While many sectors and industries have been badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, e-retailing is one of the booming sectors during this period. Even before the global pandemic, the e-retailing sector was already booming with the online retail sales being forecasted to reach several trillions by 2023. Although e-retailing offers many opportunities for businesses and consumers, there are several issues associated with e-consumer protection, that is, consumers face various types of risk, such as insufficient information about transactions, unsecured online payment modes, privacy and security, inaccessible redress mechanism, goods not delivered, or defective goods received.
This book aims to examine how consumers are protected on the online marketplace in the context of ASEAN countries, and what are the challenges of e-consumer protection in the digital era. Specifically, this project aims to:
(i) Discuss the six issues of e-consumer protection, including issues associated with information about transaction, product quality, privacy, security, redress, and jurisdiction.
(ii) Examine the policy/governance approach adopted by the public sector, the private sector, and the third sector to address the issues associated with e-consumer protection.
(iii) Propose a multisector governance framework for e-consumer protection.
Three short case studies on Lazada in Singapore, Shopee in Vietnam, and Zalora in Malaysia are included to illustrate how well-known e-retailers protect their e-customers. This book aims to provide sources of information and knowledge which focus on both theoretical and practical aspects of e-consumer protection. The book is significant for the following reasons. First, it is interdisciplinary in nature, including research on consumer protection, governance, management, and policy/regulation. Second, the views from different groups of stakeholders in different sectors are incorporated in the discussion in order to produce comprehensive findings and analysis of the governance and management process, best practices, and implementation to address issues associated with e-consumer protection. Finally, the proposed book presents research on e-consumer protection in different countries in ASEAN.
Keywords
e-consumer protection; multisector governance; e-retailing; e-retailers; industry association; information disclosure; self-regulation; privacy; security; redress; jurisdiction; ASEAN