The dark tricks of getting customers into the ring in e-shopping

- This month, the Indian government has warned the country's top e-commerce sites to stop tricks that lure consumers

Festivals are around the corner! Online shopping sites will be able to give us 'plenty of discounts' twice as loudly and we will all be busy for e-shopping. Whether we go shopping in a real shop or in an e-shop, it is understandable that the salesman tries all the smart tricks of marketing to withdraw money from our pockets, but such tricks are becoming darker on online shopping sites.

When you go shopping online, you will be going to the site after deciding on certain things in mind and a small budget for it, however, most of the time it will happen that you buy things that you do not need and spend more than the fixed budget! 

Let us assume that this is human nature. If we are out shopping, we will also like some new things and if the pocket is strong, then we will buy it. 

In fact, this is not a matter of human nature, especially in terms of online shopping. E-shops try many tricks that make us fall into their trap. You need to know about some of the dark tricks used by e-commerce sites if you are shopping online – especially when festivals are around the corner!

- Ever-increasing e-shopping

Online shopping in India is witnessing a good rush. Companies like Amazon, Flipkart, Reliance, Tata and Misho are giving a tremendous boost to online shopping in the country. During Corona, people from all sections of the society turned to online shopping and now everyone has enjoyed this kind of shopping!

Meanwhile, recently an organization conducted a survey to check the trend of e-shopping in India. According to the results, in the first-ranked cities, people in Bengaluru spend up to four hours of online shopping every week. On the other hand, other cities like Guwahati, Coimbatore and Lucknow spend an average of two and a half hours every week shopping online. 

The prevalence of online shopping across the country is expanding further to smaller cities – where people don't have enough understanding of digital technology and its knees!

- Red eye against dark practice in e-shopping

Have you ever noticed that opening an account in an app like Instagram is quite easy, but it is difficult to delete the account completely? If you go to find a way to delete the account in the app, then it will not happen because for that we have to go to the Instagram site in the computer and login to it. Most people have the facility of smartphones but do not have a computer, so even if such people want, they can not delete their own account of Instagram until the computer matches. Even if the computer is convenient and remembers to delete your account, in many different ways before deleting the account, different ways such as deactivating the account instead of deleting it! Now if you want to delete the echoes of the threads then Instagram also has to be deleted! 

It is easy to open an account but difficult to delete - such a trick on the internet is called a 'dark pattern'. 

This was just one example. E-commerce sites and other types of websites, from which we are trying to sell something or the other, are all used to the trick of getting us bottled up. The government has finally woken up to such dark practices in India. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Government of India, earlier this month sent a letter to almost all the top e-commerce websites in the country asking them to stop adopting 'dark patterns' that affect the likes and dislikes of consumers and harm their interests. The ministry has also set up a 17-member task force that will frame new rules to protect people from such tark patterns.

Of course, it is very difficult to control such things with rules as the government cannot have full control over the design or text of the site. We can avoid such tricks only if we understand themselves properly!

Hurry up, hurry up

Customers are tempted to make quick purchases to increase the sales of various items on most e-commerce sites. There is obviously nothing wrong in this, but in many cases it happens that the price of that product is increased before such an offer and then a discount is offered on the purchase at a certain time!

Such haste should be done not just for shopping but for a lot of action on the site. Online shopping has now become largely like a rat-cat game. Most shopping sites rush us to do things that...   (one) we may not have to do, (two) we find it difficult to do, and (three) we do not even know that we are doing it!

As soon as we reach the online shopping site, the system of that site expects us to have some purchases, if it is not completed, then the system starts trying out dark tricks.

Instead of one, the other

Something is offered and delivered to us as a product or service on many websites. When ordering to buy a dress, the fabric is said to be pure silk, but the dress that is delivered is of poor material. Most of the e-commerce sites allow us to return things that we do not like or are harmful or of different quality. But often the return policy is not applicable for an entire product category or for some product in the category. All this may have been written on the product page, but placed in a corner in such a way that it does not go unnoticed while shopping. As a result, we buy the product, make its payment and when the product comes in hand, we know that this is not the thing we wanted and it is not even possible to return! This can be dangerous in other ways as well. As we know, a lot of people fall prey to fraud when they go to google to search for customer support numbers of various shopping sites.

Take it if you don't want to

Let's take these steps when we make a purchase on e-shopping sites – add the desired item to the cart, then go to the cart page for the purchase and then make the payment on the checkout page.

On some sites, some items or additional service are added to the cart without our permission when we add the items we want to the cart and then reach the page of the cart! For example, if we are buying a computer keyboard, a mouse is added along with it, it is not really an extra bonus or gift, it is considered a separate charge. Or, the 'offer' of extended warranty should be added to the items we are buying and charged for it too. It is a different matter that we are alert and remove such extra items from the cart before making payments, but if many people make a careless payment, they also buy things they do not want. 

Auto-renewal loophole

It is understandable that different types of content on the Internet are kept behind the paywall. Because everything can't be free. But on many sites and also on e-commerce sites, when different types of content or service is offered under a special subscription, if there is a monthly or annual subscription, then there is a provision for auto-renewal. Users are not clearly told about this (in a way that is not enough attention, even if asked to comply with the law!).  

As a result, if our payment system in that service, such as credit card, is saved, then the payment for the amount of the new period is automatically made after the completion of the first period of subscription. We have to be careful and if we do not want to renew the subscription to that content or service, then we have to login to our account, go to the payment option in the settings of the accounts and disable the option of auto-renewal. Most websites find it difficult to access this option.

Pay a hidden charge

Many times it happens that after we reach the payment page, some additional charges are told. 

For example, free delivery is written on the main page for a product, but when  we reach the payment page, someone will be asked to pay a separate charge of delivery on some pretext like the number of products, total weight or location or product handling. 

If we haven't paid any attention to such hidden costs beforehand, and if some additional charges  are reported at the last stage of the purchase, most people prefer to pay an additional 'nominal' charge instead of getting into the hassle of buying an item afresh, thinking of something like ,'Will be, let go, it will go!'.

This charge may be nominal for the customer individually but if the trick of applying such an additional charge on thousands, lakhs of orders per day is successful, then online sites will get a huge extra revenue!

Attack on the heart straight away

On e-commerce or any other type of site, you may have also seen that when we leave the opened page and move on to another page, a popup is opened by giving up. It may have messages of caste. If a free e-book is offered in some, then a discount is offered in some. 

So far everything is fine, but on the link to reject the offer or discount, 'No, I don't like savings at all, I will pay the full price.' A website selling first aid packs had crossed the limit. "I don't want a notification, I don't want to live!" was written on the link to deny the site's notification, "No, I don't care about other people." Such writing is called 'confirm shaming' rather than playing with our emotions. In it, there is an attempt to pretend that it is shameful to decline the offer. Often the button to close such a pop-up is also placed in a way that is not clearly visible.