State news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday that China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) called more than 20 platforms to a meeting and urged them to stop a practice that requires merchants to sign exclusive cooperation agreements preventing them from selling products on rival platforms.The regulator’s move comes as Alibaba’s Tmall marketplace has in recent weeks been accused by a number of competitors and merchants of adopting such a practice, which is also known as “choosing one from two”.

Competition for shoppers among China’s top e-commerce platform has been heating up as the world’s second-largest economy grapples with a slowdown. Singles Day, the country’s biggest shopping event of the year, is also a very competitive event, with platforms …