Have been meaning to write about Why India needs a homegrown, home owned E commerce behemoth, ever since CCI flagged Amazon, Flipkart for malpractices in January 2020.
So, here goes my two cents on Why, How GoI should go about creating this giant. (1/n)

In January, Confederation of All India Traders with 6 crore members held protests against Amazon's Jeff Bezos.
In addition to this the Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh red flagged both Amazon and Walmart owned Flipkart to CCI for malpractices!
https://www.businesstoday.in/current/corporate/jeff-bezos-in-india-traders-body-to-hold-protest-against-amazon-chief-today/story/393858.html (2/n)

Its a well known fact that Amazon has indulged in predatory pricing in the past. Predatory pricing implies pricing ur products so low, that ur competition cannot sell without making a loss. An example of this is Amazon and the Toys R US mess!
https://twitter.com/sway_hi/status/1220798241463205888?s=20 (3/n)

If that's not all, Amazon and Flipkart both an American owned firm are now using E-commerce to subvert the Single Brand Retail rule laid down by the GoI by using their online portals!

What should in such circumstances the Indian response be! (4/n)

IMO, The traders body, Government of India and Indian Postal Service should come together to create India's very own homegrown, home owned E-commerce Behemoth.

With its 6 crores traders, CAIT and GoI could easily fund/crowdsource the initiative in partnership. (5/n)

By tying up with the INDIA POSTAL SERVICE, this E-commerce venture will be able to access remote Indian Hinterland, like no other private player ever can.
Furthermore, every trader (whole seller, retailer), creaters, SME, MSME could be a party to this. (6/n) @PMOIndia

So, could Indian Railways, with its vast network of freight trains and possible cold storage wagons.

With a crowd of retailers, wholesellers party to it, inventory management could ensure that sellers could move their slow moving goods at deep discount. (7/n) @PiyushGoyalOffc

Thereby ensuring that this ECommerce portal would at all times have some or the other discounts running through different retailers, in different parts of the country.

It would help in inventory management and reduction of wastage across the country. (8/n) @narendramodi

So, Funding gets taken care of by involvement of GoI, All traders body, other investors.
Reach gets taken care of by involvement of Indian Postal Service and Railways.
Inventory Management gets take care of by involvement of retailers, traders. (9/n) @PiyushGoyal

Such an E-commerce behemoth would generate reams of data that could be looped back to strengthen our own retail industry. This data would be safe, secure, stored in India and available to Indians. It could be used to generate reports for sale too. (10/n) @nsitharamanoffc

What is more such a behemoth would give the government unprecedented ability to control food reach to vast sections of middle class who are running helter-skelter during times of such crisis as the current #lockdown (11/n)

Once the e-commerce machinery is up and running, the Government will have the option of exiting through an IPO, thus generating revenue for itself and allowing common people such as u and me to own a chunk of the Indian Retail story. @narendramodi @PMOIndia @nsitharaman (12/n)

Finally , lets not forget that Amazon rose to prominence by serving a country of 360 million or 36 Crore people.

As a market, we are 4 times that size. Even with private players, there is ample space for GoI initiated BOP E-commerce to grow in India. (13/n) @nitin_gadkari

*BOT (Build, Operate, Transfer) and not BOP