Big is target

Scale, supposed to be a competitive advantage, is not an unalloyed gift as voices against dominance rise across industries

For months now, small vendors under the aegis of one or the other local and/or national traders association had been complaining that they have been edged out by the big boys of the $55-60 billion Indian ecommerce world — Walmart-controlled Flipkart and Amazon — who prefer dealing with large vendors directly or indirectly controlled by them.
 
Millions of consumers were getting better price, quality and delivery from these big-brand platforms, so no one really thought anything would change despite the growing cacophony of the Davids. But just then, the government changed the rules for foreign-owned ecommerce firms and made