The apex body of small traders, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), finally launched its online portal e-lala on November 5, in an attempt to bring traders from the unorganised sector online.
The city-location based portal was proposed at the national governing council meeting of CAIT, held on June 8. The body had constituted a committee under the chairmanship of its national president BC Bhartia to implement the plan. The portal aims at strengthening the brick-and-mortar retailers who has been fighting tooth and nail with online retailers, from quite some time now.
They portal has currently started with Nagpur, where 24 traders have registered. It aims to cover 40 cities by December end, BC Bhartia, National President, was quoted as saying.
The portal has divided the categories under seven sub heads, which includes Mobile phones, computers, entertainment, jewellery, cameras, home appliances and apparel.
CAIT has tied up with HDFC Bank for providing payment gateway, the bank will also be promoting e-lala portal through its customer base. The portal also looks at promoting cashless deals. Consumers and traders will be educated to use plastic money instead of cash.
In an interview with Indiaretailing, earlier this year, Praveen Khandelwal, National Secretary General, CAIT said, “We intend to provide a direct interface between sellers and consumers. It will be a location based portal wherein traders from different cities will be registered under their respective category of items. Consumers will have the option to either to buy online or from physical store of the chosen seller.”
“By providing a direct interface between consumers and sellers, we are eliminating the third part involvement in any transactions.Such a facility will enable the elimination of commission component usually charged by other e-commerce portal and will thereby benefit our traders and consumers,” he said then.
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