DRAFT E-COMMERCE GUIDELINES FOR CONSUMER PROTECTION 2019

About: 

• Objective: The draft guidelines proposes a series of consumer safeguards in India that forbid e-commerce companies from influencing pricing, adopting unfair promotion methods or misrepresenting the quality of goods and services.
  
  
• Applicability: The guidelines will be applicable on all business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce platforms.
  
  
• Salient features of the draft guidelines:
  • It seeks to protect personally-identifiable information of customers and set a 14-day limit for payments toward refund requests.
    
    
  • E-commerce firms must self-declare compliance and also provide a way for customers to contact them directly.
    
    
  • Platforms like Amazon and Flipkart are required to declare all details about their sellers including address, website and email address.
    
    
  • The platforms are also required to display terms of contract with the seller relating to return, refund, exchange, warranty, delivery and mode of payments.
    
    
  • Counterfeit products cannot be listed on e-commerce websites or companies could be held liable.
    
    
  • It proposes to make it mandatory for e-commerce entities to accept returns in the event the products delivered are “defective, wrong or spurious” or if they do not have the characteristics or features advertised.
    
    
  • Every e-commerce entity has to publish the contact details of its grievance officer, who would have to address complaints within one month from the date of receipt.