India, Sept. 30 -- Dark Patterns Haunt Ecommerce Sales

India's ecommerce giants are raking in the moolah this festive season with over $11.5 Bn in GMV since the beginning last week.

But behind the flashy discounts and countdown timers lurks a persistent menace: dark patterns.

From basket sneaking to bait-and-switch pricing, ecommerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart are deploying various strategies that are designed specifically to nudge shoppers into buying faster, adding more products to their carts, and even inserting products and services surreptitiously without alerting customers clearly.

The Festive Trap: In the recent weeks, Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra and others have been called out by users for practices ranging from auto-adde...