The dark side of India’s digital gold rush

Digital commerce in India has become a theatre of quiet deception. Sellers cheat by design and, in the rush of a 10-minute grocery delivery, hundreds of millions of consumers rarely notice they are being fleeced.

In 1919, economist John Maynard Keynes marvelled at the Londoner who could order by phone “various products of the whole earth” from his bed, while sipping his morning tea. A century later, India has democratised this convenience through cheap smartphones and a national system of instant mobile payments, overtaking the US to emerge as the second-largest e-retail market after China by number of shoppers.