You add a product to your cart. The price looks fair. You proceed to checkout. Then, somewhere between the cart and the payment screen, the bill quietly grows — a convenience fee here, a pre-ticked insurance there, a "handling charge" that appeared from nowhere. By the time you notice, you've either paid up or abandoned the purchase in frustration.
Multiply that moment across hundreds of millions of shoppers, and you get a number that should unsettle every e-commerce executive in India.
The Cost of a Manipulated Checkout
A new report by Datum Intelligence finds that Indian consumers are losing an estimated ₹25,000–28,000 crore annually to deceptive interface designs — commonly called dark patterns — with 88% of the country's 304 million online buyers losing around ₹78–87 every month.
But the direct loss is only part of the story. These practices are also triggering major behavioural shifts, putting more than ₹55,000 crore in gross merchandise value at risk as users reduce spending, compare more aggressively, or switch platforms altogether.
The study surveyed more than 2,590 consumers across 50 cities and evaluated 12 major platforms spanning e-commerce, quick commerce, and online travel.
Awareness Doesn't Equal Protection
The most striking finding isn't the money lost — it's the helplessness behind it. The report highlights what it calls an "awareness paradox": while 81% of respondents said they were aware of dark patterns, 85% still reported being misled by them.
Knowing the trick exists, it turns out, doesn't make you immune to it. The report found that 63% of online payment users now experience hidden charges or drip pricing during digital transactions, up from 52% reported in 2024. The problem isn't shrinking — it's spreading.
Why Regulation Hasn't Fixed This Yet
India does have rules on the books. The CCPA notified Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns in 2023, representing India's first comprehensive attempt to define and prohibit such practices. Enforcement has followed in isolated cases — the CCPA issued notices to BookMyShow for automatically adding a ₹1-per-ticket charity contribution without user consent, a practice it classified as "basket sneaking," and after intervention, BookMyShow gave users the option to choose.
Yet the Datum Intelligence report suggests these interventions haven't moved the needle broadly. Regulatory measures have had limited success: 73% of platforms continue to deploy forced-action mechanisms, and 69% still use drip pricing that reveals additional charges only at the final stage of checkout. Crucially, the CCPA's latest advisory remains just that — an advisory, with no mention of penalties for non-compliance or any mechanism for auditing or investigation.
Design as a Business Decision
The combined impact of direct financial losses and changing consumer behaviour shows that dark patterns are no longer just a consumer-protection concern but a broader macroeconomic challenge affecting the long-term sustainability of India's digital commerce ecosystem.
Every deceptive checkout is also a bet that the short-term revenue gain outweighs the long-term trust cost. With ₹55,000 crore of GMV hanging in the balance, that bet is starting to look expensive.
Sources
- Dark patterns cost Indian online shoppers up to ₹28,000 cr a year: Study | Industry News - Business Standard
- Dark patterns cost Indians up to ₹28,000 cr a year, 88% of online buyers affected: Report - BusinessToday
- Dark Patterns and the Limits of Self-Policing: A Critical Look at the CCPA’s June 2025 Advisory - Lexology
- Regulatory Crackdown On Dark Patterns: CCPA's Enforcement Actions And Emerging Compliance Landscape In Indian E-Commerce - Dodd-Frank, Consumer Protection Act - India
- India's CCPA guidelines on dark patterns: Welcome signal, but law is still soft | IAPP