According to Kishor Biyani, any retailer can be a marketplace and any marketplace is also retailer. E-commerce retailers advance the argument of just being the marketplace from which the consumers buy, but the goods are supplied by a host of vendors from their inventories. Here it should be made clear that for most supplies the inventories of even virtual retailers are held in the warehouses of the virtual retailers. The only difference is the accounting treatment of the inventories.

• Some account this inventory on their balance sheet.
• Other account for it in their suppliers’ balance sheet, irrespective of the physical location of the inventory.

However, there are brick-and-mortar stores who also do not account for the inventory on their books. That wipes out the artificially created difference between the virtual and brick-and-mortar retailers. Therefore, the demand for the physical retailers is to have one common policy of overseas investment in multi-brand retail. At present online retailors are violating the existing FDI policy in letter and spirit. Marketplace model is just another name for smart accounting.