In pics: Why e-commerce firms may display 'country of origin' labels

The military stand-off in eastern Ladakh has turned Indian public sentiment against Chinese products. As a result, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has called e-commerce majors, including likes of Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and Paytm, for a meeting on Wednesday to discuss the ‘displaying origin of the product’ on their platforms.

E-commerce firms have verbally agreed to check with sellers on the issue of displaying the country of origin next to products listed on their platforms after the meeting.

While the onus of filling out the country of origin has been put on sellers, e-commerce companies’ officials said the challenge is that the millions of existing products already listed on the platforms don’t have those details and it would be very “time consuming” for sellers to mark the country of origin for those as well.

E-commerce executives said asking sellers to fill up information about ‘country of origin’ for new listings of products is not complicated. However, the challenge is that the millions of existing products already listed on the e-commerce platforms don’t have those details and it would be a very “time consuming” process for the sellers to mark the country of origin for those products. However, for some products, this information is already available.