them to offer discounts to win market share the increasing adoption of ecommerce by indians is driving business to amazon flipkart and snapdeal and hurting brickand mortar establishments the prospect of this trend strengthening is also a cause for worry but biyani said virtual retailers arent taking away ourbusiness or ourcustomers his argument is more about fairness given that the flood of overseas money into ecommerce companies allows them to offer discounts to win market share the growth of virtual retail is not led through brands or products developed by the companies or by achieving operational efficiencies or scalehe said it is entirely led through reducing the prices of products that are subsidised by the investments made by foreign private equity funds and venture capitalists on the other hand retailers in the real world face severe restrictions on fundraising especially when it comes to foreign funds whether through external commercial borrowings or through equity that isnt fairspencers retail reported a net loss of rs 114 crore for fy15 losses widened because of heavy discounting by ecommerce companies even though spencers posted higher revenue sanjiv goenka chairman of cesc ltd that owns the retail chain is reported to have said in recent years homegrown flipkart and snapdeal have raised billions of dollars from investors while usbased amazon has pledged to invest 2 billion in india to tap the countrys ecommerce potential flush with capital ecommerce companies have unleashed advertising and discounting strategies flipkart and snapdeal declined comment while amazon didnt respond to queries biyani didnt name any specific company in his comments impact on small stores according to biyani the impact of ecommerce is mainly on small consumer electronic stores a large number of small shops engaged in selling mobile phones and electronics have gone out of business in the past few years and it is entirely due to the deep pockets of the foreign funds subsidising and cutting prices of mobile phones being sold by virtual retailershe said he pointed out that ecommerce companies are now entering food and groceries in the context of the argument against fdi in retail describing these as sensitive segments allowing overseas money in retail would hurt millions of kirana stores those opposed to it had said the whole debate on fdi in retailing was on protecting small traders shop owners and farmers engaged in the food business thats the reason why fdi in retailing was not allowed but that is exactly where fdi is now comingbiyani said by chaitali chakravarty rasul bailay et bureau published on may 27 2015 at 0802 am ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions reasons for reporting foul language defamatory inciting hatred against a certain community out of context spam others report join the community of 2m industry