“Transparent Information - Safe Consumption” (Part 2): Building a transparent online business environment

The 4.0 industrial revolution has made online business through electronic platforms inevitable. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, e-commerce has continuously recorded remarkable growth, from 16 - 30%/year and is expected to reach a scale of 39 billion USD by 2025. However, besides the advantages, e-commerce activities also reveal limitations and shortcomings that make consumers hesitant. Establishing a transparent and trustworthy online business environment is an urgent requirement today.

“Transparent Information - Safe Consumption” (Part 2): Building a transparent online business environment Customers pay via digital application at Go! Thanh Hoa Supermarket.

Due to the busy nature of her job and frequent use of computers and phones, for many years now, Ms. Tran Thi P, Dong Hai Ward (Thanh Hoa City) has often bought goods online. From million-dollar items such as tape recorders, vacuum cleaners to clothes, cosmetics, books, and toys for her children, she has prioritized using this form of shopping. However, Ms. P said that she has often encountered "half-crying, half-laughing" situations when the quality of goods and product designs were not as expected, or even suspected of being fake. Recently, Ms. P saw an acquaintance in Hanoi "advertise" on her personal Facebook for a famous Japanese cosmetic product. According to the advertiser, a reputable cosmetic shop in Hanoi had promptly "hugged" sale items at preferential prices to Vietnam to thank customers. Believing that the product was recommended by a reputable person, Ms. P ordered 2 bottles of cosmetics at a price reduced by 80%, only 250,000 VND/bottle and did not check the goods before receiving them. When she had time to check, Ms. P saw that the product did not have a seal, and could not check the QR code. Suspecting that the product was fake, Ms. P did not dare to use the product and lost 500,000 VND.

In fact, it is quite common for consumers to buy unsatisfactory goods or goods that are far from the advertised ones when making transactions via e-commerce, especially when buying and selling goods via personal Facebook, TikTok... The reason is that many sellers have taken advantage of e-commerce activities to carry out business activities of selling counterfeit goods, poor quality goods, and goods that violate intellectual property rights.

In 2023, the authorities of Thanh Hoa province detected and handled 5,578 violations, with administrative fines of more than 58.3 billion VND. Many large and sophisticated cases in the field of e-commerce were detected and strictly handled, typically after more than 2 months of investigation, grasping the case, signs of violations on livestreams posted by the establishments, at the end of April 2023, under the direction of the General Department of Market Management, the Market Management Department of Thanh Hoa province coordinated with PC03, Thanh Hoa Provincial Police to inspect 5 warehouses on To Vinh Dien street (Bim Son town) owned by Ms. Truong Thi Lien. Here, the authorities discovered 5 warehouses with more than 12,000 products including fashion items, household items, shoes, cosmetics that were counterfeiting famous brands such as LV, Chanel, Zara, Gucci, Moschino... Along with that were hundreds of packaged orders waiting to be shipped across the country via express delivery services. According to inspections and records of the authorities through professional measures, this facility successfully closed thousands of orders every day, with sales of billions of VND every month.

According to the Department of Industry and Trade, recently, e-commerce has had new developments, associated with the formation of utilities to support consumers. Up to now, in the province, about 70% of enterprises use email in transaction activities and information exchange; 50% of enterprises have their own website, periodically update information on activities and promote products; 35% of enterprises participate in e-commerce websites to buy and sell products and services related to the production and business activities of the enterprise; 10% of enterprises apply specialized software in production and business management activities. Along with that, sales through personal social networks have also "exploded" strongly.

E-commerce transactions are developing rapidly, leading to many contents protecting the rights of consumers in e-commerce that need to be institutionalized. However, up to now, there are still no regulations on protecting the rights of consumers in e-commerce, causing specialized agencies, inspection and examination agencies to have no basis for thorough handling and still be confused in the process of implementing State management on protecting the rights of consumers.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the situation of receiving requests, feedback and complaints from consumers in recent years shows that requests, feedback and complaints from consumers in the field of e-commerce are increasing continuously. Some behaviors that are frequently reported and complained about include: Goods received are different from the advertisement; consumer transaction information is exploited by a third party to impersonate the delivery; automatic cancellation of orders; consumers cannot buy goods at the advertised price or accompanying promotional goods; selling counterfeit goods, used goods, goods of unknown origin, infringing intellectual property rights; prolonging the time to resolve complaints...

According to the representative of the Provincial Market Management Department - the Standing agency of the Provincial Steering Committee 389, e-commerce has been posing many new challenges for functional forces in the fight against counterfeit goods and protecting consumers. In particular, the development of e-commerce has changed the structure of business sectors as well as created many new business trends and consumer habits, especially cross-border transactions and transactions on digital economic platforms. New business-consumer relations need to be supplemented with legal regulations and increased sanctions for violations of consumer rights to deter and form healthy and sustainable production-business-consumption relations.

According to this unit, to develop the e-commerce market in parallel with the trust factor, in addition to inspection, examination and supervision, to strengthen consumer protection in e-commerce, perfecting competition law as well as perfecting legal regulations on protecting consumer rights, building rules and standards for doing business in the online environment is extremely urgent.

Currently, the National Competition Commission (Ministry of Industry and Trade) is developing a set of criteria for businesses for consumers in the field of e-commerce. The draft set of criteria includes many legal regulations related to protecting consumer rights in e-commerce transactions, specific transactions as well as codes of conduct, policies, and positive commercial practices drawn from business practices of businesses and entities participating in e-commerce activities. However, to protect their own rights, along with the improvement of the legal system, consumers should participate in shopping through e-commerce applications on reputable websites that have been notified or registered with competent State agencies; promptly inform and denounce to competent authorities cases of online goods trading that violate the provisions of law for timely prevention and handling.

Article and photos: Minh Hang

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