Govt does U-turn in policy, says e-commerce firms can sell private labels

Latest move comes a week after DIPP had explicitly ordered otherwise

An aggressive push by e-commerce majors over New Year weekend to force the government into a parley seems to have paid off, with the latter on Thursday clarifying there are no restrictions on private labels being sold by e-marketplaces.

The sharp reversal of policy by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) comes barely a week after the government had explicitly restricted such sales and is the latest development in an intense ongoing debate on e-commerce rules.

“An entity having equity participation by e-commerce marketplace entity or its group companies, or having control on its inventory by e-commerce marketplace