Information Technology has been playing a vital role in the future development of financial sectors and the way of doing business in an emerging economy like India, Bangladesh etc. Increased use of smart mobile services and internet as a new distribution channel for business transactions and international trading requires more attention towards e-commerce security for reducing the fraudulent activities. The advancement of Information and Communication technology has brought a lot of changes in all spheres of daily life of human being. E-commerce has a lot of benefits and many acts which hurts the small businesses or business aspects. This study predicts some challenges in an emerging economy.
What is E-Commerce ?
E-commerce means buying and selling of goods over electronic and digital platforms. Thete have been many allegations that big e-commerce are responsible to harm healthy competition in the market. Economies of scale and advancement of logistical companies has helped e-commerce companies to ship goods to anywhere.
Why E-commerce?
With the increasing diffusion of ICTs, more specifically the Internet, the global business community is rapidly moving towards Business-to Business (B2B) e-Commerce. The buyers gain a clear advantage when the Internet gives them access to the global market, by which they can compare prices across regions, find out whether prices vary by order fragmentation and get awareness about substitute products. Due to transparency of the market, customer can compare the services of various e-commerce sites easily. For instant, in case of e-commerce the competitors are one click away from customer. If clients are not happy with the products, prices or services offered by a particular e-commerce site, they are able to change much more easily than in the physical. From the Sellers’ point of view, they don’t need to have physical existence of shop.
E-commerce Hegemony ?
Recently The competition commission of India ordered a probe into alleged competition law violations by Flipkart Amazon over allegations that the e-commerce major promoted and gave discounts to preferred sellers, entered into exclusive partnerships with smartphone brands and abused their dominant position.
Flipkart Amazon is good provider by online marketplace for selling goods in India. Flipkart and Amazon is a wholesaler which is in the business of seeking the good to reseller.
Section 4 of the competition act 2002 is very important as we know completion act is not against possessing dominant position in the market but is objects abusing such dominant position. Section 4 of this act deals with abuse of dominant position.
Dominant position in a market means positions of strength enjoyed by any enterprise in relevant market. Like any enterprise operate independently of competitive forces prevailing in the relevant market Affects it’s competitors or consumers or relevant market in its favor. Recent example of abuse of power should be Amazon Flipkart how they give heavy discounts to customer directly pick-up the good from company that hits the shopkeeper or small enterprises.
Conclusion
As e-commerce industry is emerging sector with high potential of growth govt has to introduce some policies to promote healthy competition in this industry. Govt has to anticipate current loophole in regulations and amend it is such a way that instead of harming msme sector. The e-commerce industry will be a leader with popularity in electronic business world in the upcoming years. The e-commerce revolution has fundamentally changed the business of transaction by giving new opportunities and breaking borders easily. In India, it has strongly impacted the traditional business system and changing the life of people by making it easier. While it gives benefits to customer and seller, e-commerce gives challenges to traditional business for competitive position. Developing countries face many obstacles that affect the successful implementation of e-commerce with the help of comparing with developed country. When the internet cost will be low then the e-commerce will flourish easily and will make many of traditional business to run out of their business. Convenience is one of the benefits that customer gets from the e-commerce and thus increasing customer satisfaction. This is due to customer can place a purchase an order from anywhere with internet connection. E-commerce business provider should give importance on every customer by giving smooth service and many options for payment and have more functions available online. Other benefits are expanded product offerings and expanded geographic reach. But e-commerce business faces a lot of challenges in flourishing their business.
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