If a few months ago, it was all about the ecommerce companies in India going all out to woo the sellers on their respective platforms, new coming now suggest they are tightening the belt as well. Paytm Mall has reportedly made some changes to its seller policy where the sellers cannot indiscriminately charge for return of the product by the buyer. A cap is being put on this.
As per an Economic Times report, in a new definition to the policy, if a product is returned by the customer due to a fault at the Seller’s end then a whole lot of charges will have to be borne by the seller. These include the marketing fee, courier charges, payment collection fees, fulfillment charges (where applicable) and seller proceeds. Logistics costs will also be recovered from them. Sellers are now complaining that this will lead to their incurring heavy losses on the Paytm Mall platform.
Paytm Mall, on its part, has explained that it has done extensive analysis of data covering an extended period and the changes now brought about have been incorporated based on the outcomes of these analyses. ET reports that they have also said they would want to pursue an equitable policy where sellers of all categories small medium or big get a fair deal and no one enjoys any advantage over the other.
It is not as if sellers in the two platforms of the two leaders Amazon and Flipkart don’t face similar issues. Return and exchange in any online business could be very painful for all stakeholders concerned, including the buyers.
In a typical brick-and-mortar model, the customer brings to products back on their own and if replacement is to be given, it is arranged on the spot. No logistics costs come into the picture. If the ecommerce firm has engaged a courier service they will charge their delivery fee thrice over; first delivering the product, then delivering the replacement product and collecting back the stuff delivered first. None of the trade partners involved can afford to pay for all the three.
Sellers are not happy with the move by Paytm Mall. They claim many changes like these have been made in the recent past.