According to the global research firm Jefferies, most e-commerce portals were forced to take down thousands of products from their portals to meet new government regulations.

Online retailers went soft in February with no key discounting or promotional events. This is in contrast to the sharp discounting they carried out in January to clear inventory and align with the new e-commerce rules. The new rules bar online retailers from engaging in price wars and deep discounting, among other things. On Feb. 23, the Narendra Modi government released a draft national e-commerce policy that proposed stringent norms for data storage and combating counterfeit goods.

Already, ratings agency CRISIL has estimated that in fiscal year 2020, online sales worth between Rs35,000 crore and Rs40,000 crore could be impacted due to the challenging regulatory environment. On the flip side, physical retailers will gain as their revenues will jump by a between whopping Rs10,000 and Rs12,000 crore in the same time period.