I have repeatedly pleaded with the Central Government to
treat " E Commerce " as nothing more than the STANDARD / TRADITIONAL
commerce, with the only difference being :
Some business processes ( such as DISPLAY - SELL - ORDER
ACCEPTANCE - PAYMENT RECEIPT etc ) , are carried out electronically / digitally
on the internet
There is no need to :
# Give it another " Name " - for
purpose of distinction
# Treat it differently - for the purpose of
taxation
# Regulate it differently - for purpose of Consumer Protection
E Commerce Story is unfolding
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 ecommerce 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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