The Bureau of Indian Standards announced Thursday that it raided Amazon and Flipkart warehouses to recover counterfeits and noncompliant items.
The watchdog searched Amazon’s warehouse in Delhi, India, and recovered more than 3,500 products, which it said either were marked with fake Indian Standards Institute (ISI) labels or lacked the necessary label.
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The agency seized water heaters, food mixers and other electrical appliances, and it estimates the value of those goods came in at 7 million Indian rupees ($81,708). The announcement of the seizures came just one day after Amazon’s latest Brand Protection Report boasted its strategy for preventing counterfeit products, noting that it identified and disposed of over 15 million counterfeit products last year.
Amazon uses artificial intelligence and other technology to continuously monitor listings on its site for potential counterfeits and non-compliant products. The company said it is working with sellers whose products are based in the impacted Delhi warehouse to resolve any issues with the products seized by the standards watchdog.
An Amazon spokesperson said the third-party sellers who hawk goods on the company’s marketplace are “required to follow all applicable laws, regulations and Amazon policies when listing items for sale,” which includes agreeing not to sell counterfeit products.
“We have proactive measures in place to prevent unsafe and counterfeit products from being listed, and continuously monitor our store. If we discover a product was undetected by our automated checks, we address the issue immediately and refine our controls. We take action to maintain a safe, compliant and authentic selection for our customers, including removing noncompliant products, and outreach to sellers, manufacturers and government agencies for additional information, when appropriate,” the spokesperson told Sourcing Journal in an emailed statement.
The Bureau of Indian Standards also carried out a raid on an Instakart—not to be confused with Instacart—warehouse in Delhi. Instakart is a subsidiary of Walmart-owned Flipkart, a popular Indian e-commerce company.
From that warehouse the agency seized about 590 pairs of footwear, which it said were worth about 600,000 rupees, or $7,000. The seized items purportedly lacked the necessary ISI mark and other critical information. Flipkart did not respond to Sourcing Journal’s request for comment about the raid.
India’s e-commerce market is only expected to increase in the coming years. By 2029, Markets and Research projects that it will have more than 500 million e-commerce shoppers. As the number of consumers grows, the research firm projects rapid, simultaneous growth for the e-commerce market in the country. It estimates that, by 2029, it will be worth 53.42 trillion rupees (over $634 billion), up from 8.42 trillion rupees ($70.4 billion) in 2023.
Today, Amazon is still the most widely visited e-commerce site in India, with Flipkart following behind. But as the two companies’ total addressable market grows, so too do its scrutinizers; the Delhi raids are among several that the standards watchdog has carried out recently against the e-commerce giants.
The agency announced last week it had carried out similar raids on Amazon and Flipkart warehouses in Thiruvallur, India. It seized more than 3,300 items from Amazon in that operation, and at the Flipkart warehouse it grabbed more than 350 non-compliant items. The two firms now face potential legal action for violating Indian quality control laws.
