Tag: online shopping

China’s market regulator to launch new rules on online deals

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Heightened scrutiny by Chinese regulators since December has included the announcement of a probe into e-commerce giant Alibaba, penalising Alibaba-backed and Tencent-backed firms for not seeking anti-trust reviews for deals, while other firms have also been fined for irregular pricing

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China’s market regulator will launch new rules this year to clarify the responsibilities of platform companies involved in online transactions, the state-owned Xinhua News Agency said. Wei Li, an official of the State Administration of Market Regulation (SAMR), told Xinhua that the regulator will “adopt more powerful supervision methods this year and deploy a series of actions” to clear up “prominent problems in the online market”.

The regulator will also accelerate the construction of a system that will collect the online transaction information in real time allowing for better monitoring and coordination, Weiwas quoted as saying on Monday which is Consumer Rights Day in China.

Also Read | China denies plan for $1 bn Alibaba fine, but tech firms take a blow

The government has flagged it will be issuing new rules for the internet sector. Heightened scrutiny by Chinese regulators since December has included the announcement of a probe into e-commerce giant Alibaba, penalising Alibaba-backed and Tencent-backed firms for not seeking anti-trust reviews for deals, while other firms have also been fined for irregular pricing.

SAMR said it will also strengthen the legal system and issue detailed rules aimed at protecting the rights of consumers.

It said administrative guidance can be expected on major promotional events and cited Singles’ Day, the annual online shopping spree created by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group.

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Govt Asks Amazon, Flipkart to Treat All Sellers Equally in Draft E-Commerce Policy

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India will require e-commerce firms to treat sellers equally on their platforms and ensure transparency, according to a draft policy seen by Reuters on Saturday that follows criticism against business practices of big online companies. India has been deliberating a new e-commerce policy for months amid complaints from brick-and-mortar retailers who allege online giants like Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart flout federal regulations. The companies have denied the allegations.

A Reuters special report last month revealed that Amazon has for years given preferential treatment to a small group of sellers on its India platform and used them to circumvent the country’s foreign investment rules. The latest draft of the policy document says operators should be impartial in their dealings with sellers. “E-commerce operators must ensure equal treatment of all sellers/vendors registered on their platforms and not adopt algorithms which result in prioritising select vendors/sellers,” it says.

A spokesman for the commerce ministry declined to comment.

The policy will apply to Amazon and Flipkart – two top e-commerce players in India – as well as domestic players like Reliance Industries, which has plans to expand its JioMart online platform. All three firms did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Separately, India is also considering changes to foreign investment rules that could prompt players including Amazon to restructure their ties with some major sellers, Reuters reported in January. Government officials are set to hold talks next week with industry executives on such rules, according to people with direct knowledge.

On Saturday, top government officials from various departments, including the commerce ministry, met to discuss the e-commerce policy. The timeline of publication and whether it will be subject to further changes were not immediately clear. Indian traders have also complained about steep discounts offered by online companies which smaller retailers have not been able to match. Amazon and Flipkart have said they comply with all laws. E-commerce firms must “bring out clear and transparent policies” on online discounts, the draft document says.

The Reuters special report last month – based on internal Amazon documents dated between 2012 and 2019 – showed the company helped a small number of sellers prosper on its India platform, giving them discounted fees and helping one cut special deals with big tech manufacturers. Amazon has said it “does not give preferential treatment to any seller on its marketplace,” and that it “treats all sellers in a fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory manner.”

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Airtel Looks To Leverage 320 Million Users For The New Made For India Airtel Ads Platform

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Bharti Airtel has announced a Made For India advertising platform called Airtel Ads that would allow brands to target customers with relevant advertisements and for customers to get hyper-targeted offers and more. This official release comes after the beta testing of the Airtel Ads platform, which saw more than 100 brands join the platform, with more than 8 billion impressions per months and more than Rs 100 crore in annualized revenue. Airtel will leverage platforms such as the Airtel direct to home (DTH) TV service, Airtel Thanks app, Airtel Xstream and Wynk Music, as well as the Airtel retail points. Airtel insists that the homegrown Airtel Ads is built for India and will be monitoring ad experiences to notice when a customer drops off, indicating that the ad delivery mechanism needs rework. At this time, Airtel has 320 million users in India, across the services they offer, including prepaid and postpaid mobile, Xstream broadband and DTH TV.

Airtel insists that the user data never leaves their ecosystem when the ads are delivered to users. Secondly, Airtel says that when the consumer engages with an advertisement on the Airtel Ads platform, all the user data remains private and secure and is not shared with any intermediaries. Also, Bharti Airtel says they will only work with brands that don’t offer family safe and child friendly content for advertising, across their platforms. What will be the focus ad delivery mediums for Airtel Ads? Airtel Ads will leverage their own apps and services including the Wynk music streaming app, the Airtel Thanks app and Airtel Xstream video streaming apps, as well as the Airtel DTH platform and the retail points at a market near you. Airtel believes that the real-world test they undertook last year with HDFC Bank at these stores translated into as many as 35,000 units per day sales for a unique life insurance pack priced at Re1 per day that were bundled with the Airtel prepaid recharge options.

Can Airtel Ads be disabled? Yes, there is an opt out feature across platforms allowing you to opt out of personalized ad suggestions. At this time, Airtel says they are working on a centralized toggle system to turn these ads on or off, but even now, the option is available across platforms.

The Indian Advertising Industry was worth $10 billion in the year 2020 and will be worth as much as $19 billion by the year 2025, according to the Digital Advertising In India 2020 report by the Dentsu Aegis Network. Of this, the share of the digital advertising specifically was $2 billion in 2020 while that is expected to grow to $8 billion by the year 2025. For Airtel Ads, there are more than 100 brands that are already using the platform including Pepsi, Zomato, Myntra, YouTube, SBI Card, CRED, Vahan, Lenskart.com, Unilever and Tata AIG.

Airtel has the highest mobile average revenue per user (ARPU) of Rs 166 per month and says that the average monthly data usage per customer is as high as 16.8GB, across the network. There are more than 17 million homes that are connected with the Airtel DTH service. The Airtel mobile network handles more than 3 billion calls every day while more than 55% of Airtel users make online transactions, with these totaling up to as much as Rs 5 billion worth of daily transactions including on the Airtel Payments Bank and Mitra platforms.



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