‘Ecommerce rules won’t hit Cloudtail volumes on Amazon’

The recent change in ecommerce regulations will in no way impact the transaction volumes of Cloudtail India on the Amazon portal, as those had always been below a quarter of the online retailer’s annual sales transactions, people familiar with the matter said.

Cloudtail, in fact, will derive growth from the expansion of India’s retail market and pick-up in volumes on portals such as Amazon India, they said.

According to statistics, online transactions were 0.8% of India’s total retail market in 2014, and are expected to touch 4.4% this year and expand quickly in the coming years. Ecommerce revenue in India is projected to grow to $150 billion in 2022, a report by Nasscom and PwC had said in August last year.

The new regulations bar any single seller from contributing to more than a quarter of an ecommerce platform’s sales. The updated rules, which came into effect from February 1, also say inventory of a vendor will be deemed to be controlled by a marketplace entity if more than 25% of purchases of such vendors are from the marketplace entity or its group companies.

Cloudtail India is 100% owned by Prione, a provider of services to small and medium sellers across India. Prione was formed as a joint venture between Catamaran Ventures, the family office of Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy, and two Amazon entities: Amazon Asia Pacific Resources and Amazon Eurasia Holdings. Murthy’s company has increased its stake in Prione to 76% from 51% after the new regulations came into effect.

Cloudtail had always been an India-owned and India-controlled entity and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Prione, the people said. Catamaran nevertheless raised its stake in Prione to remove any hint of violation of ecommerce regulations, they said, adding that the changes had been notified to the Reserve Bank of India as Amazon’s equity comes under the foreign direct investment regulations.

Catamaran increasing its stake in Prione has nothing to do with Cloudtail’s business volumes on the Amazon platform.

Cloudtail, as a seller on Amazon platform, never had any direct equity participation from Amazon, and was already compliant with the new regulations, the people said.

Fair trade regulator, GeM ink MoU to check e-market malpractices

NEW DELHI: The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) and fair trade regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI) have signed an MoU to cooperate on public procurement matters and for detection of anti-competitive practices.

A Commerce Ministry statement on Friday said that the memorandum of understanding (MoU) to facilitate a fair and competitive environment in the e-marketplace was signed on February 6.

"Both CCI and GeM appreciate the importance of advanced analytical tools and processes for identification of malpractices like cartelisation," it said.

"The MoU has been signed in order to pool their knowledge of the public procurement domain for detection of anti-competitive practices." GeM is the government public procurement platform "that has used technology to remove entry barriers for bonafide sellers and has created a vibrant e-marketplace", the Commerce Ministry said.

Amazon exploring potential alternatives to New York HQ - source

By David Shepardson and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON - Amazon.com Inc is exploring alternatives to locating part of its new headquarters in New York in case the plan should fail due to local opposition, a person briefed on the matter told Reuters on Friday.

The online retailer has not yet acquired any land for the project, which would make it easy to scrap its plans, the source said. The Washington Post reported the story earlier on Friday.

The person briefed on the matter said that Amazon was still working towards winning approval from New York officials and had not given up on the proposal, but was considering potential alternatives to New York.

Earlier, the Post, which is owned by Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, reported that Amazon executives had internal discussions to reassess the situation in New York and explore alternatives. It cited two unnamed people familiar with the retailer's thinking.

In a statement on Friday, Amazon said it was working to engage with New Yorkers, but did not discuss whether it would change its plans.

"We're focussed on engaging with our new neighbours - small business owners, educators, and community leaders," it said. "Whether it's building a pipeline of local jobs through workforce training or funding computer science classes for thousands of New York City students, we are working hard to demonstrate what kind of neighbour we will be." 

Amazon shares closed down 1.6 percent on Friday.

In November, Amazon said it would branch out from its home base in Seattle with plans to create more than 25,000 jobs in two new developments.

The world's largest online retailer plans to spend $5 billion on the developments in Long Island City in New York's Queens borough, and in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, D.C, and expects to get more than $2 billion in tax credits and incentives with plans to apply for more.

Amazon has mailed flyers to Queens residents touting the economic benefits of its New York expansion.

But some residents in the rapidly transforming Long Island City neighbourhood across the East River from mid town Manhattan's skyscrapers have loudly opposed Amazon's plan. They say they fear more crowded subway stations, an overburdened sewage system and rent increases that would drive out long-time residents.

"I would be happy not to have them," said Terri Gloyd, the co-owner of the LIC Corner Cafe. "I think most of the neighbourhood hasn't wanted them here." She said her neighbours may have given the prospect of Amazon a warmer welcome had the subsidy package not been so large. 

A critic of the plan, Queens lawmaker Senator Michael Gianaris, was appointed to a state senate panel that has the power to block Amazon's campus, local media including the New York Times have reported. 

City council speaker Corey Johnson told local radio he is looking at subsidies for Amazon and that the plan is not yet final. One point of contention could be Amazon's opposition to labour unions. 

