Background: The rapid growth of e-commerce has heightened the need for consumer-grievance mechanisms that are readily available to the public. This research paper is focused on the analysis of how certain e-commerce complaints are reported to the various reporting channels of India's National Consumer Helpline (NCH) as a study span covering two years, 2021 to 2025.
Methods: The study was conducted using official consumer administrative records, in particular the Department of Consumer Affairs under the Indian Government, which documented 44,737 NCH complaints against misleading advertisements as well as the distribution of counterfeit or low-quality goods. The descriptive study included the counting of annual frequencies and the calculation of percentage shares. For making inferences, the tools chosen consist of Pearson's chi-square test, Cramer's V, and adjusted standardized residuals. For the first period of five years, the main investigation was limited to the five modes identified in this paper that were consistently present during the study period. In contrast, a separate analysis covering 2024-2025 incorporated WhatsApp once it became available.
Results: Composition by reporting method had evolved much throughout time. Web contributed 44.81% and 24.88% of grievances in the years 2021 and 2025 respectively, whereas Phone mode of reporting grew from 11.96% in 2021 to 43.43% in 2025. The NCH App decreased from 31.69% in 2021 to 5.99% in 2025 when newly introduced, WhatsApp accounted for 6.26% of grievances in 2023 while reaching 21.42% by 2025. Results of the principal analysis showed a strong relation between the year and the reporting mode, χ² (16, N = 38,193) = 8,572.95, p <.001, Cramer's V = 0.237. Restriction on 2024-2025 periods also revealed a notable change, χ² (5, N = 24,820) = 3,048.91, p <.001, Cramer's V = 0.350.
Conclusion: There was a notable shift of NCH complaint registrations on various channels from reporting modes during 2021, 2025, mainly to Phone channel in 2025. These changes point to the developing use patterns within a public complaint-handling multichannel system, but they must not be seen as concrete proof of public preference or efficiency of different complaint channels.