As a result of pandemic and due to long period of lockdown, more and more businesses are compelled to adapt to the situation. As a measure to survive in such uncertain times, need for relevance becomes a compulsion and accordingly, E-Commerce entities are coming to the rescue of all such businesses by providing latest technological facilitation such that goods and services can be provided to consumers in a seamless manner on such an E-Commerce platform.
As a measure towards ease of doing business and in the interest of public at large, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution, Government of India has notified and made effective the provisions of the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 (E-Commerce Rules) under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 (Act) from 24 July 2020.
Scope of E-Commerce Rules: An e-commerce entity that owns, operates or manages digital or electronic facility or platform for electronic commerce, but does not include a seller offering his goods or services for sale on a marketplace e-commerce entity.
Applicability of E-Commerce Rules:
- All goods and services bought or sold over digital or electronic network including digital products;
- All models of e-commerce, including marketplace (i.e. means an e-commerce entity which provides an information technology platform on a digital or electronic network to facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers) and inventory models of e-commerce (i.e. means an e-commerce entity which owns the inventory of goods or services and sells such goods or services directly to the consumers and shall include single brand retailers and multi-channel single brand retailers);
- All e-commerce retail, including multi-channel single brand retailers and single brand retailers in single or multiple formats;
All forms of unfair trade practices across all models of e-commerce.
The E-Commerce Rules broadly prescribe the duties of e-commerce entities which apply to all e-commerce entities irrespective of the nature of their operations. In addition, the E-Commerce Rules also prescribe: (a) liabilities of marketplace e-commerce entities; (b) duties of sellers on marketplace; and (c) duties and liabilities of inventory e-commerce entities (which include single brand and multi-channel single brand retailers as well).
Key aspects of the E-commerce Rules are as under:
- The E-Commerce players will have to display total price of goods and services offered for sale along with a break-up of other charges;
- Details such as expiry date of goods offered for sale, country of origin of goods and services, return, refund, exchange, warranty, guarantee, delivery and any other information required by consumers to make an informed decision will have to be
mentioned; - No cancellation charges shall be imposed after confirming purchase unless similar charges are also borne by the e-commerce entity;
- It forbids manipulation of price of the good and services offered on their platforms to gain unreasonable profit;
- E-commerce entities to provide information on available payment methods, the security of those payment methods, any fees or charges payable by users, contact information of service provider and also prominently display all details about the sellers offering goods and services;
- The E-commerce Rules task the E-Commerce entities to set up a robust complaint redressal mechanism which ensures that customer complaints are addressed under 48 hours and resolution is provided within one month;
- The violation of the E-commerce Rules will attract penal action under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
The regularization of E-Commerce Rules is the need of the hour as it will not only bring about transparency in functioning of the E-Commerce platforms but also protect the interest of the consumer(s).
For detailed discussion on the above subject, please do not hesitate to connect at contact@devadhaantu.in
