To avoid waiting, Register now & grab token number. Limited seats available. Some fraud and fake institutions using our identical names like Vajirao / Bajirao to lure other students. Kindly be aware of them & Stay alert ‼

Major e-commerce platforms to adopt Safety Pledge on National Consumer Day, 2024

17/12/2024
national-consumer-day

On December 24, 2024 National Consumer Day prominent inductions of India e-commerce industries such as Ajio, JioMart, Netmeds, BigBasket, Tatacliq, Tata 1mg, Zomato, Ola etc embraced Safety Pledge. This unilaterally initiated undertaking is intended to improve product safety for on-line consumers and protect consumers’ rights. The plan, unveiled by the Department of Consumer Affairs has major implications in assuring that these products sold online are safe to use and meet the required legal provisions.

Development of the Safety Pledge

The development of the Safety Pledge was carried out after conducting stakeholder consultations in November 2023. A committee chaired by noted consumer activist and journalist Pushpa Girimaji was tasked with drafting the pledge, with major e-commerce entities, industry bodies, and law chairs as its members. The last draft of the proposed Act was drawn up after a consultative process and Ethical review by the Department of Consumer Affair.

Aim and purpose of the Safety Pledge

The Safety Pledge aims to achieve several key objectives:

  • Detecting and Preventing Unsafe Products: E-commerce platforms pledge to avoid the use and identification of unsafe, spurious and non-conforming products. To this end, the various platforms must put into practice sound measures to detect and isolate such products from circulation.
  • Cooperation with Statutory Authorities: It is inevitable to stress that platforms guarantee their willingness to collaborate with statutory authorities in the sphere of product safety. This way collaboration is made sure that products being sold online are safe and have met the required legal requirements.
  • Raising Awareness Among Sellers: The pledge will also involve increasing awareness of consumer product safety among the sellers. That is, through posting information about safety standards to sellers, the platform pursues the objective of not allowing unsafe products to be listed.
  • Empowering Consumers: It focuses on providing financial consumers with the power to safeguard products that are in the market. This includes offering creation of appropriate information in areas such as standards, quality and safety of products that enhances consumer decision making.

Significance of Product Safety in e-Commerce

Characterized by uniqueness to personally handle and assess the products to be purchased, safety of the product assumes paramount importance in e-commerce. It equally becomes pivotal to ensure that the products sold online to consumers are safe as they cannot be trusted to discern between a safe and dangerous product. Currently, India’s internet users are more than 880 million, second-largest internet users market globally, estimates shows that approximately 500 million internet shoppers by 2030.

Consumer Protection Act, 2019

The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 portends that the issue of safety and product standards is considered relevant while making a purchase. As a result of the Act, the various stakeholders are granted particular consumer rights in relation to consumer protection, including the following: Individuals have the right to be protected from the marketing of dangerous goods, products, or services that have the potential to put their lives or property in jeopardy. The safety pledge complies with these provisions because it shall prevent e-commerce platforms from unfair trade practices and develop and maintain product safety standards.

Global Context

A comprehensive analysis of jurisdictions across the globe as an informal commitment, many jurisdictions across the globe have nudged e-commerce platforms to accept a voluntary safety pledge. This global trend shows that there is more need to prevent unfavourable and fatal incidences due to product safety especially in the growing e-commerce sector.

Understanding E-commerce Platforms

Online shopping sites are among the great innovations in the modern world, as it has made easier to buyers to order for any products and services online. These are online social sites that act as a market with consumers and producers where business is conducted online. However, this has quickly been offset by a set of safety issues associated with e-commerce business model that must be solved to enhance the security of consumers.

