How hands-off should an e-commerce platform be?

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How hands-off should an e-commerce platform
be?
By
Zubin Poonawalla
A marketplace was just slammed with a fine for a defective phone sold
through its platform. State governments want them to take responsibility
for VAT payments, The Food Safety & Standards Authority of India
(FSSAI), India's food regulator now wants e-commerce companies to
come under its purview. On the other hand, DIPP wants e-Commerce
firms to be no more than technology platforms or facilitators enabling
the buyer & seller to meet.
Now how can the government say that the seller on the platform is
solely responsible for product quality, promotion & customer
satisfaction, & still penalize e-Commerce companies when something
goes wrong on these fronts? If the seller is responsible, there's one
more issue. What happens if the seller vanishes after a transaction
happens? Who does the buyer then go to for redressal? It is certainly
more likely that a registered company is around to take care of
grievances than a seller, who may be an individual.
The truth is that people 'trust' certain marketplaces more, & these
marketplaces invest more in ensuring that their products & sellers &
hence transactions are of a certain quality. There's nothing wrong with
this approach & it is actually consumer friendly. The FSSAI directive is
in this direction. The previous action on bringing e-Commerce
companies under the Consumer Protection Act was also in the same
direction.
But now it suddenly got confusing.
There are unmanaged & managed marketplaces. And it might be good
on the governments part to keep this classification separate from
inventory-led & platform e-Commerce. The steps that eBay took as part
of its evolution, or the launch of TMall tell us that there is consumer

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demand for more curated managed & quality-assured marketplaces.
We don't want the old stories of stones & mangoes being shipped, do
we? Neither would we as customers like to speak to customer-care
(managed by the marketplace) only to be told we should contact the
seller, who may decide not to entertain us.
The policy-markers have to understand. If the seller is not picking up his
phone, customers would like to pick up their stone - which is bad - what
is worse is not knowing where to throw it.