The Dark Side Of Festive Sales, Another Zaggle Acquisition & More

Dark Patterns Haunt Ecommerce Sales

India’s ecommerce giants are raking in the moolah this festive season with over $11.5 Bn in GMV since the beginning last week. 

But behind the flashy discounts and countdown timers lurks a persistent menace: dark patterns. 

From basket sneaking to bait-and-switch pricing, ecommerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart are deploying various strategies that are designed specifically to nudge shoppers into buying faster, adding more products to their carts, and even inserting products and services surreptitiously without alerting customers clearly.

The Festive Trap: In the recent weeks, Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra and others have been called out by users for practices ranging from auto-added “Trust Shield” charges and misleading discounts to false urgency via recycled timers and “only X left” alerts.

Even as Amazon was fined $2.5 Bn by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for mis-selling, in India, the larger ecommerce market, there are no rules for ecommerce dark patterns. 

Instead, companies such as Flipkart declared themselves free of dark patterns after conducting self audits. But is this actually the reality?

Data from LocalCircles suggests only 3% of ecommerce platforms in India don’t have any visible or apparent dark pattern usage. 

The Fallout: With millions of users shopping under pressure, the consequences are also piling up, cancelled iPhone orders, delayed refunds, hidden fees, and regulatory red flags. While the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has cracked down on isolated cases like drip pricing, systemic enforcement still remains weak.

Notably, this is especially when even government backed websites like IRCTC have a dark pattern where travel insurance is often auto-selected during ticket booking, requiring passengers to manually deselect it.

As the world’s second-largest ecommerce market, India needs clear and specific guidelines; not just self-audits, claim experts. They also say regulators need more teeth to curb manipulation by ecommerce giants — not just during the festive sales bonanza. 

Find out as we peek at the dark side of the festive season sales… 

From The Editor’s Desk

Spinny Cuts FY25 Loss: The used car ecommerce startup has trimmed its net loss by 28% to INR 423.8 Cr in FY25 from INR 590.3 Cr loss incurred in the previous fiscal year. The loss declined due to the startup’s strong top line which grew 25%  YoY to INR 4,656.1 Cr. 

Zaggle’s Latest Acquisition: The fintech SaaS company has announced its plans to acquire the golf-centric corporate engagement company in a INR 25 Cr deal to strengthen its product offerings This year Zaggle has made three acquisitions including Rio.Money, Dice and Effiasoft.  

WeWork India IPO Countdown: The coworking space provider has set a price band of INR 615 to INR 648 for its IPO which is set to open on October 3. At the upper price band of the IPO, the company would be valued at INR 8,684 Cr. 

Recur Club Bags $50 Mn: The debt marketplace has raised the latest round in a mix of equity and debt led by InfoEdge Ventures. The Delhi NCR-based startup connects enterprises with lenders via its AI-led matchmaking tech stack. 

BigBasket’s Big Question: Tata Digital-run BigBasket is in the throes of deepening losses, shrinking revenues, and crumbling user base, while rumours of churn in the top deck are fanning out. We look at how the company can regain its glory.

X To Challenge HC: The social media major said that it will appeal against the Karnataka HC ruling that dismissed its challenge to India’s content takedown framework. In March, the company moved the HC against the Centre, challenging the IT Act to block content.

YouTube Goes Lite In India:  The streaming giant has introduced a subscription plan priced at INR 89 per month to better monetise its presence in India. The platform counts India as its largest market in 2025 with about 491 Mn total users in the country. 

Meet India’s Highest Paid Founders: Forty nine founders of 27 Indian startups earned a staggering INR 851.5  Cr in cumulative remuneration in FY25. Groww founders Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Ishan Bansal and Neeraj Singh are taking home the highest pay cheques in FY25. 

Inc42 Startup Spotlight

Can Spike AI Become Marketers’ Autonomous Brain? 

About 80% of marketers believe that their lead generation is slightly or somewhat effective, with half of them blaming the poor quality of data as the biggest hurdle.

San Francisco-based Spike AI is filling this gap with the help of its intelligent marketing solutions. 

Spike’s Autonomous Platform: The startup has built an intelligent marketing platform called Marketing AGI (MAGI), which is an autonomous platform to replace fragmented tools with a single, self-driving intelligence.

The platform continuously analyses various marketing channels of enterprises and deployed real-time improvements across websites, SEO, paid media, and email.

Early Impact: The 2024-founded startup claims that its customers have seen a conversion boost of 40%. The startup earns via subscriptions with its basic plan starting from $3,000 (about INR 2.6 Lakh).  

With the growing demand for data driven solutions and unified platforms, can Spike AI cash on the global digital advertising and marketing market projected to reach $1.5 Tn by 2030?