Amazon and Tata express concerns about new e-commerce rules, says it will affect their business

Amazon and Tata group met with union government officials and discussed the new e-commerce laws on Saturday, said reports.

Both company representatives warned the government that the new rule is not suitable for online retailers.

The new e-commerce rules, announced on June 21, put a limit on flash sales, bars misleading advertisements, and mandates a complaint system.

Big firms like Amazon and Flipkart may have to review and remodel their business structure to accommodate the new rules. At the same time, it may also increase the costs for domestic firms like Reliance Industries' JioMart, BigBasket, and Snapdeal.

At a meeting with the Consumer Affairs Ministry and the Government's investment promotion arm, Invest India, executives of Amazon and Tata said that the new proposed rules were confusing, and recommended that the deadline for submitting comments be extended further from July 6, reported Reuters.

Amazon argued that the pandemic has already put small businesses in trouble, and the proposed new rules will only worsen the situation for sellers. The US firm also argued that some clauses in the new law are already covered by the existing law.

The new e-commerce mandates that none of the firm's enterprises should be listed as sellers on their website. This will be troublesome for Amazon because it has an indirect stake in two of its major sellers - Cloudtail and Appario.

Tata Sons, the holding company of Tata Group, argued that the same clause is problematic. Tata also cited an example to say it would prevent Starbucks from offering products on Tata's marketplace website.