Zepto CEO Admits ‘mistake’ on dark patterns, says features now scrapped

Quick-commerce platform Zepto’s co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha has acknowledged that the company “made a mistake” with certain app design decisions flagged as dark patterns.

He asserted that the practices were rolled back voluntarily after negative consumer feedback.

In an interview with Forbes, Palicha said some of Zepto’s experiments around delivery fees and pricing “weren’t received well”, adding that the criticism was “valid”.

“There wasn’t any regulatory angle to it—it had nothing to do with government intervention,” he said. “We just felt it wasn’t the right thing for consumers… I’ll be candid: It was a mistake. We killed it. It won’t happen again.”

His remarks come at a time when the government has tightened scrutiny of manipulative interface designs.

The Consumer Affairs Ministry and the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) have warned e-commerce companies against dark patterns that nudge users into unintended purchases or actions.

Guidelines issued on November 30, 2023, identified 13 types of dark patterns, including basket sneaking, confirm shaming, forced actions, interface interference, bait-and-switch, drip pricing, and subscription billing traps.

In June, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) directed e-commerce platforms to conduct self-audits within three months to identify and eliminate "dark patterns" and deceptive design practices that mislead consumers into unintended actions.

The Consumer Affairs Ministry said all e-commerce platforms must examine their interfaces for practices that undermine consumer choice or constitute unfair trade practices.

Zepto recently overhauled parts of its user interface after customers flagged concerns. The company redesigned its checkout flow to show all charges upfront instead of revealing them at the final stage. It also changed how the free-delivery benefit works.

Earlier, users had to manually opt in, a feature criticised as being misleading. The benefit is now auto-applied, in line with industry standards.

Palicha, however, emphasised that the rollback was driven internally. “We want to be a customer-centric company. When we started getting consistent negative feedback from consumers, we realised this isn’t who we are,” he said.