NEW DELHI: After filing several complaints against e-tail giants such as Snapdeal Flipkart and Amazon over alleged FDI violations in e-commerce, the country's apex traders ' body Confederation of All India Traders ( CAIT ) has finally decided to fight fire with fire by launching its own hyperlocal e-commerce venture called e-lala Supported by around 5.5 crore small traders with brick-and-mortar stores, who have been wary of big e-tailers eating into their revenues, e-lala aims to be a disruptor in the country's booming e-commerce space."The primary difference between a Flipkart and e-lala is that a trader who owns a physical store can only sell his products on the site. Second, in case of other e-tailers, all transactions are handled by them. In our case, HDFC Bank will handle the payment gateway and buyers will pay the sellers directly," said Praveen Khandelwal, general secretary of CAIT.E-lala aims to rope in around 50,000 traders as members by March next year. These sellers would have to pay a commission of around 3% to e-lala for every transaction. "Other e-tailers take a huge margin from sellers, from 7-30%. As e-lala takes off, we will ask participating members to take stake in the company. The aim is to make it an online marketplace for small traders run by small traders," said Khandelwal.For deliveries, e-lala will depend on the local traders, who will be making the sale. For inter-state transactions, the portal will partner with logistics companies. Ever since the entry of big retail, neighbourhood kirana and electronics stores have sought to reinvent themselves in a bid to ward off competition from foreign as well as domestic players.In fact, they have been vocal opponent of FDI in multi-brand retail and the BJP government, which counts small traders as a large vote bank, has shied away from the entry of overseas players although is yet to reverse a decision on the issue taken during the UPA regime, fearing it would send negative signals to global investors.Smita Bhagat, branch banking head & co-head - e-commerce, HDFC Bank, told TOI that the venture is an exciting development in the country's e-commerce space."We are pleased to partner with CAIT in their endeavour to create the largest e-commerce platform by bringing millions of traders across India online. HDFC Bank's endeavour is to reach out to the deepest corners of the country and connect with the smallest of traders to offer them not just digital payment solutions but complete end-to-end banking products and services. We believe that to further fuel India's economic growth, the small traders who form the backbone need the digital leverage. It's therefore imperative that they are brought into the mainstream; for them to compete and thrive," she said.