E-commerce has been a key driver of employment generation in India as online vendors, on average, employ 54 per cent more people and almost twice the number of female employees, compared to offline vendors, said a report launched on Wednesday.
The report ‘Assessing the Net Impact of e-Commerce on Employment and Consumer Welfare in India’ by not-for-profit policy think tank Pahle India Foundation launched by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that average number of jobs created per online vendor is 6.48 per cent (male) and 2.26 per cent (female). In comparison, it is 4.31 per cent (male) and 1.38 per cent (female) per offline vendor.
The pan-India survey of 2,062 online vendors, 2,031 offline vendors, and 8,209 consumers of products from e-commerce websites across 35 cities in 20 states and UTs estimated that online vendors generate 15.8 million jobs, including 3.5 million jobs for women.
The highest net growth in jobs for online vendors was reported in management function at 42 per cent followed by 39 per cent in marketing.
The survey also highlighted e-commerce benefits for vendors from smaller cities as 71 per cent of Tier 3 city vendors experienced a jump in sales since the time they have shifted to online sales.
With the growth in e-commerce business, the impact on traditional business has been found to be unrelated as only 6 per cent of offline vendors attributed brick-and mortar store closures to consumers shifting to online shopping.
Reasons cited by offline vendors for the closure of physical stores in their vicinity were lower customer demand for products, unaffordable operational costs, customers shifting to large organised retail stores, etc.
However, launching the report, Piyush Goyal said that e-commerce is eating into the small retailers by giving heavy discounts on products, ANI reported.
The minister accused e-commerce platforms of predatory pricing and not giving a level playing field to small retailers.
Goyal also questioned Amazon on predatory pricing. He said, “They made a billion-dollar loss in their balance sheet that year, they had to fill in that loss. If you make 6000 crore loss a year doesn’t it sound like predatory pricing to you?”
“They are after all an E-commerce platform, they are not allowed to do B2C, legally…However, the reality is all of you buy on these platforms, how are they doing it? Should it not be a matter of concern for us?” ANI quoted Goyal as saying.