FISME suggests ways to improve e-com exports

New Delhi: Steps such as increasing awareness, easier documentation, simplified customs processes and standard operating practice for product returns would help in promoting the country's exports through e-commerce medium, according to a report by industry body FISME.

The other measures which would help the sector include lowering charges for Export Data Processing and Monitoring System (EDPMS); easier reconciliation of remittances for export receipts from abroad through a reassessment of the current 25 per cent variation between exports and payments; and raising the 9-month limit on receiving payments for exports for e-commerce. Over 90 per cent of e-commerce exporters in India are MSMEs (most of them micro and small enterprises) and, therefore, a strategy for e-commerce exports must focus on MSMEs spread across the nation to sell their products to global markets, FISME said.

The FISME and IKDHVAJ Advisers LLP report has flagged a number of issues that need to be looked upon to promote exports through e-commerce medium. At present, product returns are in general treated as imports (primarily because of problems in identifying the returned product as the originally exported product) and thus subject to full import duties, the report said, adding in many cases, the logistics costs of bringing returns back to India are very high and the products are either sold at a huge discount in the country exported to or discarded. The process of e-commerce exports through courier services below a particular threshold also results in an inability to claim benefits for exports available to offline exports, it said.