Complaint centre for online consumers
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THE OFFICE of Electronic Transactions Promotion under the Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA) will open an online complaint centre to give netizens more confidence in shopping online.
The agency will also launch a green e-commerce project to support small and medium enterprises, transforming their traditional business into a new, modern online business. The agency expects to usher about 400 SMEs to the online business this year.
Ratthasart Korrasud, senior director, said last week that the online complaint centre (OCC) would also help boost customer satisfaction and consumer protection.
Under the OCC, which will be announced by the end of this month, the ETDA will work with other government agencies such as the Consumer Protection Board and Technology Crime Suppression Police to solve problems stemming from products and services ordered via e-commerce or the online sales channel.
The corporation expects to provide a service level agreement to get back to customers within seven days per case. It also expects to slash online complaints about orders by half. The agency will move towards online dispute resolution in a couple years.
For SMEs, the ETDA will provide training to about 10,000 firms and consulting in areas such as online marketing.
The green e-commerce project will recruit members |for a e-directory at www.thaiemarket.com to support businesses and customers that want to search for and access information on SMEs. It has more than 100 members now and expects to reach over 400 members by year-end.
“The e-commerce market in Thailand is growing, since customers prefer much more to purchase products online. The agency tries to facilitate traditional businesses entering the online business,” he said.
The agency is also pushing for amendments to three laws related to e-commerce – the Electronic Transaction Act, Cyber Crime Act and Privacy Act – to increase the confidence of customers and firms in doing business via online networks. The agency expects the three new laws to be announced in three months.
“We try to push and facilitate businesses so that they can run and bring out their new products and services on time,” he said.
However, the National Statistical Office has reported that the e-commerce market in Thailand expanded 2.2 per cent to Bt768 billion last year, of which business to government was Bt347 billion, business to business Bt238 billion and business to customer Bt182 billion.
The market is expected to accelerate by 10 per cent this year.
From 2013-17, the e-commerce market in Asean will growth about 25 per cent annually since Asean counties are adopting the online channel.
