Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.’s grand plans for India were thrown into chaos on Friday after the country implemented new e-commerce regulations, which could cut their growth in the market by as much as half this year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government tightened rules for the retail giants after strident complaints from small shops and domestic sellers. Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart are now banned from cutting exclusive arrangements with sellers, offering deep discounts or holding any business interest in online merchants on their websites. Thousands of products have already vanished from the virtual shelves of the duo, which together account for 70 percent of India’s online retail market. Arvind Singhal of consultancy Technopak Advisors Pvt, estimates their revenue growth could fall to 15 percent in coming months from 25 to 30 percent previously.
Amazon’s shares slid as analysts pushed the company for answers on India, a market the e-commerce titan regards as the best frontier for international expansion. Jeff Bezos has pledged to spend $5.5 billion there in pursuit of growth, but executives had few encouraging words, saying on Thursday the effects of new e-commerce regulations in the country are still uncertain. Its newfound headaches in India come as a slowing global economy threatens to curtail the consumer spending retailers rely on. Amazon shares were off about 4 percent in early trading, while Walmart was up less than 1 percent.
“It will be at least six to eight months before they are able to find workarounds and restore listings,” said Singhal, the New Delhi-based chairman for Technopak.
What’s clear is that Amazon and Walmart now have to re-tool their strategy and potentially ward off stiffer competition from physical retailers or local rivals with deep pockets such as conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd., which may benefit from the new laws. The disruption comes after the two retailing giants wagered billions on the market: beyond Amazon’s spending pledge, Walmart shelled out $16 billion to acquire control of Flipkart Online Services Pvt last summer.
The new regulations jeopardize Walmart’s prospects in a market that it’s banking on to drive growth abroad. Over the past year, the retailer has scaled back its holdings in Britain and Brazil and said it will funnel the bulk of its international investments into just two regions, India and China.
That’s why Walmart competed so fiercely for Flipkart, a money-losing business that some analysts say was already losing ground to Amazon when Walmart acquired its majority stake last year. Flipkart has also been marred with the departure of co-founder Binny Bansal after allegations of sexual assault emerged late last year.
Walmart and Amazon have amassed vast inventories in companies in which they have business interests and had sought a four- to six-month extension to help offload those products. But the decision to go forward with the new rules on schedule was announced Thursday evening.
Now, thousands of products from Amazon’s leading vendor Cloudtail, a joint venture with Infosys billionaire co-founder Narayana Murthy, have gone off the platform. That includes its Echo smart speaker, Fire TV Stick and Kindle devices. Flipkart’s fashion arm Myntra has a wide range of labels that it’s created and invested in -- those too must go. And so-called Alpha sellers that have sealed arrangements with Amazon and Walmart cannot sell on the websites, nor can phonemakers and fashion brands sell products exclusively on either platform.
Both retailers will have to draw up new contracts with thousands of merchants and brands, deleting wording such as “exclusive.” And they may have to develop India-specific private labels, which the government allows. “Private labels are not a panacea to their current problems since their unique selling point is that they are a single stop for all products and brands,” Singhal said.