Designed to Deceive: A Study of Dark Patterns in Indian E-Commerce Platforms

Author

Dr. R.Pradeep Kumar Patnaik, Ms. Vennela Medapati


Abstract

E-commerce has grown rapidly and has changed the way consumers search, compare and buy products and services. Concurrently, e-commerce platforms increasingly are using designs for their interfaces that affect consumer choices in ways that are not obvious or consumer-favorable. This can be done through urgency cues, scarcity messages, hidden costs, confirmshaming, forced continuity, misleading visual hierarchies and difficult cancellation processes, and is known as dark patterns. This research investigates the effects of dark pattern on Indian consumers' purchase decision and perceived deception as a mediating construct. The design employed was quantitative, cross sectional and a structured online questionnaire consisting of 31 five point Likert items and seven questions related to demographic and shopping-behaviour data was filled out by 142 online shoppers. Descriptive statistics, Cronbach's alpha, Pearson correlation, chi-square tests, one-way ANOVA, multiple linear regression and bootstrapped mediation were used to analyse data. The frequency of exposure to dark pattern was high for all constructs (all construct means>3.50 on a 5-point scale). Perceived deception was best predicted by dark patterns (R² = 0.54) and the six dark-pattern dimensions were able to explain 67.6% of the variance in purchase influence, with the dimensions of interface interference and perceived deception being the top two predictors. The indirect effect of dark patterns on purchase influence was completely mediated by perceived deception (0.31; 95% CI [0.09, 0.53]), while perceived deception was a strong driver of purchase abandonment (R² = 0.38). The age and education, occupation and income factors, shopping frequency and platform all had significant differences in purchase influence, but not gender. The results could impact ecommerce platforms, online marketers, consumer protection bodies, and policy makers looking to create more transparent and consumer-friendly digital markets. 

E-commerce has grown rapidly and has changed the way consumers search, compare and buy products and services. Concurrently, e-commerce platforms increasingly are using designs for their interfaces that affect consumer choices in ways that are not obvious or consumer-favorable. This can be done through urgency cues, scarcity messages, hidden costs, confirmshaming, forced continuity, misleading visual hierarchies and difficult cancellation processes, and is known as dark patterns. This research investigates the effects of dark pattern on Indian consumers' purchase decision and perceived deception as a mediating construct. The design employed was quantitative, cross sectional and a structured online questionnaire consisting of 31 five point Likert items and seven questions related to demographic and shopping-behaviour data was filled out by 142 online shoppers. Descriptive statistics, Cronbach's alpha, Pearson correlation, chi-square tests, one-way ANOVA, multiple linear regression and bootstrapped mediation were used to analyse data. The frequency of exposure to dark pattern was high for all constructs (all construct means>3.50 on a 5-point scale). Perceived deception was best predicted by dark patterns (R² = 0.54) and the six dark-pattern dimensions were able to explain 67.6% of the variance in purchase influence, with the dimensions of interface interference and perceived deception being the top two predictors. The indirect effect of dark patterns on purchase influence was completely mediated by perceived deception (0.31; 95% CI [0.09, 0.53]), while perceived deception was a strong driver of purchase abandonment (R² = 0.38). The age and education, occupation and income factors, shopping frequency and platform all had significant differences in purchase influence, but not gender. The results could impact ecommerce platforms, online marketers, consumer protection bodies, and policy makers looking to create more transparent and consumer-friendly digital markets. 


Keywords

Dark patterns, perceived deception, consumer purchase decision, e-commerce, deceptive design, Indian consumers, digital marketing.



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References


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