Published On: 7 October, 2023
E-commerce Regulations and Online Marketplaces in India
INTRODUCTION
E- commerce which means electronic commerce, electronic commerce means doing business, trade, or anything sort of relating to these all through the use of online means There are different sites where we can do online business for example Amazon, Flipkart, etc. Many businesses deal with products, and courses too, it could be digital marketing, affiliate marketing, etc. E-commerce is a trending form of business worldwide. According to the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 E- e-commerce is the purchasing and selling of goods and products online. The main motive of this was to make the economy cashless transactions, there could be different modes where the business could be done for example the consumers can directly sell their products to the business, the business could sell its products to another business, the consumer can sell directly products to another consumer.
LAWS RELATING TO E-COMMERCE
Information Technology Act, 2000 deals with technologies that are dealt with online, through this act commerce is governed too, so that security could be there while doing any sort of E-commerce. The data is also protected through this act if any violation is there this act gives many penalties. This act also governs that, the content they are using on websites should be secured, and if there is any loophole in the content that would be blocked. Under the content they should publish privacy policy, terms, and conditions so that it could be secured more.
Consumer Protection Act, 2019 this act was introduced to deal with many problems faced by consumers as there were lots of defects in the products, many scams were done, and misleading customers was more popular. This act maintains a balance between the seller and the consumer as it provides different frameworks relating to punishments and guidelines. It does not mean that this is only applicable to physical products, it applies to whole products whether it is offline or online including digital marketing, affiliate marketing, online courses, etc. E-commerce is to be registered in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), which is necessary, it also says that they will not mislead any consumer by the use of advertisements so that the consumer does not get fooled, it also says when an E-commerce entity is registered they will have to show registration number in their sites so that the customer could easily identify it that it is registered and it could be easy for them and the sellers to create invoices for them. It also talks about the circumstances that if any customer has any problem, they will have to create an option in their site so that they could help them if the consumer has any complaint regarding their entity.
Indian Contracts Act, of 1872 this is act deals with the contract where the two parties enter into a Contract, there are different e-commerce contracts so for this purpose this is necessary that if the two parties enter into a Contract, there should be mutual consent, no fraud should be there, age should be above 18 so basically we should keep these things in our mind while entering into Contract. The same process is done here, as there is a proposal, acceptance, revocation and also terms and conditions, and privacy policy these all should be applied. There are generally different thoughts that if the person enters into a Contract through an electronic basis, will it be invalid, so the right answer is no it is not invalid because the same procedure is applied here too.
Sales of a Good Act, 1930 This act talks about the products selling, shipping of the products, and warranties given to products. If there is any defect in the products will the refund be given to all states under this act?
Competition Act, 2002 This act talks about competition, we have seen on different platforms that some website offers a huge number of discount on that specific product and we can see that the same product is discounted less, in this era many people go for the heavy discounts so competition plays a great role in this. We have also seen in the pandemic time in lockdown where the competition was there on different platforms, we have seen that the consumers were more likely to do online shopping rather than offline shopping so we can see a major difference, in present also many people are into online shopping.
Ministry of Consumer Affairs Foods and Public Distribution published that if the products are sold on online platforms, there should be written proper labeling of products, and full details regarding exchange, returns, and refunds. Also, RBI notified about the payment not to save the information of credit cards or debit cards, as this may be not confidential to them.
CONCLUSION
We can see that most people depend upon E-commerce only as it is easier to avail and it is smooth to function, so regulations regarding this should be made very strict, there is strictness but somewhere there is loophole too, so preventive measures should be taken. But we should not completely rely on this as some fraud companies are there and smartly by hacking or anything they could steal our information. Any people who want to do E-commerce should have complete knowledge about it and they should have full knowledge about laws governing these all. Many companies do online marketing and trading, in India many scamsters could scam us in the name of marketing and trading, so we should not completely trust them all, we should have some knowledge about this. Though there are not only disadvantages there are many advantages too, no other this is perfect there are many pros and cons regarding all so we should do complete research regarding this and then we should avail the services.
REFERENCES
https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/india-online-marketplace-and-e-commerce
