About 50% of online shoppers are unable to find the marked retail price, expiry dates on packaged products sold on newer e-commerce platforms and apps, says a survey by Local Circles.
According to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, all packaged products listed on e-commerce platforms must display the MRP for consumers to make informed choices. These rules came into effect after the government amended the Packaged Commodity Rules 2017 on January 1, 2018.
Local Circles, as per its survey, says there has been improvement in compliance as 35% of consumers said they could find MRP information, compared with 22% in 2018. It said that on an aggregate basis, four in five consumers said they were unable to find best before date information for human consumption packaged products in e-commerce sites and apps.
The survey revealed that consumers cited Meesho as an example of a platform that does not display the best before date on human consumption packaged products to consumers. “Older platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal etc. have the requisite fields but some sellers and products still fail to upload the best before date information.”
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Local Circles received more than 19,000 responses, for the survey, from consumers located in 345 districts of India, wherein 64% of the participants were men and 34% were women. The organization said the need of the hour is for the Legal Metrology Division under the Department of Consumer Affairs to enforce the law so the non-compliant platforms and sellers take immediate action. “With purchasing via e-commerce channels coming in the mainstream in the last few years and hundreds of millions of consumers across the country using this channel to purchase products, it is critical that consumers are presented with accurate and complete information when buying decisions.”
