What is in news: For the purposes of preventing unfair trade practices in e-commerce, the Central Government had notified the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 with effect from 23 July 2020.

The proposed amendments are as follows:

• Chief Compliance Officer: To ensure compliance of the rules, the appointment of Chief Compliance Officer, a nodal contact person for 24×7 coordination with law enforcement agencies, officers to ensure compliance to their orders and Resident Grievance Officer for redressing of the grievances of the consumers on the e-commerce platform, has been proposed. This would ensure effective compliance with the provisions of the Act and Rules and also strengthen the grievance redressal mechanism on e-commerce entities.
• Registration of e-coms: Putting in place a framework for registration of every e-commerce entity with the DPIIT for allotment of a registration number which shall be displayed prominently on the website as well as invoice of every order placed by the e-commerce entity. This would help create a database of genuine e-commerce entities and ensure that the consumers are able to verify the genuineness of an e-commerce entity before transacting through their platform.
• Prohibition of miss-selling: The goods and services entities selling goods or services by deliberate misrepresentation of information have been prohibited.
• Expiry dates: This would ensure that consumers are aware of the expiry date of the products they are buying on the e-commerce platform. It compels all sellers on marketplace e-commerce entities and all inventory e-commerce entities to provide the best before or use before the date to enable consumers to make an informed purchase decision.
• Fair and equal treatment: It has been provided that where an e-commerce entity offers imported goods or services, it shall incorporate a filter mechanism to identify goods based on country of origin and suggest alternatives to ensure fair opportunity to domestic goods.
• Fall-back liability: This would ensure that consumers are not adversely affected in the event where a seller fails to deliver the goods or services due to negligent conduct by such seller in fulfilling the duties and liabilities.

Why need such an amendment?

• It was observed that there was an evident lack of regulatory oversight in e-commerce which required some urgent action.
• Manipulating search results: Moreover, the rapid growth of e-commerce platforms has also brought into the purview the unfair trade practices of the marketplace e-commerce entities engaging in manipulating search result to promote certain sellers.
• Preferential treatment: This includes preferential treatment to some sellers, indirectly operating the sellers on their platform, impinging the free choice of consumers, selling goods close to expiration etc.
• Flash sales: Certain e-commerce entities are engaging in limiting consumer choice by indulging in “back to back” or “flash” sales. This prevents a level playing field and ultimately limits customer choice and increases prices.