Flipkart and Amazon to ramp up their public policy and government affairs team

Key Highlights

Amazon and Flipkart are ramping up teams of government affairs and public policy.

Flipkart has hired Dhiraj Kapur, former vice-president of corporate affairs at Carlsberg India, as the head of government affairs.

Amazon has released advertisement for 3 vacancies in managerial posts for government affairs and public policy.

Indian Government has made several reformations in Foreign Direct Investment rules in December 2018. Due which e-commerce behemoths Amazon and Walmart have to face a lot of problems in understanding the new rules and following them. Since during changes in FDI rules e-commerce giants were given the deadline of only two months to abide by the rules this created panic and confusion in the e-commerce industry. To avoid such situation in future Amazon and Flipkart are ramping up teams of government affairs and public policy departments.

Homegrown marketplace Flipkart which is led by Walmart has hired Dhiraj Kapur, former vice-president of corporate affairs at Carlsberg India, as the head of government affairs. Kapur is assigned a task to make teams in states and report CCO, Rajneesh Kumar. Flipkart is also thinking to hire retired public service officers who have a firm understanding of policy issues and government affairs.

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Amazon has also released advertisement for managerial posts for government affairs and public policy. The candidates having prior experience with the Indian central government and have the technology public policy experience will be given preference.

Amazon already has witnessed a 30% enhancement in losses to Rs 6,287 crore in the financial year 2018, could witness around 100% rise in three years whereas Flipkart may see an incremental loss of $280 million.

According to India’s new foreign direct investment rules:-

1. Cashback system in online marketing should be fair and crystal clear to the buyer and seller.
2. E-commerce marketplace is prohibited to resemble ownership or control over entities.
3. E-commerce companies are restricted to do only business to business basis transaction with sellers. 
4. Etailers are prohibited from putting a mandatory condition to any seller to sell a product on etailer.’s platform.

Related : Bangalore based e-commerce giant Flipkart kicks off its “Big shopping days” sale with offers on a variety of products

Post-implementation of new FDI rules several e-commerce companies have reformed their policies and business strategies to follow new policies of FDI. Amazon has lowered its commission charges to attract several independent sellers and build itself as a seller-friendly marketplace. It has now lowered commission to 50% on particular fast-moving consumer goods and 35% for famous fashion sellers.  It has introduced an innovative commission system for fashion vendor which is based on its rating. Best performers will get a benefit to paying 35% less commission as compared to the previous amount. Amazon has also introduced an incentive system for vendors according to their position on the rating scale. This new FDI rule have brought a drastic reformation in the way Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra function in India because they have to undergo major reformations in their functioning to cope up with new policies and also have grip in the Indian e-commerce market. After a month of distraction now these companies are again in action with coping new FDI rules.

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