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Fake ‘50% off’, ghosted complaints, dark patterns: What changes for online shoppers from next year
From January 2027, e-commerce platforms must acknowledge complaints in 48 hours, justify search rankings and prove that ‘50% off’ is not just a marked-up price.
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New e-commerce rules will force platforms to answer for the way they treat consumers — from misleading discount labels and opaque search rankings to hidden charges and complaints that vanish into automated customer-care systems.
The Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Amendment Rules, 2026, notified on September 9, come into force on January 1, 2027. They require platforms to hand consumers a copy of their recorded complaint, explain the main factors that determine search rankings, clearly identify sponsored listings, and — when advertising a price cut — display the lowest price at which the product was sold in the previous 30 days.
Why the changes
Consumer affairs secretary Nidhi Khare told HT the amendments were needed because the sector has changed dramatically since the parent law was enacted.
“E-commerce particularly has evolved a lot since the Act came into being in 2019, and rules came into force in 2020. Most complaints we received were related to e-commerce and these have since doubled,” Khare said.
Ministry data bears this out. E-commerce grievances rose from 224,592 in 2021 to 511,198 in 2025 — a 127.6% jump in four years. This year is on track for a rise too. Between January and August, 478,018 complaints were registered, already 93.5% of last year’s total.
Khare said the government wanted to stop platforms from hiding behind their status as intermediaries.
“We started looking at dark patterns, how to provide a hassle-free grievance redressal,” she said, adding: “Therefore it was important to bring a few more changes so they do not take the excuse that these platforms are just intermediaries and not responsible.”
Your complaint can no longer disappear
One of the consequential changes concerns what happens after a consumer complains. In 2025, 37,864 grievances — 7.4% of the e-commerce total — were related to deficient service or customer care, ministry data shows.
The new rules require an e-commerce entity’s grievance officer to acknowledge a complaint within 48 hours, hand the complainant a copy of the complaint as recorded, and redress it within a month.
Khare said the provision was triggered after consumers flagged that they had tried to pursue grievances with platforms but were never given a receipt or any formal record of what they had reported.
“Complaints were coming that because they are controlling the system, they simply erase the complaint and not [issue] the receipt of complaint made,” she said.
She clarified that the government did not expect platforms to abandon technology or automated systems given the volume of complaints. “We understand tech is needed for taking millions of grievances, we just need these companies to be held accountable,” Khare said.
The government is also making participation in the National Consumer Helpline’s convergence process mandatory for e-commerce entities.
Under the convergence programme, companies sign up with the National Consumer Helpline, so that any complaint a consumer files against them is passed on directly to the company in real time, and the company is expected to resolve it — without the consumer having to go to a consumer court.
“The whole idea is to strengthen the grievance redressal in [the] pre-litigation stage. Earlier it was a voluntary thing to join as convergence partner, now it will be mandatory so petty complaints can be handled at a pre-litigation stage,” she said.
Search results will have to make more sense
The rules also target something consumers routinely encounter when one product appears above another in search results.
Platforms cannot manipulate search results or indexes in ways that mislead users relative to their search query. Also, marketplaces must publicly disclose the main parameters that determine the ranking of products or sellers, in descending order of importance, and explain their relative weight in plain, intelligible language, the notification for the rules said.
In practical terms, a search for a particular product cannot return results engineered to be misleading, less relevant, or only partly relevant to the query.
‘50% off’ must come with a reference price
The rules also take aim at discount claims that leave consumers guessing what the product actually cost before the sale.
If a platform or seller announces a price reduction, it must display the reduced price alongside the prior price. The rules define the prior price as the lowest price at which the product or service was offered during the 30 days before the discount was announced.
“This changes the reference point behind claims such as ‘50% off’. Sellers cannot artificially jack up the reference numbers and mark them down with discounts anymore,” Khare said.
Consumers will now see the discounted price alongside a benchmark rooted in the product’s actual lowest price in the preceding 30 days, rather than relying only on whatever reference the seller chooses to display.
Sponsored results must be clearly marked
Sponsored product and service listings will have to be distinctly identified through clear and prominent disclosures.
Several platforms already flag paid placements as advertisements or sponsored results, but the new rule requires the disclosure to be prominent and distinguishable, narrowing the scope for paid listings to look like ordinary search results.
Dark patterns become an annual compliance exercise
Platforms will also have to comply with the government’s 2023 guidelines on the prevention and regulation of dark patterns, and conduct a yearly self-audit to certify that their platforms are free of such practices. They will have to prominently display a certificate of compliance.
This moves dark patterns beyond a set of guidelines into a recurring compliance requirement for e-commerce entities.
Dark patterns are design choices that nudge or manipulate consumers into decisions they may not otherwise make. The Central Consumer Protection Authority’s November 2023 guidelines listed 13 such practices, including false urgency (fake countdown timers or ‘only 2 left’ alerts), basket sneaking (adding items or add-ons to the cart without the user’s consent), confirm shaming (guilt-inducing language to push a purchase through), forced action (requiring users to sign up or share data unrelated to the purchase), subscription traps (easy to sign up, hard to cancel), drip pricing (revealing charges only at the final checkout stage), disguised advertisements, and nagging through repeated prompts.
More information on the seller
For marketplace purchases, consumers will be able to request information about the seller after the transaction. Platforms must provide the seller’s principal address, branch addresses, website, email and other details needed to contact the seller for effective dispute resolution.
The seller’s name will also have to appear on the invoice in the same font size as the e-commerce entity’s name, making the actual seller more visible to the buyer.
Before purchase, marketplaces will have to disclose the seller’s business name, registration status, address, customer-care number, website and email where available, along with ratings or aggregated feedback.
Imported products to identify origin and importer
Platforms offering imported goods will have to disclose the name and details of the importer and provide the full country of origin.
Sellers must similarly furnish country of origin, return and refund terms, warranty, and delivery and shipping costs before purchase. Government-issued identification numbers, including GSTIN and MSME registration numbers, will also have to be provided where applicable.
Limits on use of marketplace data
The rules restrict marketplace entities from using information collected from sellers to sell goods directly or indirectly under a brand or name common with the marketplace.
They also cannot use such information to promote or advertise a seller as being associated with the marketplace without the consumer’s express and affirmative consent.
Marketplaces will additionally be barred from collecting bundled fees for services unrelated to the e-commerce platform, though loyalty and membership programmes and their associated benefits are excluded.
Violations of the rules could result in take-down orders, fines and/or bans.
‘Stopped short of making rules more stringent’
Khare said the government held a wide stakeholder consultation before finalising the amendments and had faced demands from some quarters for tougher provisions.
“We undertook wide stakeholder consultations before we came out with these (rules). There were attempts from certain quarters to make it more stringent but you have to take everyone along,” she said.
The government did not want regulation to become an obstruction for an industry that had become an important source of convenience for consumers, Khare added added.
Amazon did not respond to HT’s request for comment.
Flipkart, in a statement, said it welcomed the government’s focus on strengthening consumer protection and transparency in e-commerce. “As a customer-centric marketplace, we remain focused on building consumer trust while enabling lakhs of sellers, including small businesses, MSMEs and farmers, to participate in India's digital commerce economy. We will study the detailed provisions and continue to engage with the government to ensure the framework strengthens consumer protection while supporting the growth of digital commerce,” the company said.
