The fault in Flipkart’s stars is fuelling the company’s bad times. The company is embroiled in a fresh controversy with its sellers. The latter allege that Flipkart has not been refunding the tax deducted at source (TDS) to the sellers.
The standard practise is for the sellers to deduct tax for Flipkart, and submit it to the IT department. Flipkart is supposed to refund these taxes are at a later date in good faith. Some of the sellers are claiming that the amount is long overdue from the company. In some cases, the ecommerce leader is refusing to pay the sellers on the grounds of a delayed claim.
Flipkart has told some sellers that they have not deposited the taxes on time. Says the seller,
“They are now refusing to reimburse the TDS amount for quarter four of 2015-16 citing the reason that their last (due) date has elapsed whereas we have deposited the TDS and filed returns within the dates specified by the government. This is purely their arbitrary decision for not giving reimbursement.”
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The climate at Flipkart is becoming more and more difficult for online sellers. Just about a month back, the company introduced its modified seller policy. While there were some pro-seller policies (such as shipping fees proportionate to the courier details, charging buyers shipment for non-Flipkart Advantage orders, reduction of 30 day returns to 10 day returns, no courier charges to seller on returns), there were some crushing changes to the charges to the seller. Sellers were to be charged an increased commission; same day delivery charges would be recovered from the seller, a charge to store products in Flipkart’s warehouse for longer duration.
This led to sellers going on an online ‘strike’ to protest against the company. Many sellers under the banner of eSellerSuraksha listed their products as ‘out of stock’ for the day on 20th June.
On the other hand, Amazon is said to be prompt with its payments. According to a seller who sells with Amazon and Snapdeal,
“I know of instances where (tax) refunds from Amazon have come in six to 48 hours.”
Flipkart has a lot of issues going on, but by expecting sellers to bear the brunt is not exactly the best way to deal with it.
Editor team is specialized in introducing the marketplace content targeting the Indian online sellers. They plan and coordinate to bring the appealing content for the small businesses on how to partner with the e-commerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart and strategies for improving their online business.
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