E-commerce platforms have fared better than offline stores in complying with rules limiting sale of products to their maximum retail price (MRP) during the past five-week period when India has been in mandatory lockdown, according to a survey.
Conducted by community platform LocalCircles, the survey showed that 39% of respondents had at some point in the last five weeks of lockdown been charged more than the MRP of a packaged product bought from an offline store.
Only 21% of respondents said they had been charged more than the MRP for packaged products bought through e-commerce platforms in the same period.
A majority of complaints received by LocalCircles were of overcharging on products such as masks and hand sanitisers — both online and offline — in the first two weeks of the lockdown when there was high demand and lack of supply.
While e-commerce platforms have largely clamped down on such practices by sellers, some instances continue to remain, consumers reported.
Instances of local stores listing products on hyperlocal delivery apps above their MRPs have come to light in the past few weeks.
LocalCircles reported that consumers said offline orders through WhatsApp or similar platforms allowed store owners to mask MRPs and present a consolidated bill amount which could not be verified, leading to higher non-compliance.
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