Snapdeal Dragged To Court By Its Sellers Over Non-Payment Of Dues

Ecommerce firm Snapdeal, which is owned and operated by Jasper Infotech, has been dragged to courts by its sellers Veepee Electronics and Spacewood Furnishers over alleged non-payment of dues, ET reported.

While Veepee Electronics has filed a criminal case in Gurugram court against the firm over non-payment of $738k (INR 5 Cr) and another $2.2 Mn (INR 15 Cr) worth products still to be recovered, Spacewood has filed a case in the Delhi High Court for the recovery of $2.6 Mn (INR 18 Cr).

The ET quoted Snapdeal spokesperson, as stating, “One of the claims made is pending arbitration, and the other represents an attempt by the claimant to misuse police machinery to address commercial disputes. Snapdeal will oppose the claims and defend itself in the appropriate forums.”

A response from Snapdeal could not be solicited to Inc42’s email query at the time of publishing this report.

Earlier in October 2017, Quickdel Logistics, the parent entity of ecommerce logistics company GoJavas, shot Snapdeal on its arm with over $45.8 Mn (INR 300 Cr) of legal notice for an alleged criminal breach trust for discontinuing its contract to drive Vulcan Express’ growth. Snapdeal had, however, denied the allegations rubbishing it as baseless and unfounded.

Snapdeal posted a 75% increase in its loss for the financial year ended March 2017. It also recently offloaded its cloud-based inventory management subsidiary, Unicommerce to Infibeam for $17.8 Mn (INR 120 Cr).

A Demand To Monitor Ecommerce Marketplace Policies Towards Sellers Pending

According to figures revealed by Consumer Affairs Minister CR Chaudhary, over 50,760 complaints were filed against ecommerce firms between April 2016 and March 2017, a steep jump from 23,955 in the financial year prior to that. The figures further revealed that around 13,812 complaints were made against ecommerce companies during April 2014 to March 2015.

Representative bodies of e-sellers of India have time and again raised their demand for setting up of a regulatory body to oversee the activities of the ecommerce marketplace and monitor their policies towards their registered merchants. They claim that no substantial progress has been made on their suggestions even after two years of voicing their demand to the Ecommerce Committee formed under NITI Aayog in 2016.

Trade bodies like AIOVA, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) and RSS-affiliate Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) have also been reiterating their dissent over the $16 Bn offering by Walmart to acquire a 77% stake in homegrown marketplace Flipkart alleging that this deal could promote predatory pricing in the absence of an ecommerce policy in the country.