Inc42 Daily Brief
Stay Ahead With Daily News & Analysis on India’s Tech & Startup Economy
Mumbai-based online furniture store Housefull International has sent a legal notice to AskMe Group backed online furniture marketplace MebelKart for allegedly selling defaulting on payments and selling imitations, reported ET.
Housefull International has demanded INR 150 Cr from MebelKart. The company said that it had stopped selling its furniture on MebelKart since February, after the digital marketplace failed to clear dues of up to INR 28 lakh. However, MebelKart has been illegally selling products bearing Housefull brand names.
Akshay Chaturvedi, co-founder of Housefull International said that they filed a complaint against MebelKart with Mumbai police on April 16, alleging that after terminating their partnerships with MebelKart, the company started receiving negative feedback from market associates about their products being fake and definitely not resembling the original quality.
To which Rahul Agarwal, CEO of MebelKart said,
MebelKart works with more than 1,500 sellers from across the country and has clear terms and conditions for sellers and buyers on its website. As a marketplace, we enable sellers by providing them with the opportunity to showcase and sell their products to buyers across the country. As a brand, we do not retail products. Sellers at any point of time can delist themselves or remove their products from the website. We regularly review complaints that we receive both from buyers and sellers and take action against erring parties.
Housefull International was a seller on MebelKart, but was delisted from the website due to non-compliance with our terms and conditions. We received a legal notice this afternoon (April 24) and our legal team will respond to this at the earliest.
We would like to clarify that Housefull is a generic term and several sellers use “Housefull” word in their product descriptions. A random search on “Housefull” on the MebelKart website will show that there is no product under the “Housefull” brand name being sold. There is no use of any trademark of the said brand.
When we started this company, the idea was to create value for customers by making the best products available in the lowest possible timeline and cost. A successful marketplace is built by not only happy customers but happy sellers as well.
We have built this company based out of values of utmost trust, transparency, honesty and a feeling of service and are committed in operating in the same way.”
AskMe, a unit of Getit Infomedia, owns 75% of MebelKart after it invested $20 Mn (about INR 130 CR) in the company in August. MebelKart’s promoters own the balance 25% stake. AskMe is backed by Malaysia’s Astro Holdings.
Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.