Jamnagar IT partners demand regulation on E Commerce

IT partners in Jamnagar, the fifth largest city in the state of Gujarat, demanded regulation on the online sales in order to protect the traditional channel and provide level playing field to offline retailers. Partners said that the government should form mechanism to curb unethical practices done by online giants.

The DQ Week in association with Canon, Kaspersky and TechBzar.com had organized the Tech Caravan event in Jamnagar on 20^th January, 2015. Talking about the challenges faced by the IT retailers, Mr. Nilesh  Bhatt, president of the Jamnagar Information Technology Association (JITA), said that E Commerce had severely impacted business of IT retailers and most of the partners have switched to other businesses for survival.

“The government should pay attention towards the problems of the Channel community”, Bhatt said.

Bhatt said that there was huge price difference between online and offline retail. Therefore, consumers prefer to go for online shopping.

“Online retailers are snatching away our customers by selling products below the MOP. This is not only hampering our profit margins but also decreasing our customer base”, he said.

Canon, one of the leading brand in printers and scanner segment and associate sponsor of the event, presented its plethora of offerings. Mr. Milan Gohel, Senior Territory Manager-Channel Sales, Canon, presented entry level mono printers. Canon also displayed two WI-Fi printers: LBP6030B/W and LBP6230DN in the event. Gohel said that by positioning these two products, partners could earn healthy profit margins.

Gohel clarified that Canon did not promote predatory pricing. On the query of one of the partners that Canon toners were available at online portals at 50 percent less price, Gohel said that such toners were not genuine product of Canon and the company had initiated action against counterfeited toners.

The DQ Week also informed partners about its new initiative-TechBzar. DQ Week has recently launched a B2B portal-TechBzar.com to assist channel partners to increase their visibility on online platform. The DQ Week appealed partners to register themselves on TechBzar absolutely free of cost and maximize their business.

There was good response from partners in the event. Around 25 partners participated in the event. There were few queries which were promptly addressed by the representatives of Canon during networking over dinner.