The Confederation of West Bengal Trade Associations (CWBTA) on Monday, October 12, expressed concern over the rising volume of online festive sales and the deep discounts offered by e-commerce platforms, saying the widening online-offline price gap was hurting traditional retailers.

E-commerce companies have reportedly clocked around ₹24,000 crore in sales in the first two days of the festive season, it claimed.

The apex trade body said such a shift in consumer spending, coupled with aggressive price competition, was putting significant pressure on offline retailers and traditional markets.

CWBTA president Sushil Poddar said the issue was not the growth of e-commerce but the large difference in prices between online and offline sellers.

”Online sales of around ₹24,000 crore in just two days clearly demonstrate the enormous scale of the shift in consumer purchasing. However, when such sales are driven by substantial price differences, the impact on offline traders cannot be ignored. Traditional retailers are losing business because they simply cannot match prices offered by large online platforms,” he said.

Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), flagging the concern, also said it is not against digital trade, but that pricing policies which make it hard for traditional traders to survive are not acceptable. It wants rules applied fairly to both online and offline sellers.

Poddar pointed out that offline traders have to bear costs such as shop rent, salaries, electricity, taxation, transportation, inventory and maintenance, while working with relatively limited margins.

”Price competition is healthy, but when the price difference becomes too large, it creates an uneven playing field.

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