The Flipkart-Amazon slugfest has been going at it since the latter set foot in India.The rivalry between the two e-tailer is as famous as any, Federer vs Nadal, Messi vs Ronaldo, or more like Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, a multi-million dollar bout.
And the latest battle between the two involves bestselling author of the smash hit Shiva trilogy, Amish Tripathi.
According to an Economics Times report , Westland Ltd, the publisher of Amish’s new novel Scion of Ikshvaku, has dragged Flipkart to Delhi High court over alleged infringement of exclusive rights and IT Act by selling the book on its website.
Westland has exclusive rights with Amazon to sell the book on the Amazon India website for two months.
“Flipkart is a marketplace which helps sellers connect with customers across the country. The matter is sub judice before the Honourable Delhi High Court, which on 30 June 2015 declined to pass any restraint order against Flipkart India or any of the sellers on the sale of the said book,” the report quoted a Flipkart spokesperson as saying.
The High Court has ordered Flipkart to reply on 4 August.
This is not the first time Flipkart and Amazon are at loggerheads with each other. Amazon had faced similar allegations when Chetan Bhagat’s Half Girlfriend had released exclusively on Flipkart. Seems like Flipkart is just getting even. And it appears as if every exclusive release on either of the e-commerce giants is seemingly a battle ground for both companies.
The two companies have trolled each other on several occasions in the past too.
Even @Flipkart Orders from @Amazon! http://t.co/pAvATFF9P8 pic.twitter.com/wqOISAg1ia
— r/India on Reddit 🇮🇳 (@redditindia) February 20, 2015
Flipkart had replied, rather scathingly, saying they had just recycled the package to be used as a dustbin.
@redditindia We recycled said packaging as our reception's dustbin.
— Flipkart (@Flipkart) February 20, 2015
Amazon jumped in the trolling war too, claiming all e-commerce sites had a bit of Amazon in them.
@redditindia There is a bit of Amazon in every eCommerce company. #justsaying
— Amazon India (@amazonIN) February 20, 2015
Amazon had once allegedly bought the domain, bigbillionday.com, in a bid to hijack Flipkart’s ‘big billion day’ sale. Flipkart had replied by buying the domain name Diwalidhamaka.co.in, which directed users to Flipkart when Amazon had kicked off its festive sale called ‘diwali dhamaka sale’.
In a recent report , it was also revealed that Amazon India had edged past Flipkart in terms of monthly unique visitors.
According to data from Internet analytics firm comScoreData, Amazon India had 23.6 million unique visitors in May, edging past Flipkart narrowly. While Flipkart saw 23.5 million unique visitors, Snapdeal had 17.9 million in May this year.