Types of E-commerce Platforms

E-commerce platforms can be broadly categorized into several types based on their business models and the nature of transactions they facilitate:

  • Business-to-Consumer (B2C): These platforms facilitate sales of products by firms to the final consumers in a straightforward process. Some of the examples of such marketplace are Amazon, Flipkart and Alibaba etc. The B2C forms of e-commerce are most popular and include everything from electronics and clothing to cars and homes.
  • Business-to-Business (B2B): These are marketplaces that are used in conducting business between business. Such sites are applied by wholesalers and retailers, manufacturers, and distributors to sell goods in large lots to other companies. Its example is IndiaMART.
  • Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C): A C2C configuration enables consumers to directly negotiate with other consumers so as to sell the products. Those platforms generally operate like online selling market places where one can offer items for sale. Examples include; eBay and OLX.
  • Consumer-to-Business (C2B): In this model, the consumer or the end users directly supply goods or even services to the business organizations. This is frequently observed in freelance platforms where persons present them intended for offering their talents and services to corporations. Some of these are Up-work and Freelancer.
  • Direct-to-Consumer (D2C): D2C selling models allow manufacturers or brands to directly interact with customers excluding intermediaries. It also empowers organizations to have even more control over the brand and the customer. Examples include those branded websites like Nike or Warby Parker among others.

Safety Issues for E-commerce

While e-commerce platforms offer numerous benefits, they also pose several safety challenges that need to be addressed:

  • Product Safety: There are several challenges that e-commerce businesses face to include; All the products that e-commerce businesses post on their online selling sites must be safe to use from all dangers meeting all the set safety standards and legal requirements meant to protect consumers. Fraudster merchants may sell fake, expired, or unsafe products which are detrimental to the population’s health and detrimental to the image of the platform.
  • Data Security: The safety of consumer data is something that should be protected. The e-commerce platforms take your personal data such as payment, delivery, and personal preferences. Security breaches in data also cause identity theft, monetary loss and loss of customers and clients.
  • Fraud and Scams: Some of the risk factors associated with e-commerce include; phishing scams, fake listings, and fraudulent transactions. These activities tremendously affect consumers’ wallet or businesses financial account that enables them to transact.
  • Privacy Concerns: Retail buyers also demand to know how platform operators collect and use their personal information. Issues like having terrible contents, not knowing who is collecting it, not being able to comprehend how it will be processed or used, or having little control over which data is collected are clarified by transparent data practices and informed consent.

Possible solutions

To address the safety challenges associated with e-commerce platforms, several measures can be implemented:

  • Robust Product Verification: The e-commerce platforms should also put in place the strong product verification to make certain that the products being offered in their sites are safe. This can include making sellers to produce proofs of the quality of their products and certifications as required by the law.
  • Enhanced Data Security: platforms have to emphasize on more advanced data encryption methods and properly encrypted payment gateways for CC details. Security updates performed on a frequently and the payment of attention to data protection laws are crucial to promising against data compromises.
  • Fraud Detection and Prevention: Fraudsters should be moderately unmasked through enhanced artificial intelligence and machine learning used in the development of sound fraud detection systems. Social platforms also should explain frequently used scams to consumers and offer methods that allow for the reporting of suspicious activities.
  • Transparent Data Practices: Online stores should have full disclosure of the information that they gather and how they use it. One of the ways through which privacy can be solved is to make some degree of privacy policies understandable by the consumer and to get permission from the consumer to collect his/her data.
  • Consumer Education and Awareness: Ideally, it protects the consumer and informs them of detrimental activities that may be potential risks of internet purchasing. Platforms can offer agents, help and information to the punters on how to differentiate between genuine and fake sellers, how to make payments safe as well as how to detect fake and illegitimate scams.

National Consumer Day

National Consumer Day is celebrated every December 24th in India to raise awareness of consumer rights and the strength that lies in the consumer’s hand. This day is a world consumer day that seeks to educate consumers about their rights and the responsibilities they have as customers to get goods and services from those traders who observe the right trade practices. This they say comes at a time when the government had shown its penchant for consumers through the consumer protection movement.

Historical Context

National Consumer Day is celebrated to mark the day in 1986 when the Indian Parliament passed the Consumer Protection Act. The Act was intended to provide stringent legal measures for the protection of the consumer and in matters of complaining unfair and coercive trade practices. This act has been reviewed over the years to address the newly arising scenarios in the market the most recent being the consumer protection act 2019.

