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In a major blow to the e-commerce market in India, two leading players Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart have been caught violating antitrust laws.
Both e-commerce giants gave preferential treatment to certain sellers on their shopping platforms in the search results. This adversely affected other sellers as their products were not seen by consumers. The report comes from Reuters citing the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
The CCI had first ordered an investigation way back in 2020 against Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart. This was after a complaint from Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh, a group of brick-and-mortar retailers whose business suffered due to the deep discounting offered on both e-commerce platforms.
In the latest development that involved a 1,027-page report on Amazon and another 1,696-page report on Flipkart seen by Reuters reveals that the two companies had created an ecosystem where sellers which they preferred appeared higher than others in the search results as per the CCI investigators. Both reports concluded that “Ordinary sellers remained as mere database entries.”
Amazon, Flipkart, and CCI are yet to release an official statement on the latest report. The e-commerce companies are expected to review the report and file objections before the CCI imposes any fines. Additionally, the report comes at a time when both Amazon and Flipkart are gearing up for festive season sales in India starting later this month.
In the US, the FTC has already accused Amazon of anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power.