U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district spans parts of Queens and the Bronx, has also criticized Amazon.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted a link to the Post story on Friday and said: "Can everyday people come together and effectively organise against creeping overreach of one of the world's biggest corporations? Yes, they can."

In one sign of opposition, artists spray-painted Amazon's logo - spelled "AMAZNO" - on streets near the proposed site. 

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio support Amazon's plan.

Cuomo defended the deal on Friday as the largest economic development the state had ever won and cited the Post story.

"If Amazon does not come to New York, it's because of the political opposition. Because it is so ironic for Amazon, after they spent one year with everyone seducing them, and everyone courting them, we win and then there's political opposition."

BIDDING WAR

The split second headquarters, which Amazon called HQ2, attracted 238 proposals from across North America in a year-long bidding war. 

Amazon ended the frenzy by dividing the spoils between the two most powerful U.S. East Coast cities and offering a consolation prize of a 5,000-person centre in Nashville, Tennessee.

At the outset of its search last year, Amazon said it was looking for a business-friendly environment. The company said it will receive performance-based incentives of $1.525 billion from the state of New York, including an average $48,000 for each job it creates.

It can also apply for other tax incentives, such as New York City's Relocation and Employment Assistance Programme that offers tax breaks potentially worth $900 million over 12 years. What benefit the company would actually get was unclear.

Bezos, world's richest man, shows won't be pushed around

San Francisco-He built one of the world's most valuable companies from scratch, becoming the richest person on the planet.

Now Jeff Bezos is intent on showing he won't be bullied in a battle of wills with the politically connected owner of a supermarket tabloid.

The 55-year-old Bezos founded Amazon in his garage in 1994 and went on to grow it into a colossus that dominates online retail, with operations in streaming music and television, groceries, cloud computing, robotics, artificial intelligence and more.

His other businesses include The Washington Post newspaper and the private space firm Blue Origin.

While Bezos has long been in the public eye because of Amazon's growth and his estimated $133 billion fortune, he was thrust into the spotlight with his announcement in January that he and his wife of 25 years, MacKenzie, were divorcing.

When the National Enquirer, controlled by President Donald Trump's ally David Pecker, threatened to release lurid, intimate pictures of Bezos and his mistress, he fought back by releasing the details of his exchanges publicly.

"If in my position I can't stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?" Bezos wrote on Medium.

The bombshell from Bezos brought a tidal wave of reactions, many praising his decision to face down Pecker and the Enquirer.

"Not everyone can stand up to bullies, thugs and extortionists, but if you can, you should," said rival tech entrepreneur Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay.

Until recently, Bezos had been seen as a bookish but determined entrepreneur, running his businesses with ruthless determination but avoiding the limelight -- steering clear of confronting Trump after a series of attacks by the president.

- Road to riches - Bezos's penchant for experimenting reportedly dates to a young age -- with one widely shared story recounting how he tried to dismantle his own crib as a toddler.

His mother was a teenager when she gave birth to Bezos in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on January 12, 1964.

"You shaped us, you protected us, you let us fall, you picked us up, and you loved us, always and unconditionally," Bezos said in a Twitter message thanking his mom "for everything" on Mother's Day in May.

She remarried when her son was about four years old, and he was legally adopted by his Cuban immigrant stepfather who worked as an engineer at a major petrochemical company.

"My dad came here from Cuba all by himself without speaking English when he was 16 years old, and has been kicking ass ever since," Bezos said in a Father's Day tweet in June.

His mother's family were settlers in Texas, where Bezos spent many a summer working at a ranch owned by a grandfather retired from a job as a regional director at the US Atomic Energy Commission.

Bezos was enchanted by computer science when the IT industry was in its infancy and he studied engineering at Princeton University.

After graduating, he put his skills to work on Wall Street, where by 1990 he had risen to be a senior vice president at investment firm D.E. Shaw

He surprised peers by leaving his high-paid position about four years later to open an online bookseller called Amazon.com, which according to legend was started in a garage in a Seattle suburb. Bezos was backed by money borrowed from his parents.

Bezos went from being a boy with a love for how things work to being the man who built Amazon.com into an internet powerhouse.

- 'Hunger Games' - Amazon lost money for many years as Bezos insisted on investing revenues for future growth, a plan which only recently has started to pay off.

Last year, he announced Amazon would be seeking a second headquarters after outgrowing Seattle, launching a competition derided by some as a "Hunger Games" competition. The company eventually decided on two locations -- one in New York City and the other in the Virginia suburbs of the capital Washington.

In releasing Amazon's latest results which showed a record $3 billion quarterly profit, Bezos put the emphasis on artificial intelligence and the Alexa digital assistant.

Bezos declined to join other billionaires in pledging the bulk of his fortune to charity, but last year announced a philanthropic fund with a $2 billion initial commitment to help homeless families and launch preschools in low-income communities.