Why Amazon & Flipkart Just Got Raided – Here’s What You Need to Know

India’s Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has taken action against e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart, raiding their warehouses in Delhi and seizing products that didn’t meet quality standards.

Officials took away items like geysers and food mixers worth about ?7 million ($81,561) from an Amazon warehouse. These products either didn’t have the required quality certification or had fake approval labels. A similar raid at a Flipkart warehouse led to the seizure of nearly $7,000 worth of sports shoes that were about to be shipped without proper certification.

This isn’t the first time such action has been taken. Just last week, BIS conducted similar raids in Tamil Nadu, finding products being stored and sold without the necessary quality checks.

Amazon and Flipkart dominate India’s e-commerce space, which was valued at around $57–$60 billion in 2023. Experts say this number could jump to over $160 billion by 2028. But with stricter rules and increasing scrutiny, these companies are facing more challenges.

In fact, last year, an investigation found that both companies gave special treatment to certain sellers, which was against competition laws. In 2021, another report claimed Amazon secretly helped a small group of sellers, though the company denied any wrongdoing.

With regulators tightening the rules, e-commerce companies in India may have to be more careful about the products they sell.