'Was a mistake': Zepto's Aadit Palicha accepts experimenting with delivery fees after removing it

Aadit Palicha, co-founder and CEO of Zepto, while addressing the controversy over pricing admitted to using dark patterns, adding that they have, however, decided to kill it following the backlash.

"I think we ran experiments on delivery fees and pricing—we tried different approaches and figured things out. A lot of it wasn’t received well on social media or by consumers, and honestly, much of the feedback was valid. There wasn’t any regulatory angle to it—it had nothing to do with government intervention. We just felt it wasn’t the right thing for consumers. The feedback was negative so we voluntarily decided to roll it back. Within 45–60 days, we had addressed it and moved on," Palicha told Forbes India.

"Things like the expired product issue were a bit blown out of proportion. But the dark patterns concern was something we genuinely could have solved—and we did. I’ll be candid: It was a mistake. We killed it. It won’t happen again," added Palicha.


Dark patterns refer to manipulative and deceptive design practices deployed by ecommerce, quick commerce and ride-hailing companies on their apps to trick users into making unintended purchases or make it difficult for them to unsubscribe from membership programmes. On June 7, the Centre issued an advisory asking companies to conduct self-audits to identify dark patterns and take necessary steps to remove such practices. This followed a meeting between Union consumer affairs minister Pralhad Joshi and multiple internet companies, including Swiggy, Zomato and Blinkit parent Eternal, Flipkart, BigBasket, Tata 1mg, Ola and Rapido.

Recently, the quick commerce platform Zepto eliminated all handling fees and surge charges while significantly reducing its minimum order value for free delivery. This move comes after the company closed a substantial $450 million funding round.