Importance of National Consumer Day

The overall purpose of celebrating National Consumer Day is that the consumers should be empowered, enlightened regarding their rights. It serves as a reminder that consumers have the right to:

  • Safety: Employment rights and health safety against dangerous commodities and business.
  • Information: Opportunity to obtain timely and sufficient quantities of information in the decision-making process.
  • Choice: Access to a number of related products and service at fairly affordable costs.
  • Redressal: Equal and proper attention towards the redressal of complaints.
  • Consumer Education: To know the knowledge and skills they need to make decisions and exercise their rights.

Themes and Activities

Every year, National Consumer Day is commemorated in line with the theme that reflects existing consumer concerns. These themes apply to numerous initiatives and initiatives that are spearheaded and supported by government, customer groups and also interest groups. Activities typically include:

  • Workshops and Seminars: Awareness creation activities related to consumer education, consumer protection and proper consumer behaviour.
  • Awareness Campaigns: Awareness creation through use of posters, uses of blurbs in the social reclamation projects, PSAs and community outreach.
  • Consumer Grievance Redressal Camps: Providing platforms for consumers to raise their grievances and seek resolution.

The Role of Government and Consumer Organizations

The protection of consumers is the responsibility of the Government of India, and several consumer organizations and associations. Measures like the Consumer Protection Act, establishing the Consumer Protection Councils and Consumer Courts have come handy in ensuring effective redress of consumer complaints. These efforts are well supported by awareness creation to the consumers on their rights and roles in consumerism.

Importance of Product Safety in e-Commerce

In the current world e-commerce has come in to fill the gap of shop-ability in that one is able to shop online and get what he or she wants. At the same time, the rapid development of e-commerce also has major obligations to act in the best interest of safety of the products themselves. It is important to make the products to be sold through e-commerce safe for several reasons as it affects the consumers, firms and rest of the market.

Consumer Protection

In the first place, requirement on product safety is crucial as it helps to avoid negative consequences for people. Unsafe products pose a risk of causing harm such as an injury, illnesses or possibly death which has repercussions on the user’s families. Such occurrences are minimised as e-commerce businesses maintain consumer safety standards during the production of their products hence protecting the welfare of the consumer as well as developing healthy attitudes or beliefs towards e-commerce by the citizens of this country. Consumer satisfaction is achieved if consumers are sure that the products they buy online are safe, and this would promote the business.

Building Trust and Reputation

Another reason why product safety is important is for erecting and sustaining the credibility of the e- business stores. A platform is also advantageous for a highly competitive market, it can cater to those consumers who want safe and reliable products. Conversely, incidents involving unsafe products can lead to negative publicity, loss of consumer confidence, and potential legal liabilities. Several cases indicate that the e-commerce platforms which care about product safety are able to attract numerous customers and to have a stable high profit.

Regulatory Compliance

Regulation of compliance with regulatory standards is another important component of product safety in e-commerce. Consumer protection is an essential legal principle in the society, and there are different laws and policy statements laid down by the governments and the relevant regulatory authorities as a way of protecting the consumers from the avoidable harms resulting from the use of substandard products. All online store owners have to abide the laws in order to escape legal complications, fines and penalties. Compliance with regulations also means that the platform must equally put commitment to the best practices as well as the welfare of consumers.

Economic Benefits

The economic benefits of product safety extend beyond individual e-commerce platforms. Non-hazardous products control the number of product recalls and litigations, and lessen the tendency of health care costs due to product harms.  Additionally, satisfied customers are more likely to recommend the platform to others, further expanding its customer base.

Enhancing Customer Loyalty

There is particularly a relationship between customers’ loyalty and product safety. For those who know they can get quality and safe products at an e-commerce website are likely to become repeat consumers. This loyalty results into consistent revenues and growth for the platform to better respond to the market requirements. In addition, since satisfied customers will recommend this platform to their friends, the company’s client base will increase.

Blogs