by asma chandani prime minister narendra modi didnt need to be on home turf for the echoes of his administrations major policy announcement this week to reverberate through the land the regulators of commerce and inbound foreign direct investment for the country have just ensnared the last bastion of freedom ecommerce the move came in the form of a press note addressed at regulating ecommerce marketplaces such as flipkart amazon and snapdeal until now the government had never attempted to comprehensively define ecommerce or ecommerce marketplaces however with frothy valuations and turbocharged unicorns growing in their midst you figure they thought they had better tackle the sector head on and so it goes the activities engaged in by ecommerce companies vendors ancillary service providers and the like which have proliferated with exuberance in cities across india just got regulated the upside clarity in the rules permitting inbound foreign investment into marketplace ecommerce models portends much investment is in store and plenty of deals will be made as competing business groups vie to acquire strategic footholds in the booming sector mumbaibased ecommerce logistics startup wow express feels optimistic cofounder sandeep padoshi states international ecommerce companies can now set up operations in india without the need to partner with an indian company this means that there will be more international entrants in the days to come more marketplace participants means there will be more first mile opportunities and wow is one of the preferred first mile players the downside the loss of that cherished zone of freedom where imagination had no invigilator where first movers raced to scale and build the digital infrastructure upon which the next generation of indian consumers will shop online silicon valley has its reservations about the new rules silicon valley based helion venture partners cofounder senior managing director ashish gupta reflects clearly the press note has not been thought through very well at one level the note creates even more confusion companies will expend more energy on workarounds and compliance with the regulations as opposed to growing their businesses one controversial provision in the press note provides that ecommerce players cannot directly influence the price of goods sold on the marketplaces on this point ashish opines the government is walking a fine line regulating the amount of profit that any company should make is the government next going to dictate an acceptable margin of profit that is the reason why free markets exist that is if someone is subsidizing too long they go out of business other silicon valley vcs agree manu rekhi of inventus capital partners weighs in though i am excited about the opening up of fdi limits in ecommerce i am troubled by the unnecessary regulation and need to control the ecommerce space has grown without any government intervention and has improved the lives of millions of consumers and hundreds of thousands of merchants what is the government trying to achieve by implementing illthought through and arbitrary limits gupta observes press note