From big festive sales with massive discounts to being the go to option for essentials and electronics during the lockdown, Amazon and Flipkart have been the top names in India's e-commerce landscape. But a closer look reveals Amazon's troubles in the market where it is yet to achieve profitability and has had to scale back its expansion into food delivery and wholesale.
After skipping the announcement of its performance update in India last month, Amazon has raised the fee that it collects from sellers, and consumers may have to pay the price.
Charging more for storage and shipping
In a recent notification, Amazon revised its fee structure, and the charge that sellers on the platform pay for storage, shipping and returns as well.
This increase will reflect in the price tags on Amazon, and smartphones, apparel, laptops, and anything people buy on the site will get costlier.
After the move, sellers are concerned that consumer spending and in turn their sales via Amazon will go down.
Additional burden for consumers
Apart from this, the 18 per cent GST that is charged on seller fee hasn't been included in Amazon's notification, which means that it will be an additional burden.
Among product categories, over the counter medicines will see the highest impact of the revision, as seller fee will go up from 5 per cent to as high as 15 per cent.
A higher fees will also be collected on beauty products and cosmetics, while the same has been slashed for solar panels, auto parts and gym equipment.
