Dark tricks to lure customers in e-shopping

- This month, the Indian government warned the country's top e-commerce sites to stop tricking customers

The festivities are near! Online shopping sites will double down on giving us 'hefty discounts' and we will all be addicted to e-shopping. Whether we go to shop in a physical store or an e-shop, it is understandable that salesmen try all the smart marketing tricks to extract money from our pockets, but on online shopping sites such tricks become dark.

When you go shopping online, you may browse the site with certain items in mind and a small budget for them, but most of the time, you end up buying things you don't need and end up spending more than you budgeted for!

We believe that this is human nature. If we are out for shopping, we like some new things and if our pocket is straining, we should buy them.

In reality, this is not human nature, especially when it comes to online shopping. E-shops try many tricks due to which we fall into their clutches. If you're shopping online, it's important to be aware of some of these dark tricks used by e-commerce sites - especially around the festive season!

- Ever-growing e-shopping

There is a good crowd in online shopping in India. Companies like Amazon, Flipkart, Reliance, Tata and Misho are boosting online shopping in the country. During Corona, people from all sections of the society turned to online shopping and now everyone has enjoyed this type of shopping!

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

Across the country, the prevalence of online shopping is expanding even further in small towns - where people are not well versed in digital technology and its intricacies!

- Red eye against dark practices in e-shopping

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to open an account in an app like Instagram, but difficult to delete the account completely? If you go to find a way to delete the account in the app, it will not work because for that we have to go to the Instagram site on the computer and log in to it. Most people have access to a smartphone but not a computer, so even if they want to, they can't delete their Instagram account until they have a computer. Even if you have a computer and remember to delete your account, before deleting the account, there are many different ways, like deactivating the account instead of deleting it! Now if you want to delete the account of Threads, you have to delete Instagram too!

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

This is just one example. E-commerce sites and other types of websites that try to sell us something use various tricks to trap us. The government has finally woken up against 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 customer preferences and harm their interests. The ministry has also constituted a 17-member task force, which will frame new rules to protect people from such torque patterns.

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

Hurry up, hurry up

On most e-commerce sites, consumers are tempted to make impulse purchases to increase sales of various products. There is nothing obviously wrong with it, but in many cases it happens that the price of that product is increased before such an offer and then a discount is offered for buying within a certain time!

Such a rush is not only for shopping, but for many actions on the site. Online shopping has become somewhat of a cat-and-mouse game. Most shopping sites rush us to do things that... (one) we don't want to do, (two) we find it difficult to do, and (three) we don't even know we're doing!

As soon as we reach the online shopping site, the system of that site expects some purchase from us, if it is not fulfilled, the system starts trying dark tricks.

One should be replaced by the other

On many websites something is offered to us as a product or service and something else is delivered. When placing an order to buy a dress, the fabric is said to be pure silk, but the dress that is delivered is of a poorer material. Most e-commerce sites allow us to return items that we don't like, that are damaged or of poor quality. But sometimes the return policy is not applicable for some entire product category or for some products in a category. All this may be written on the product page, but it is placed in such a way that it is not noticed while shopping. As a result, we buy the product, pay for it, and when the product arrives, we find that it is not what we wanted and it is not possible to return it! This can be dangerous in another way as well. As we know many people fall prey to fraud while searching customer support numbers of various shopping sites on Google.

Take it if you don't want it

When we shop on e-shopping sites, we take these steps - add the desired item to the cart, then go to the cart page for purchase, and then make the payment on the checkout page.

On some sites, when we add the desired items to the cart and then reach the cart page, some items or additional services are added to the cart without our permission! For example, if we are buying a computer keyboard and a mouse is added along with it, it is not really an extra bonus or a gift, it is considered a separate charge. Or, an extended warranty 'offer' may be added to the items we purchase and charged for. It's one thing to be vigilant and remove such extra items from the cart before paying, but many people end up buying things they don't need when they pay carelessly.

The auto-renewal trap

It is understandable that a wide variety of content on the Internet is kept behind pay-walls. Because not everything can be free. But many sites and even e-commerce sites offer various types of content or services under special subscriptions, with auto-renewal arrangements if the subscription is monthly or yearly. This is not clearly communicated to the users (in order to comply with the law, but not to draw enough attention!).

As a result, if our payment method such as credit card is saved in the Service, the payment for the new period amount is automatically made after the first period of subscription is over. We have to be alert and if we do not want to renew the subscription for that content or service, after logging into our account, we have to go to the payment option in the account settings and disable the auto-renewal option. Most websites make it difficult to access this option.

Pay hidden charges

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

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

If we haven't looked into such hidden costs and are told some additional charges at the last stage of the purchase, most people prefer to pay the additional 'minor' charges rather than go through the hassle of buying the item anew, 'be it, let it go, will it!' Thinking something like that.

This charge may be insignificant to the individual customer, but if the trick of applying such an additional charge is successful on thousands, even millions of orders per day, the online sites will get a huge extra income!

A direct attack on the heart

On e-commerce or other types of sites, you may have seen that when we leave the opened page and go to another page, a popup opens. It may contain various messages. Some offer free e-books while others offer discounts.

So far so good, but the link to decline the offer or discount shows some negative text like "No, I don't like the savings at all, I'll pay full price"! A website that sells first aid packs has even exceeded the limit. The site's opt-out link read, "I don't want notifications, I don't want to be alive!" Sites asking for donations for social causes read, "No, I don't care about other people." Playing with our emotions, such writing is called 'confirmation shaming'. In it, an attempt is made to insinuate that it is shameful to decline an offer. Often such a pop-up close button is also placed in such a way that it is not clearly visible.