ALERT! ‘Country of Origin’ Tag Mandatory on Products Sold on Flipkart, Amazon & Other Platforms

To support the domestic manufactures and head towards ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India), Government-e-Marketplace has made it compulsory for the seller to mention the product’s country of origin.

A new provision has also been enabled to indicate the percentage of local content in the products sold online mainly to promote the ‘Make in India’ initiative. Buyer surfing the online platforms will also have the option to only buy products that have more than 50 percent local content criteria.

“It is mandatory for sellers to mention the Country of Origin while registering all new products on GeM. Further, sellers, who had already uploaded their products before the introduction of this new feature, are being reminded regularly to update the Country of Origin, with a warning that their products shall be removed if they fail to update the same,” the official statement read.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), on Wednesday, held an online discussion with the online-platforms representatives, including big players like Amazon, Flipkart.

“At present, the matter is under consideration with the ministry because this is an idea under the ‘Make in India’ vision. No advisory has been issued yet, and the matter was only discussed with the players and a final decision will be taken soon,” said DPIIT Secretary Guruprasad Mohapatra.

The virtual meeting was attended by all major e-commerce platforms like Flipkart, Amazon, Reliance Retail, Jio Platforms, Tata Cliq, Snapdeal, Udaan, Swiggy, Zomato, BigBasket, and Grofers.

Flipkart and Amazon asked 4-5months times to update the products on their site with the ‘country of origin’ tag. The meeting focused on how large vendors will implement this idea considering the logistics involved in it.

This decision will help the local manufactures in company to compete and produce good quality goods. It will help the customer to know more details about the product they are purchasing and will help to reduce online platforms dumb cheap imports from other countries.