New Delhi43 minutes ago
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Quick commerce companies that deliver grocery in minutes are quietly putting additional burden on customers. In addition to delivery, handling charge, membership fees, rain fees, processing fees, platform fees and surge charge are also being charged in busy time. This is all different from standard delivery and platform charge.
When IT professional Suresh ordered snacks of Rs 57 from Jepto, the bill reached Rs 200. It has a handling charge of Rs 13, Rs 35. Smart Cart Fee, Rs 75 delivery charge and Rs 1 was a member of Rs 1. GST further increased the price.
Ajit called for an ice cream of Rs 306 from the Blinkit. The delivery charge may be zero, but Rs 9 handling and Rs 30 surge charge was added, causing the bill to 346. These charge are being charged at a time when companies are in huge losses. In January-March 2024, the Blinkit was lost by Rs 178 crore, Swigi Instamart lost Rs 840 crore.
Survey Report … 62% of customers have to pay convenience fee
- These fees change according to cities and are often imposed in the name of packaging or delivery. The convenience fee is not refunded if a product is refunded.
- The convenience fee usually occurs up to 3% of the transaction amount, but according to the study of the local governments, the order of 300 is ranging from Rs 400 to 450 to the customers due to these different charges.
- In a survey of more than 40 thousand consumers in 321 districts, 62% said that they had to pay the facility fee on the online order.
- According to JM Financial, most of the platforms have increased the minimum order price to obtain free delivery. Due to this, customers have to make big purchases.
The arrival of companies like Reliance, Amazon may increase the challenge of existing platforms New players like Reliance’s Jio Mart, Amazon Now, Flipkart’s minutes are coming. Dinesh Taluja, CFO of Reliance Retail, stated in the earning call that his daily orders have increased by 2.4 times. There is no hidden fee in his service.
Claim … Cash burn up to Rs 1500 crore on an average every month on discounting customers Companies say that they are taking a loss of Rs 1,300-1,500 crore every month on exemption and facilities. According to BNP Paribas, there was a market of 70 thousand crores in 2024-25. By 2028, it will be Rs 2.6 lakh crore.
If companies take charge by telling them, there is no problem, but this does not happen, this dark pattern Sachin Tapadia, the founder and CEO of LocalSarkals, says that there is a lack of transparency among Quick Commerce companies. If the companies take all the charges in advance, then there is no problem. But they usually join the last moment. Many times their breakup is close.
Food delivery, online travel, movies and events ticketing and other areas of Amazon and other areas like Flipkart are leaving similar fees. The bills applied by misleading the customer directly show dark patterns.
The Government of India has identified 13 types of dark patterns. By showing a low price in dark patterns such as drip pricing, adding sudden additional fees (eg handling, platform, or convenience fee) at the time of checkout). Similarly, rain charge or item handling fee in rain. In case of high demand or shortage of staff, they are adopting methods such as imposing sudden additional fees. Complaints about dark patterns like basket sneaking are also increasing.
