Alibaba's Taobao Marketplace To Implement New Policy

Alibaba's Taobao will ask the luxurious goods' sellers to upload proof of authentication for the luxury items from May 20 onwards.

For years now, Alibaba Group Holding Limited has been fighting against counterfeit goods on its several online marketplaces. It has received complaints from not only customers but the luxurious brand owners as well who think that the fake goods would damage the brand’s reputation all in all. Alibaba’s marketplaces are unique in a way that they offer almost every brand and item at comparatively cheaper rates. Luxurious brands such as Burberry etc. are concerned as their products are available at lower rates than usual.

Platforms such as Alibaba.com and Taobao Marketplace have previously been in the notorious market list of fake goods by the US Trade Group. However, recently Jack Ma and his company have joined hands together with a couple of organizations in an attempt to eliminate fakery from its business. According to Reuters, Taobao has further tightened its control on the sales of luxury items on its platform. The sellers on the marketplace who would be selling the luxury goods will have to show an authenticity proof to prove the originality of the product. This move is a part of fighting sales of fake items on Taobao.

Reuters said that the sellers will also have to upload proof of luxury items such as authorization from the brand itself or an invoice to prove that a particular item is original. This policy will be made effective from May 20. Failure to comply with this policy will result in removal of the good or product and the funds of those sellers will be frozen. Taobao has said to strictly look upon the product and proof before accepting it to be added to the listing.

Alibaba Group told sellers in a note, “To create a healthy shopping environment with a high level of integrity and to protect the legal interests of consumers and brand owners, Taobao is gearing up to regulate sales of luxury brands' products.”

This indeed is a great step from the online retailer as not only it was damaging the reputation of the company and all of its marketplaces but the reputation of the Chinese e-commerce market as well. Therefore the sellers on the platform will now have to act quickly in order to prevent themselves from shop closures and other penalties. Furthermore, the luxury goods will also be removed from listing if there is no proof uploaded at all. Taobao Marketplace has geared up to making its online marketplace a better place for shopping.

Amazon in Line to Rule the Indian e-commerce Industry

The online retailer's share price has increased and its CFO Brian Olsavsky has appreciated its Indian operations

Chief financial officer of Amazon Brian Olsavsky has praised on the operations of the company in India, pledging to boost its investments in the state on every front. The American E-commerce organization has invested over than $2.26 billion in its online trading operations in the Indian region and is seen to be reaching the position of Flipkart, which is the market leader of India.

After the disclosure of the initial quarter results by the online trading organization, Brian addressed an investor call by stating he came back from the Indian region after he spent 7 days with the teams in Hyderabad as well as Bengalaru.  "I had a chance to see firsthand the level of invention going on with both customers and sellers...it's a very exciting time in India and again, the invention is off the charts. We are inventing things in India that do not exist in other parts of the world. And the team there is one of our best,"  he stated.

Brian stated for the second year in a series, consumers chose Amazon India as the "most trusted" E-commerce brand of the company. He noted in the recent quarter, Amazon India launched Taktal program, a studio-on-wheels that reaches merchants to let them log up.

Responding to a question by an investor on margins regarding its global business being lower than its position that it was certain years ago, Brian stated the organization is heavily investing in India. On an Indian regulatory environment and how it has an impact on Amazon Cloudtail, director of investor relations Phil Hardin stated the organization is glad to find the last clarifications.

According to the new instructions, no supplier on the E-commerce market can contribute to more than one-fourth of the total sales on the marketplace. The sales of Cloudtail are assumed to higher in significant manner. Cloudtail is a joint project between the online retailer and investment division of N R Narayana Murthy Catamaran Ventures.

India is the second largest investment market of Amazon, following the United States, and the organization has stated hopes India to go ahead of Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom to turn into its biggest global market in the upcoming few years.

The achievement has prompted Amazon to include its head of Indian operations Amit Agarwal into the CEO and founder of S-team of CEO Jeff Bezos, a group consisting of senior leads that helps make significant decisions.

The overall business of the company is also growing as its shares opened at $665.55 in the morning of 29^th April 2016, up by 10.6% compared to the closing price of $602 on the same day. In other words, the market capitalization of the organization rose by almost $30 billion.

Uber Fights to Survive in Argentina

The authorities of Argentina's city of Bueno Aires are probing the American application based taxi service provider

Innovation is welcomed by wealth-creating economies and then there is Argentina’s city Buenos Aires, where Uber technologies said that it has continued to wait over four months to get a taxi-identification number. Currently, the cab service provider is under probe for setting up its ride-sharing business in an illegal manner. The difficulty of the transporters with the city government is a good news for taxi owners as well as union heads who are interested in keeping the organization out of the cab market.

But it’s a bad news for the city, a state hungering for job opportunities as well as the productivity to maintain higher standards of living. Republican Proposal Party’s Center-right President Mauricio Macri has pledged a financial revival. But if established interests win security from the tech revolution, he will probably fail to deliver. On 12^th April, the transporters lost patience and started offering its ride-hailing services in the city without a tax-identification number or a permit.

A cab union group immediately filed a litigation demanding the government to prohibit the transporters. The city responded by taking a legal action against the organization for the misdemeanor of “improper use of public space for profit.” Spokeswoman of Uber Niki Christoff stated on 15^th April police raided its lawyers’ offices “taking all Uber files and information they found.”Niki states: the upcoming day police broke the door lock of the house of the local general manager of the company, raiding the property and taking some documents and electronic equipment.

From 15^th April to 20^th April, the company provided rides free of charge in the city, expecting to counter the cab union and generate demand for its own facility  , which has launched protests and blocked roads to put city regulators under pressure. The transporter states it’s currently normally running its operations and thinks that its business is shielded in a constitutional manner. It lays emphasis upon that it’s neither a cab service nor a vehicle service and states Argentina requires a new regulatory authority for ride hailing platform operators.

The organization states its application has been downloaded by 250,000 devices in the state, while there were about 175,000 ride requests within the first seven days of operation and 120,000 passengers have set up accounts. The California based organization will also provide jobs. Ms Christoff has claimed that in Mexico City around 50% of its driving partners were earlier unemployed. In Argentina, she states there were 10,000 log –ups in the initial one and a half day of driver registration for launch of Uber in the Latin American region.