The government’s attempt on Thursday to provide clarity regarding its e-commerce rules announced last week seems to have backfired, with the clarification, instead, creating a lot of confusion, notably regarding whether private labels can be sold on e-commerce portals or not. The reason for the confusion, according to lawyers conversant with the matter, seems to be that the reference in Thursday’s clarification to ‘private labels’ is to the products sold under these labels and not the companies behind the labels, as assumed by many. “For example, Amazon Basics or Flipkart Essentials, are sold on only Amazon and Flipkart, respectively. “The nature of the product does not have any linkage with private labels or branding,” Praveen Khandelwal, national secretary general of CAIT told The Hindu. Private labels with a stake owned by the marketplace will not be allowed.”

Source: The Hindu January 04, 2019 17:03 UTC