Time to shine festival lights on ethical e-commerce

As India gears up for the festive season, cities become the stage for an annual spectacle—crowded markets, bustling streets, and the familiar hum of shoppers prepping for Dusshera, Diwali, Christmas, and weddings. But amongst the festivities, the inconveniences of serpentine queues and traffic jams force consumers to seek alternatives. Increasingly, they are turning to online shopping, not just for convenience but also as part of a larger shift in consumer behaviour—a growing demand for speed, ease, and control.

Indian consumer surveys indicate that online marketplaces and brands’ e-stores are finding greater favour for festive shopping this year compared to previous years. Consumers are turning to online channels for speedy deliveries, the convenience of ordering from anywhere, and affordable payment options such as zero-interest EMIs. To indulge the consumers further, e-commerce and its speedier avatar, q-commerce, are introducing deep discounts, bank tie-ups, and even a returns policy of less than 10 minutes!

But, it leaves us with the question: Are brands and portals looking to cash in on the wave of e-spending by creating a conducive environment or are they doing so by misleading consumers? If dark patterns on the Internet are to be believed, the experience of consumers in the online marketplace is fraught with risks.

Up grows online!

In the West, Thanksgiving and Christmas mark the time for gleeful consumer shopping; India sees people loosen their purse strings from September onwards every year. They spend more and buy big ticket items that they schedule at this time of the year.

The cultural significance of what is thought to be auspicious spending is further amplified by traditions of gifting, home refurbishing, bonuses at workplaces (disposable income), and even an imminent wedding season. Of late, we have seen an added nuance as consumers spend more online, and new sets of consumers join the fray in shopping electronically.

A year 2024 study by Ipsos and Amazon India involving 7,263 people found that 71% of the respondents expressed a desire to shop online this festive season, with 50% planning to increase their spending compared to 2023. This trend was seen in both, metros and tier-two cities (with populations between one- and four-million).

A Redseer Strategy Consultants report expects India to witness an 18-20% increase in online shopping this festive season, owing to 1.4 million online shoppers, leading to a INR 90,000 crores worth of gross merchandise value.

The numbers from cities and smaller towns indicate that while regular online shoppers are looking to spend more online, new shoppers are entering the e-marketplace. Last year, Amazon mentioned 80% of its festive season shoppers were from small towns, with four million new customers buying from it for the first time.

Gloom behind the bloom?

For brands and e-sellers, festive selling is all about making offers consumers cannot refuse—propositions they find compelling, urgent, and not worth postponing—ultimately leading to purchases.

There is nothing wrong with spending during the festive season, especially when consumers feel happy and are eager to purchase in anticipation of the joy and benefits that spending delivers. Dark patterns, on the other hand, have similar goals but are born of unethical tactics and mar the consumer experience.

Manipulative dark patterns push shoppers towards choices that may not be in their best interests and cloud their judgement by exploiting natural thinking habits or cognitive biases. A limited-time discount on a product high on people’s festive shopping lists will instantly take both the brand and the portal to wider audiences.

A dark pattern involves using the same logic of creating a sense of urgency but these offers often lack honesty. When nearly every other product is advertised as running out of stock, it may be a dark pattern that plays on our scarcity and loss aversion biases, making consumers fearful of losing out.

Another rampant dark pattern is drip pricing where a product advertised at an impossibly low price shows a big-ticket price at checkout, surreptitiously adding charges along the way. One more misleading dark pattern involves festive cashbacks that entice unassuming shoppers. Except that it comes with complicated terms and conditions, leading to disappointment.

Embracing honesty

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) have guidelines on dark patterns and how they interfere with consumers’ ability to make informed decisions. Ultimately, brands need to prioritise long-term consumer trust to stay within the ambit of the law.

Relying on dark patterns can be counterproductive for sellers when eager consumers are flocking to online marketplaces for feel-good festive bargains. This time is naturally one of hope and fresh beginnings.

New online consumers from smaller cities and villages and more vulnerable sections, such as the elderly, may not discern dark patterns this festive season. Many will regard a dark-patterns-led e-shopping experience to be the norm. That would mean accepting that online marketplaces lead to unintended expenses, erode shoppers’ time and trust, compromise their privacy, and limit their autonomy.

Brands benefit from high visibility, competitive advantage, greater loyalty, repeat purchases, and word-of-mouth publicity from happy festive shoppers. In a democratised and accessible marketplace that is the online world, they do it for costs that are lower than offline logistics (tech-led and lean online inventory management) and mainstream marketing (with digital marketing and tie-ups). If shoppers don’t feel safe and are constantly on guard due to dark patterns, the optimism about festive traction for online channels will be short-lived.

For now, consumers will still be going through purchases due to behavioural biases or lack of awareness. But by putting their interest at the heart of festive marketing with safe interface designs, brands can reassure the shopper. Only then can they deliver an exceptional customer experience, leaving a lasting impression on new and old consumers as intended. By banishing dark patterns, brands can truly celebrate the shopper this Festival of Lights.

- Manisha Kapoor, CEO and secretary general, ASCI.