new delhi the confederation of all india traders cait a traders body that represents millions of local kirana stores on wednesday backed indian ecommerce companies that help digitize local grocery stores as well as comply with indian rules and regulations the body which had in the past bitterly opposed foreign etailers such as amazon accusing them of killing small businesses with deep discounts said it has never opposed ecommerce and had only propagated adoption of ecommerce by traders as an additional business avenue the statement comes days after facebook invested rs 43574 crore usd 57 billion in reliance industries jio platforms ltd the investment would lead to reliance teaming up with the us giant to accelerate the launch of its jiomart ecommerce platform on facebooks whatsapp application advt indias ecommerce is a vast market having a large potential for digitalization and as such entry of any entity including reliance of having the vision to remain fairly competitive complying with laws rules and regulations not burning cash to capture the market and empowering small traders with digital technology keeping data within the country are welcome cait said the body which claims to represent 7 crore traders in the country in an emailed response to questions sent by on its stand on facebookreliance deal said there is enough scope for any entity which follows these standards jiomart an ecommerce venture of reliance retail has already started interacting with customers on whatsapp for grocery orders in navi mumbai thane and kalyan on a trial basis the customer initiates the interaction on whatsapp checks out the grocery order on the jiomart webpage gets connected with a retail store on whatsapp and then the customer picks up the order from kirana store cait is committed to removing greatly vitiated business model of ecommerce in the country its national secretary general praveen khandelwal said cait expressed its happiness that some indian entities are entering into indias ecommerce landscape with a vision of inclusion and empowerment of millions of small merchants and kirana shops through their technology platforms the statement said advt commitment to work towards enabling the consumers to access the nearest kirana shop who can provide products and services to their homes by transacting through ecommerce portals will be a gamechanger which will not only keep the small kirana shops relevant but increase their sales and enable them to effectively compete with ecommerce giants it said cait he said has never opposed ecommerce but always propagated adoption of ecommerce by traders as an additional avenue for their business besides physical stores however the cait strongly stands against malpractices being adopted by etailers and flouting rules and regulations in order to kill the small businesses of india he said adding the traders body stands for digitization upgradation and modernisation of local grocery stores and anyone who can help do that is welcome cait said india is one of the largest consumer markets of the world and upgradation and modernisation of existing retail trade of india