On Thursday, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) officials met representatives from online food delivery firms like Zomato and Swiggy and offline industry leaders to discuss certain issues. The meeting was called to address issues such as deep discounting and opening up of private label brands by the online food platforms that have affected the operations of offline restaurants across the country.
Piyush Goyal, the commerce and industry minister, recently admonished global ecommerce players for “hurting” local retailers through their “predatory pricing” practices. He stated that the government will not allow small retailers and kirana shops to be omitted and that it will make all efforts to balance the interests of small businesses, retailers, kirana, and ecommerce companies.
The discussion today with DPIIT was to bring all stakeholders on the same platform to address and clarify issues and work towards the overall growth of the industry. – spokesperson
According to sources, the main issue to be discussed is the predatory pricing as well as the opening up of private label brands that are funded by foreign online delivery companies which have been majorly impacting the businesses of offline restaurants. However, this meeting is a follow-up of the last week’s wherein the online food delivery firms will be made to face the offline restaurants to facilitate a two-way communication on the table.
