After a news report alleged that Amazon India gives preferential treatment to a small group of sellers on its marketplace, the company’s India chief Amit Agarwal has claimed the report is “unsubstantiated, incomplete, factually incorrect”.
In a letter to employees, Agarwal said, “Amazon has always been and remains compliant with all Indian laws. We haven’t seen the documents and Reuters hasn’t shared provenance to confirm veracity. The details are likely supplied with malicious content to create sensation and discredit us.”
The Reuters report, based on internal Amazon documents dated between 2012 and 2019, provided an inside look at the cat-and-mouse game Amazon has played with India's government, adjusting its corporate structures each time the government imposed new restrictions aimed at protecting small traders.
India is an important market for Amazon with the company’s commitment crossing $6.5 billion so far.
Agarwal said that the company is committed to the government’s Digital India initiative and hopes to work with the Centre to bring benefits to small traders.
Amazon marketplace has a network of over 7 lakh sellers and more than a million artisans and more than one lakh Kirana stores. “We created more than 2 lakh jobs during an otherwise challenging year. This week we also announced our first device manufacturing line in Tamil Nadu,” Agarwal added.
In a statement, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which says it represents 80 million retail stores in India, said "the shocking revelations" in the Reuters story are "sufficient enough to immediately ban operations of Amazon in India." The trader's body called on Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to take immediate note of this "important and burning issue and order for a ban on operations of Amazon in India."