Study: Few new e-comm players conceal country of origin for products

NEW DELHI: Only four in 10 consumers in India say that e-commerce platforms are displaying the country of origin information for all products, a new report revealed on Monday.

While most older, established e-commerce platforms now have the Country of Origin information for the majority of products, the same is not the case with newly-established platforms like LensKart, CityMall and Shop101, according to the survey report by community-based social media platform LocalCircles.

Post the China conflict in June 2020, the Centre gave a push to create additional awareness about ‘Make in India’ products and started enforcement of ‘Country of Origin’ information to be displayed on e-commerce sites.

The enforcement was done under the Packaged Commodity Rules Amendment, 2017 under The Department of Consumer Affairs.

However, only 42 per cent consumers found e-commerce apps platforms to be compliant in making country of origin information available, said the report.

Nearly 28 per cent of consumers said e-commerce apps and platforms remain non-compliant while 30 per cent did not have an opinion or did not look for this information.

The percentage of consumers that looked for country of origin information when shopping online in 2020 was 37 per cent which rose to 43 per cent in 2021 and is now at 51 per cent.

Recently, the Delhi High Court asked the Centre to implement a proper mechanism for conducting periodical checks of eCommerce platforms to ensure compliance with rules relating to the display and packaging of products sold on their websites.

On the seller front, a lot more work needs to be done, as per the report, as only 29 per cent of consumers said most sellers were displaying this information for all products.