ResearchRule 4(2) · Rule 4(15) · Read 8 October 2026
What 100 Indian D2C storefronts show under the e-commerce rules
We read the public pages of the 100 brands on a published list of top Indian D2C brands, the way a customer would, and checked them against what the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules ask every online store to display. 81 could be read. Twelve weeks before the yearly dark-pattern self-audit becomes due, here is what they show.
32%
show a grievance officer with contact details (26 of 81). 47 show none we could find.
0
link to a dark-pattern self-audit statement yet. One is due from 1 January 2027 (Rule 4(15)).
86%
show struck-through or "compare at" prices (70 of 81). From 1 January an announced reduction must show the 30-day low.
01Rule 4(2)
Who you are, and how to reach you
Every e-commerce entity must display its legal name, its principal address, customer-care contacts and a grievance officer's name, designation and contacts. Customer care is nearly universal. The grievance officer is the gap: it's the detail most stores leave out.
02Rule 7(1)(a)
What customers are told before they buy
Stores that sell their own goods must show return and refund terms, delivery terms and payment methods. Most do, usually in policy pages linked from the footer.
03Signals worth testing
Features that are lawful only if they behave
These aren't findings. A countdown is fine if the deadline is real; a "people viewing" counter is fine if it's true. Whether they behave is what a behavioural audit tests. Each signal below was reviewed by hand.
See what the unlawful versions look like on our demo shop.
04What to do
If your store is one of the many
Add the missing details
Generate footer, contact-page and grievance text for Rule 4(2) and 4(5) in two minutes.
Start a price record
A reduction announced on 1 January needs daily prices from 2 December. The calculator works out the 30-day low.
Draft your statement
The Rule 4(15) statement in an open format. Nothing you type leaves your device.
05Method
How we read the stores
- Which stores. The 100 brands on Qikink's published list, "Top 100 D2C Brands In India: List with Categories (2026)", in its order, each at its own website. We didn't choose them.
- What we read. The homepage and up to eight public pages it links to: contact, grievance, returns, shipping, terms, privacy, about and one product page. That's 522 pages in all. We didn't log in, add to cart or check out.
- How we read them, twice. Once with the reader behind our free store check, which reads the page source without running JavaScript. Then again in a real browser with JavaScript on, scrolled to the end so footers that load late appear. A detail counts as shown if either read finds it. The browser read sees text drawn by JavaScript; the first read also sees text in collapsed footer sections.
- Politely. We followed each site's robots.txt and left at least a second between pages. Our reader names itself and links to this page.
- What counts. The same rules as the free store check. For example, a grievance officer counts only with a contact detail beside them. Signals were reviewed by hand.
- A cross-check. On the 76 stores both reads covered, the first read alone found a grievance officer on 24 and the combined read on 26. The headline doesn't depend on how we read.
| Reason | Stores |
|---|---|
| Shows no readable text, or was closed | 6 |
| Asks automated readers not to read it (robots.txt) | 4 |
| Could not be reached | 4 |
| Blocked our reader | 2 |
| Not a storefront | 2 |
| Redirects to another brand's site | 1 |
Limits. A store may publish a detail somewhere we didn't read, in an image, or only inside its app. So "none we could find" means a customer following the obvious links wouldn't find it either. Platforms: 58 of the 81 run on Shopify.
We don't publish store-level results or name stores. Any store can run the same check on itself: free store check.
06Data
Use these numbers
The aggregate results are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: results.json. Please cite "DarkPatternAudit, storefront study, 8 October 2026" with a link to this page. Press questions: [email protected].
General information, not legal advice. Showing a detail is not the same as meeting a rule, and missing one is not a finding against any store.