Context:
- Drip pricing: E-commerce platforms often advertise a low initial price but reveal additional charges, such as platform fees, convenience fees and handling charges, during checkout, increasing the final amount paid by consumers.
- Growing prevalence: Small add-on charges have become common across food delivery, online shopping, travel bookings, movie tickets and other digital services, generating substantial revenue for companies.
Dark Patterns in Online Shopping
- Meaning: Dark patterns are deceptive user-interface designs that manipulate consumers into unintended purchases, subscriptions or disclosure of personal data.
- Majortypes of dark patterns:
- Drip pricing: Revealing additional charges only at later stages of a transaction.
- False urgency: Using misleading countdown timers or messages such as “Only 2 left” to pressure consumers.
- Subscription traps: Making subscriptions easy to activate but difficult to cancel through hidden options or lengthy procedures.
- Basket sneaking: Adding products, services, subscriptions or donations to a cart without the consumer’s explicit consent.
- Bait and switch: Advertising an attractive product or price but offering a different or more expensive option during purchase.
- Disguised advertisements: Presenting paid promotions as ordinary recommendations, reviews or other content without clearly identifying them as advertisements.
Examples of Additional Charges
- Food delivery and e-commerce: Platforms such as Swiggy, Zomato and Amazon charge platform or service fees in addition to the product price; such charges may appear during checkout.
- Entertainment and travel: Movie-ticket bookings, railway reservations and flight bookings may include internet handling, convenience or other service charges.
- Railway ticketing: IRCTC collects convenience fees on e-tickets, with different charges for AC and non-AC classes and applicable GST; reduced fees for certain digital payment modes have also been introduced.
- Scale of revenue: The article cites an industry estimate that platform fees could generate approximately ₹1,000–1,200 crore annually per major food-delivery company, while Swiggy and Zomato do not report specific revenue breakdowns for these fees.
- IRCTC revenue: In the June 2026 quarter, IRCTC reportedly earned ₹248 crore in convenience fees, accounting for over 18% of its revenue of ₹1,369 crore; the article notes that e-ticketing platform revenue was ₹361 crore.
Why Convenience Fees Are Controversial
- Lack of transparency: Consumers may discover the actual price only after selecting a product, entering personal details or proceeding to payment.
- Questionable justification: A convenience fee may be charged even when the digital transaction reduces the company’s costs by eliminating physical infrastructure, staff and paperwork.
- Consumer disadvantage: Online transactions have become the default mode of accessing many services, leaving consumers with limited alternatives to additional charges.
- Policy ambiguity: The Department of Consumer Affairs has intervened against certain extra charges, such as cash-on-delivery fees, when they qualify as deceptive dark patterns; however, the broader treatment of convenience and platform fees remains contested.
Drip Pricing: Regulatory Framework
- Definition: Under the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023, drip pricing involves an initially displayed price that does not reveal all applicable charges, or the gradual disclosure of additional fees during the purchasing process.
- Deceptive practice: It includes revealing mandatory fees only at checkout or progressively adding charges after consumers have invested time in a transaction.
- Consumer Protection Act, 2019: The Act provides the broader legal framework for protecting consumers against unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements.
- Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA): The authority can investigate violations and take action against unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements under the consumer protection framework.
Case Study: Quick-Commerce Platform
- CCPA intervention: The article reports that in August, the CCPA observed that Zepto displayed a lower initial price to attract consumers but subsequently added handling charges and a membership fee.
- Action taken: The authority reportedly imposed a ₹5 lakh penalty on Zepto for basket sneaking and directed it to discontinue the identified dark patterns.
Way Forward
- Upfront price disclosure: Platforms should display the complete payable price, including mandatory fees and taxes, before consumers commit to a purchase.
- Transparent fee justification: Companies should clearly explain the nature and purpose of platform and convenience fees.
- Effective enforcement: Consumer authorities should strengthen monitoring of deceptive interfaces, checkout practices and hidden charges.
- Consumer awareness: Consumers should examine price breakdowns, cart additions, subscription terms and cancellation procedures before completing transactions.
