What the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules mean for your store

The situation

An organic grocery in Pune delivers vegetables, grains, cold pressed oils and dairy to about two hundred families, most of them on a fixed weekly order. It started on WhatsApp, moved to a simple website, and is now planning a proper store with subscriptions and online payment. The founder assumed the e-commerce rules she had read about were only for Amazon and Flipkart. They cover a neighbourhood business with its own site too.

That assumption is common and mostly wrong. The Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, made under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, cover e-commerce entities broadly. A business that sells its own stock through its own website is treated as an inventory e-commerce entity, and many of the duties apply to it directly.

The rules are summarised as of October 2026, and some duties depend on how your business is set up; confirm what applies to you with a lawyer.

What the rules ask, in practice

Tell buyers who you are

Your store should clearly show your legal name, your address, and contact details for customer care, including an email address and a phone number. A store that shows only an Instagram handle and a WhatsApp number falls short. Put these details in the footer and on a contact page, and keep them current.

Name a grievance officer

The rules require e-commerce entities to appoint a grievance officer and display their name, designation and contact details on the platform. As currently written, complaints have to be acknowledged within forty eight hours and resolved within one month. For a small store the grievance officer is often a founder. What matters is that the name is published, the inbox is watched, and complaints are logged with dates.

Show the terms before the purchase

Buyers should see, before they buy, the total price including taxes and any other charges, information about returns, refunds, exchanges, warranty, delivery and shipment, the payment methods on offer, and how to raise a complaint. Country of origin is also expected for goods, which matters for imported oils, dry fruits and gadgets. For the Pune grocery, this meant showing delivery charges and the subscription terms on the product page and in the cart as well as in the confirmation message.

Get real consent to buy

The rules say consent to a purchase must come from an explicit action by the buyer. Pre-ticked boxes that add a donation, an insurance cover or a premium delivery option do not count. Every paid add-on should start unticked.

Do not charge one-sided cancellation fees

If you charge buyers for cancelling, the rules expect you to bear similar charges when you cancel on them. Many stores simply do not charge cancellation fees, which is the simplest position.

Take back what was wrong

An inventory seller should not refuse to take back goods, or refuse a refund, when what was delivered is defective, deficient, spurious, not as described, or delivered late against the stated schedule, subject to limited exceptions. Your returns policy can set terms for change of mind returns; it cannot remove these. Refunds that are due should be made within a reasonable time.

Be honest in listings and reviews

Do not post reviews pretending to be a buyer, publish only the flattering ones in a misleading way, or describe products in ways that do not match what you deliver. Prices should not be manipulated to take unreasonable advantage of buyers.

The dark patterns guidelines

In 2023 the Central Consumer Protection Authority issued guidelines on dark patterns, the interface tricks that push buyers into decisions they did not intend. Several are relevant to ordinary stores:

• False urgency, such as a countdown timer that resets or "only 2 left" when that is not true.
• Basket sneaking, where items or charges are added without the buyer choosing them.
• Drip pricing, where the full price appears only at the last step.
• Subscription traps, where cancelling is much harder than signing up.

The last one matters for the Pune grocery. Its subscriptions now show the next delivery date and charge, and buyers can pause or cancel from their account in the same number of steps it took to subscribe.

Packaged goods have their own rules

If you sell pre-packaged goods, the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules also expect key declarations to be visible online, such as the manufacturer or packer, net quantity, MRP and, for many goods, the country of origin. For a grocery this affects almost every listing. Check the current list of required declarations for your categories with the legal metrology department.

How ShopenUp helps

On ShopenUp, product attributes, product and category page fields, themes that work on mobile and customer notifications for order updates are there from day one, so the information buyers need can sit on the product page, in the cart and in messages. The words, the policies and the grievance process are yours to write and run.

Subscriptions and recurring billing are built for you. When we build them, a clear pause and cancel option and an upcoming charge notice are part of the design from the start.

Limits

Marketplaces, sellers on marketplaces, foreign businesses and particular product categories carry further duties of their own. The rules have been the subject of proposed amendments over the years, and the authorities publish advisories from time to time.

Checklist

• Legal name, address, email and phone shown in the footer and contact page.
• Grievance officer named with designation and contact details.
• Complaints logged with dates, acknowledged and resolved within the stated times.
• Total price, delivery charges and terms visible before purchase.
• Country of origin shown where it applies.
• No pre-ticked add-ons.
• No one-sided cancellation fees.
• Returns policy that does not limit buyers' rights on faulty goods.
• No false urgency, sneaked items or hard-to-cancel subscriptions.
• Packaged goods declarations visible on listings.
• Lawyer review on launch and yearly after.

To see what a ShopenUp storefront can show on product pages, in the cart and in messages, read storefront.