The practice of false price cutting often claimed in opposition to most of the ecommerce firms might stop post the regulations to display expiry details and MRP of packaged goods on their website comes into practice from the beginning of 2018. Ecommerce firms will now have to show information such as use-by date and MRP on the platform, claimed BN Dixit, who leads lawful metrology at the department of consumer affairs.
“This is expected to affect the propensity of firms to overstate MRP and then provide price cuts or sell goods near to their date of expiry,” Dixit claimed. As per some members of the industry, ecommerce firms will probably add information as fraction of the slide for item display on their platforms. Ecommerce firms frequently adopt the method of showing costs of goods more than MRP and then display steep price cut, which is revealed by users only on getting the product, an executive of the Ministry for Consumer Affairs claimed to the media on the condition of secrecy.
The media itself discovered such divergences in MRP on top ecommerce platforms. A latest study by LocalCircles displayed that 42% of 10,000 members had witnessed goods listed more than MRP and then offered a price cut on the inflated cost. The study also displayed that 98% of the 7,776 members claimed it must be obligatory to reveal the date of expiry. “The new regulations will assist in sensible price revelations, and false price cuts will also disappear from online websites,” claimed chief strategy offices at LocalCircles, Yatish Rajawat, to the media in an interview.
The Ministry of Consumer Affairs altered the Rules of Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) 2011 in June 2017 in which it claimed that an ecommerce company should make sure that the mandatory announcements as specified must be shown on the electronic and digital network employed for ecommerce payments.