Lala Goes Online – CAIT Launches eLala.biz To Counter eCommerce Rivalry; Only Offline Traders Are Allowed Here

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting – Sun Tzu

Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which is lobby of offline traders from across country, was a worried lot till few days back. Online business is increasing at unstoppable force and valuations of digital startups are skyrocketing every other day.

CAIT assumed that this entire digital thing is a bad news for them, and decided to oppose it vehemently. We had reported that during the lucrative festive season this year, CAIT complained to Ministry of Commerce regarding the sales strategy of online market places such as Amazon and Flipkart.

But gradually, sense has prevailed upon them, and instead of fighting this never ending battle CAIT has taken a big, bold step: They are joining the bandwagon!

In one of the historical decisions ever taken by any offline retail lobby, CAIT has launched their own ecommerce portal which will act as a melting point for more than 3.5 crore small traders spread all over the country. Named as eLala.biz, this new ecommerce portal coming from an influential lobby of offline retailers does have the power to make some major dents in the market.

Urban development minister Venkiah Naidu formally launched eLala.biz in Nagpur, where CAIT is headquartered. Applauding the decision of an offline lobby to go digital, Minister Naidu said, “When we are moving towards digitalisation and computerisation, nobody can lag.”

Merchants and traders can accomplish both B2B and B2C business over this portal. And, carry on financial transactions behind the security and assurance of Master Card and HDFC Bank, as both of them will work as payment gateway for the mega portal.

CAIT aims to rope in 50,000 offline traders from 100 cities, by March, 2016.

Sorry, Only Offline Retailers Allowed!

CAIT has launched eLala.biz with a very interesting condition: Only offline traders would be allowed to open their shop on this portal.

Praveen Khandelwal, CAIT secretary-general said, “We will have strict norms for KYC (know your customer), with Aadhar, VAT registration number and PAN card number, to make sure that only genuine traders participate on the platform,”

This step has been deliberately taken to offer the advantages of an online marketplace only to an offline trader.

The other major difference on eLala is the amount of commission charges on every transaction: here, only 3% would be charged, compared to variable pay for other online retailers.

CAIT has done the right thing by launching their own ecommerce portal, instead of opposing it; and it can be a classic case study of subduing your enemy without any fight.