Amazon to delist top seller on its platform in India in 12 months

Amazon is set to delist Appario Retail, one of its largest sellers on the online marketplace in India in the next 12 months, in a statement issued by the two firms, this comes not long after Amazon ended ties with Cloudtail, its biggest seller on the platform earlier this year.

Appario Retail Private Limited, an owned subsidiary of Frontizo Business Services Private Limited is a joint venture between Amazon and Patni group. Although the two had agreed to renew the joint venture for three years, Appario will cease to be a seller on both Amazon India and Amazon India Business – the wholesale platform – within a year.

This came after the Competition Commission of India (CCI) found the e-commerce giant culpable of promoting select sellers in which they own a stake on their platforms and engaging in business practices that stifle competition. The watchdog unit then made regulatory changes in the Indian e-commerce space in July 2021, preventing e-marketplaces from having a controlling stake in sellers on their platform.

To comply with regulatory changes in the Indian e-commerce space, Amazon and other e-commerce platforms -Flipkart - with a sizable stake in the Indian marketplace continue to back out as domestic regulations weigh heavy on their operations in the region.

The watchdog unit, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) continues to crack down on anti-competitive practices by US-based businesses with huge stakes in the Indian market. Similarly, Google was fined a combined sum of $275 million over anti-competitive practices in October.