E-cigarette ban will increase smuggling: TII

TII, which represents leading cigarette manufacturers such as ITC, said prohibition of e-cigarettes would put India at "an enormous structural disadvantage.

Ban of electronic cigarettes in India will increase smuggling of such products, which have no assurance of source and quality standard, according to Tobacco Institute of India (TII).

TII, which represents leading cigarette manufacturers such as ITC, Godfrey Phillips and VST, also said prohibition of e-cigarettes would put India at "an enormous structural disadvantage versus countries that have espoused a balanced regulatory policy approach on the category".

The ENDS (Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems), commonly known as electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes have witnessed increasing consumer acceptance in India as is globally, it said in a statement.

"A ban on legal business in ENDS will pose a serious threat of illicit trade and large scale smuggling of these products in the country with no assurance of source and quality standard," TII said.

Prohibition would benefit illegal trade operators and promote foreign products owned by overseas entities in the absence of any domestic competition to challenge the illegal trade in these products, it added.

TII further said if a ban were to be imposed on ENDS, the domestic industry would stop all research and innovation in this area.

It would put India at a disadvantage against countries which would have not prohibited ENDS, it added.

"Therefore, all latent and emerging consumer demand for the product in the country would be met through the illicit route," TII claimed.

Citing WHO data, TII said the global market for ENDS in 2015 was around USD 10 billion and as per Euromonitor International, it is projected to cross USD 60 billion by 2030.

The health ministry is considering a ban on ENDS, of which e-cigarette is a prototype, after a technical committee evaluated recent research that said e-cigarettes were potentially lethal.

An e-cigarette is a battery-operated device that uses liquid nicotine, propylene glycol, water, glycerin and flavour to give the user the sense of smoking a real cigarette.

Flipkart to offer EMIs on debit cards for high value purchases

E-tailer Working On Pilot With SBI, Axis Bank

 Flipkart will let buyers avail monthly EMIs through their debit cards during its annual Big Billion Days sale, as the e-tailer attempts to shore up revenues during its much-hyped flagship event. So far, EMIs have been limited to purchases made using credit cards which is available across all big e-commerce sites. Based on its internal data, the company has created a 'white list' of users who will be given this option.

To launch this, Flipkart is working on a pilot with the State Bank of India and Axis Bank testing this new service which will kick off with large appliances and be eventually rolled out for mid to high value products across other categories, too. "Based on past purchases and other data points we have a set of customers who we can offer EMIs to through their debit cards. We saw that this population of buyers wase not being able to shop for high value products as they did not have credit cards. With this plan about to be introduced they can opt for higher priced items which shall push our overall sales volumes up," Snadeep Karwa, head of large appliances for Flipkart, told TOI.

He said because the number of debit cards vastly outnumbered credit cards in India it was time online retailers introduced this option for this group of consumers. The Reserve Bank of India data shows there were 79.38 crore debit card holders in the country as of June 2017, while credit card numbers stood at 3.14 crore.

Both, the white list of users and debit card EMIs from banks, will be ramped up in the run up to BBD sale across categories like smartphones, large appliances , electronics among others. Over the last one year, Flipkart has been pushing consumer finance programmes to boost sales. Flipkart testing debit card EMIs with large appliances comes on the back of the Tencent-backed company planning a six week high voltage advertisement campaign for this category as it aims to position this segment as a strong business just like smartphones.