Yesterday morning, October 22, 2024, Digikala released a statement announcing that its online payment portal were closed and its Enamada license was suspended!
According to Iran digital economy annotation, Digikala stated that this happened without an expert and based on wrong information and at the request of the e-commerce development center.
Digikala’s statement states: “Such encounters with innovative businesses will cause damage to e-commerce and online retail and the activists in this field in the country. In a situation where all kinds of contraband goods are abundant in physical stores in the city and in Instagram, Telegram, etc. is sold, this kind of dealing with official online stores that offer goods on a transparent platform has no message other than moving sellers to unofficial spaces, without any supervision and tax revenue, and disappointing digital economy activists.”
Teta Center: Digikala was selling contraband
Amin Kolahdozan, head of the e-commerce development center on X social network, wrote about Digikala’s claim: “Unfortunately, this Digikala announcement is inaccurate and untrue. Since 4 months ago, with the aim of supporting all the platforms, meetings have been held with the platforms that have contraband selling violations (including DigiKala) and the anti-trafficking headquarters, and agreements have been made, but unfortunately the company did not fully implement the commitments.
Kolahdoozan stated in an interview that by order of the anti-trafficking headquarters and due to the expiration of the deadline for Digikala, Enamad suspended this business and its payment portal was blocked.
Stating that the incident goes back to four months ago, he said: “Goods that have been banned from import or have not entered the country from official and legal sources are considered smuggling. The sale of contraband is prohibited and even criminalized. Since 4-5 months ago, the anti-trafficking headquarters has been repeatedly investigating why online platforms sell contraband. Just as the sale of contraband is dealt with on the physical level, this issue should not happen on the virtual level, and according to the law, a violation was registered for a series of platforms.
Referring to Enamad’s instructions, Kolahdoozan said that if a correct violation is registered for the business and not resolved within 72 hours, it will result in the suspension of Enamad: “The violation registered by the anti-trafficking headquarters was correct and according to our investigations, the smuggled brands They were sold.”
According to him, in these four months, several meetings were held between the companies and the anti-trafficking headquarters, and it was decided to give the platforms a chance: “A series of platforms modified their products, which were not suspended as a result. Some companies like Digikala have not implemented this yet.”
E-commerce Association: The government cannot solve economic problems, it is going to close Digikala
Reacting to the closing of the Digikala payment portal, Nima Ghazi, the head of the Tehran E-commerce Association, said: Since the government cannot deal with the main roots of goods smuggling, it has adopted a policy to close online businesses and create noise in order to counter this hypothesis. To establish that great measures have been taken to prevent the sale of contraband.
Online stores like Digikala have been told not to sell more than 5,000 products, what will they do if they don’t sell this amount of products? Stop cooperating with hundreds of suppliers and start a wave of unemployment? Do these goods go to the opaque and underground market?
Deputy CEO of BaniMode: Dealing with online businesses creates opaque and underground markets
“Majid Mazaheri”, the deputy CEO of BaniMode, referring to the issue of the suspension of Enamad Digikala and the closing of the payment portals of this internet business, announced: “The government’s forced interaction with digital economy businesses will lead to the creation of more opaque and underground markets and the loss of transparency in the economy. Online stores are transparent everywhere in the world. The main smuggling takes place in large physical markets, which have a share of more than 90 percent of the market and easily place contraband goods behind their windows and serve their customers.”
The deputy CEO of BaniMode said about this: “From time to time, a big business is confronted and a noise is made, and then the issue is resolved, but the doubts of these obstructions and their irreparable consequences are not answered.”
The Minister of Communications also announced his readiness
Minister of Communications Sattar Hashemi also reacted to this issue and wrote on his personal page on X: “Supporting leading digital economy businesses in these difficult conditions is the main duty and strategy of the government.” For good governance, we must solve people’s problems with understanding and agreement, without panic, so that their minds are at ease. We are ready and persistent to resolve disputes.”
Digikala payment portal returned to normal after several hours
Finally, after several hours, on the evening of Tuesday, October 22, Digikala’s trust symbol was lifted and the company’s payment gateways returned to normal.
Masoud Tabatabaei, the CEO of Digikala, wrote on X channel announcing this news that with the follow-ups, the problem of blocking the internet payment portal that had been created since the morning of Tuesday, October 15, has been resolved and Digikala users can make their purchases as before.
According to the CEO of Digikala, this happened with the cooperation of various institutions and organizations. Tabatabaei expressed his hope that with the planning of other officials, we will not see such problems for internet stores and e-commerce operators in the country.
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