New e-commerce rules may be prone to manipulation, work-arounds: Experts

The fresh attempt at regulating the e-commerce sector in India, whilst well-intended, leaves scope for work-arounds and potential manipulation, experts and industry observers say. The new rules are mildly-worded and majors players, like the previous instances, may be able to get around them with only minor tweaks to their business models and subsidiary ownerships structures. The legal teams are already at work.

The biggest (high-impact) change is the clause that debars a seller that has ownership by the e-commerce marketplace, or any of its “group companies”, from selling on the said e-store. This puts ventures like Cloudtail and WS Retail,