In 2006, I bought a new motorcycle for U.S.$10,000, sight unseen except on the Internet, by credit card purchase from a dealer I had never visited located in a city 2,420 miles from my home. I hadn’t ridden a motorcycle in 33 years and it was a dangerous thing to do. The main danger lay in the e-retailing transaction rather than the cross-country motorcycle trip that followed. This was my first experience of substantial magnitude with e-commerce.
So much could have gone wrong. I had no basis for judging whether the dealer was honest or might use my credit card information for nefarious purposes. Perhaps, the information would be taken by hackers to run up a number of purchases before the credit card was shut down. Knowing that I would be away from home, the dealer, near the U.S. west coast, could have targeted my empty house for burglary by accomplices on the east coast. He could have given or sold my credit card information to others and I could have become a victim of identity theft. He might have withheld knowledge that the motorcycle had significant defects or claimed that it did and charged me for (un)necessary repairs. Because the motorcycle was from Japan I might have had no recourse. The defects could have occurred in manufacturing, in shipping, or at the dealer’s shop during assembly and preparation. Even if all went well, which it did, I might still have been disappointed because the Internet information I used in deciding to buy the motorcycle was false or misleading.
E-retailing has come a long way since 2006. Its benefits to consumers—convenience, choice, price, and the ease of comparing multiple sellers—are substantial and enable some e-retailers, such as Amazon in the United States, to thrive almost beyond imagination. E-retailing also promotes local, regional, and national economic growth, though often at a significant cost to brick and mortar commerce. But many of the pitfalls remain similar. The old aphorism, “Never buy a pig in a poke,” is still apt. When making e-retail purchases, consumers cannot use their five senses as they might in assessing products in a conventional store or marketplace. They cannot try on our out what they are buying. Neither can they make personal assessments of the sellers’ honesty the way they might in face-to-face interactions with them. Caveat emptor remains critical.
The main purpose of this wonderfully informative and insightful book is to improve e-retailing, especially from the consumers’ perspectives. Much of the focus is on ASEAN nations, which provides very valuable comparative analysis. The book consists of six succinct, yet comprehensive chapters including an introduction and conclusion. These cover the overall “issues associated with e-consumer protection,” “the current governance framework for e-consumer protection,” “a proposed governance framework for e-consumer protection,” and three case studies drawn on experiences in Singapore, Vietnam, and Malaysia followed by a conclusion drawing the entire book together.
Chapter 1 introduces the subject matter by defining e-retailing and outlining its advantages and disadvantages, e-consumer rights and protections, and governance for e-consumer protection.
Chapter 2 discusses the main problems associated with e-retailing. These include deceptive advertising, guarantee and warranty, unauthorized billing, late or non-delivery of products, wrong product delivery, shipping costs, poor quality of products and services, unclear price and payment, unclear terms and conditions, lack of information about redress, misleading information, security and privacy along with refunds, exchanges, and other redress, especially in cross- border transactions under different legal regimes. Additionally, as the chapter explains there are the collateral risks posed by exposure of personal and financial information by sophisticated schemes for phishing, pharming, smishing, vishing, breaching privacy, spam, spim, spyware, and the like.
Chapter 3 analyzes efforts to regulate e-retailing through a variety of approaches at the national, regional, and international levels. The chapter explains that both overregulation and underregulation are problematic and, accordingly, a complex balance of measures is necessary. Importantly, the chapter emphasizes how different nations adopt different balances and that compliance with guidelines and mandatory regulations is variable and cannot be assumed.
Chapter 4 is among the major contributions of this excellent book. It develops a proposed model of governance of e-retailing for improving consumer protection. Based on responsiveness, transparency, participation and inclusion, consulting and consensus building, and accountability—standard good governance criteria—this model beneficially adds e-consumer involvement to the extant structure of regulation by government, e-retailing businesses, and civil society organizations. The book contends “that e-consumers should be treated as a distinct sector in the governance framework to address e-consumer protection according to the principle of participation” because as “key actors in e-retailing, it is highly undesirable to omit them from any activities and programs which affect their well-being.” E-consumers’ roles in the proposed model include developing greater knowledge of how e-retailing operates, their rights, and their social responsibilities for improving it. The reality is that, collectively, e-consumers are the driving force of e-retailing; without them, it could not exist and, therefore, they are in a position to shape its existence.
Chapter 5 grounds and expands much of the foregoing analysis in case studies of e-retailing by Lazada, Shopee, and Zalora. Chapter 6 admirably brings the entire book together and calls for future research testing the proposed framework, exploring the role of media in improving e-retailing and e-consumer knowledge, and gaining a greater understanding of e-consumer behavior, especially with regard to protecting their own interests.
As the book explains, “many e-consumers may not practice sufficient self-protection when shopping online due to lack of awareness of online risk.” I was clearly in that category when I bought my motorcycle many years ago and thereafter. As with others who read this highly readable, enjoyable, and insightful book, I will never be in that category again. The more widely this outstanding book is read, the better e-retailing and the protection of e-consumers will be.
David H. Rosenbloom
Distinguished Professor of Public Administration and Editor-in-Chief, Routledge Public Administration and Public Policy Series
Department of Public Administration and Policy
School of Public Affairs
American University
Washington, DC, USA