In the wake of proposed republic day sales by All India Mobile Retailers Association stressed in an Open Letter of Concern to brand CEO’s to maintain a level playing field, proper stocks in mainline, price/offer similarity. Else retailers shall harmonise rates by raising debit notes to the distributors. Text of their letter is as follows:-
ALL INDIA MOBILE RETAILERS ASSOCIATION
Ref No: 165/01-22
Dated:11th Jan 2022
Open Letter of Concern To all Mobile Brands
Dear Brand CEO’s,
Subject – Upcoming e-commerce sales, Control the Deep Discount/Predatory Prices
Dear Sir,
Greetings of the day from team AIMRA!
Once again, e-commerce portals show their strength with their Republic Day Sales festival; they are coming early this time. While the mainline retailers are struggling for their everyday business, the e-commerce portals are preparing to damage the mainline business more severely by starting Republic Day Sales earlier.
The actual agony is that mainline retailers are suffering their all-time low business, Covid Wave3 restrictions, short supplies of stocks, especially sub 10K, fixed operational cost but on another side, e-commerce portals are coming with substantial stocks supplied by you by cutting the mainline stocks. Moreover, historically, E-tailers always offer sales prices less than purchase prices of mainline retailers in the form of Deep discounts, Predatory prices, Instant Cash Back, and huge upgrade offers.
Sadly, knowing all this, the brand supports them wholeheartedly, ignoring the profound damage done to the mobile retail trade. As a result, many mainline retailers have already shut down their shops, and many more will close soon.
But this time, mobile retailers will not be mute spectators. They will not endure such biased, unfair & unethical acts. This time retailers will resist and act accordingly to save their businesses and take decisive decisions.
Retailers will harmonize the prices and will issue the debit notes to the distributors. The Trade association will soon visit the distributor’s offices to register the protest and hand over the letter. We are hoping that distributors will not avoid and runaway and will accept the letter’s copy to understand the retailers’ pain and grievance.
Our simple request is to maintain both channels balanced and treat us equally.
Warm regards,
Team AIMRA
