FAIITA (Federation of All India Information Technology Associations) hosted a meeting in Delhi on 26th August to addresses the concerns to keep alive the offline market in a fight with the dominance of online shopping platforms. The pricing on the e-commerce platforms has become a major issue for offline partners and they feel insecure.
As time has come for the festive season, so in order to protect the dealers and retailers, FAIITA along with the major brands like HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer and ASUS discussed the challenges and their solutions for offline partners. All the leading tech brands agreed upon 'Zero Tolerance' with regards to any price disruption. Business owners travelled from across the country to show the seriousness of the issue.
Saket Kapur, General Secretary, FAIITA said, “All the five brands have expressed total support to the association and they have ensured zero-tolerance complied with any kind of price distribution. Zero tolerance before the judgment by Delhi High Court was not possible. The judgment which comes about two months back has inspired us to go for zero tolerance.”
Alok Gupta, President, PCAIT commented, “Every time we used to move one step ahead. Initially, the law of the land was not so strict so they used to get away by saying that we are unable to handle it. It’s only from last three years they have acknowledged of handling it. Last to last year they have shared a mail with us where they showed the concern about the online retailers, second year compensation this year zero tolerance. For three years we have reached here.”
Champak Raj Gurjar, President of FAIITA stated, “As we all know, during the last few years, the same products selling at different prices online and offline has made the operations of the offline partners difficult (with products selling a low prices online). FAIITA has informed the leading vendors in clear terms about the concerns of the offline partners and that just backend support to the offline channel is not sufficient; the partners want price parity between online and offline sales. And the offline partners want the implementation of this change before the forthcoming festival season. We are glad that representatives of all the leading vendors like Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, and ASUS have attended the event and have promised to consider the concerns of the offline partners and take immediate measures to set the same prices online and offline. Also, there are some concerns regarding the serial number of some HP products causing confusion among partners while differentiating originals and counterfeits and representatives of HP have agreed to look into the matter take corrective measures. Overall, we are happy with the outcome of the meeting and we hope the vendors will take more measures in the coming months and years to protect the offline channel.”
Pursuant to FAIITA and Brand Owners meeting convened by PCAIT in New Delhi, All Brand Owners have ad idem agreed to follow concerns tabled by FAIITA on behalf of pan India B&M:
