ‘group companies’ concept has been turned on its head.
Earlier, the group companies obligation was applied on vendors.
Now,
it is applicable to marketplace entities.
Accordingly, the inventory of a vendor will be deemed to be controlled
by an ecommerce marketplace entity if more than 25% of the purchases of such a
vendor are from the marketplace entity or its group companies.
This new criterion for considering vendors’ inventory as the inventory of the
marketplace entity has resulted in a substantial change in the business model of
marketplace entities.
First, how does a marketplace entity assess whether more than 25% of
purchases of a vendor are from the marketplace entity or its group companies ?
The
marketplace entity, after all, will not have access to books of accounts of
thousands of its vendors.
And even if this is included as a contract condition by the market place entity with its vendors, what if the vendor changes name and purchases the same goods from the former with a different name ?
Who will audit the vendors? The statutory audit seems to be only for
marketplace entities, not for vendors.
First, there
is now an ambiguity with regard to ownership or control of inventory.
On one hand, it prevents e-commerce entities providing a marketplace from
exercising ownership or control over the inventory.
On the other hand, it
specifies that the present policy does not impose any restriction on the nature
of products that can be sold on the marketplace.
====================================================
Of course, you cannot blame the Babus in the Commerce
Ministry for envisaging all the 39.92 MILLION permutations / combinations that
are likely to occur in a Universe called , E Commerce
It is still not too late for them to debate the
following scenario which I envisaged in email that I sent to them , on 20 Jan
2019 :
( Weave
a Wondrous World [ W3 ] )
“ How complex can these Business Structures get ?
I expect Shri Mukesh Ambani to
conjure up for Reliance Retail , a complex structure comprising
following elements :
· Holding
Company and Subsidiary company Reliance Retail Ltd ( RRL )
· A “ Cooperative “ of 4
million Kirana Shops ( ala AMUL ) – KIRIL
· Cooperative holding
“ non-transferable / non-voting “ shares in RRL
· Holding
Company giving loans to Kirana Shops to buy shares of KIRIL
· Manufacturers of
Consumer Goods launching “ E Com Platform “
· 4 million Kirana
shops listing their inventory on this “ E Com Platform “
=================================================
Unless the Babus want to forever remain tied up in
knots, they may just admit that :
“ One day ,
# everything
will get sold online and
delivered offline
# no one will be
able to determine for certain, what “ business
process “ takes place in
which country and
when and what value gets
added to a product / service where
# it will become
impossible to decide who owns how much of which
company and when
# there may be
hundreds of variants of “ Marketplaces “ and “ Inventory Models “
# ( at least ,
to begin with ), many SERVICES will get delivered from outer
space, where
no country has any jurisdiction. This phase will
be followed by manufacture of GOODS
# WTO may need to be
replaced by IPTO ( Inter-planetary
Trade Organization ) considering
that USA
has taken the lead in declaring its intentions by passing,
Who Owns Space? US Asteroid-Mining Act Is Dangerous And Potentially
Illegal
Given this
scenario , it is not difficult to understand why India has refused to
participate
in WTO’s
E Commerce Policy discussions
# People
will download designs from internet and 3D PRINT products
in their kitchens
# India may ( -
and must ) become the BACK
FACTORY of THE WORLD
# Millions of Indians may ( and must ) acquire “ skills training “ delivered from abroad ,
using VR headsets and pay for the same by providing
some online service
A time will come ( sooner than some may like ) when our
great grand-children may ask :
“ What is a shop ? “
Those “ some “ are saying :
Swadeshi
Jagran Manch wants registration of e-commerce cos to be made mandatory
=======================================================
17 Feb 2019
Rsvp : hcp@recruitGuru.com
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