It is believed that Nigeria’s eCommerce sector is estimated to worth about $13 billion, with over 400, 000 orders daily.
It has players including Konga, which recently merged operations with Yudala. Other operators include Jumia, Gloo.ng, Dealdey, Kaymu, Wakanow, among others.
The need for a regulatory framework, according to industry watchers, was borne out of the need to improve the level of customers trust and ensure quality for money spent.
The Director-General, SON, Mr Osita Anthony Aboloma, who was represented by the Director, Corporate Affairs, Dr. Paul Angya, said the promotion of awareness on standards and quality regulation in the E-Commerce sector has become necessary as the drive for digitalised market places increase and the pressure on the standards community mounts.
According to him, these require that all stakeholders reckon fully with the realities of the competitive and fast-paced global economy.
He noted that with the increasing volumes of consumer complaints being received on the quality of products sold online by SON, CPC and other sister regulatory agencies, it has become necessary to have a robust regulatory framework in place for this sector.
He said products like mobile phones; electrical and electronic devices cannot be physically viewed and tested before purchase online, while the claims on what they can do have been found in many cases to be inaccurate or sometimes outrightly false.
Mr Tersoo Orngudwem, SON Director, Product Compliance Directorate (PCD), said eCommerce as an application of the Internet technology was accelerating in its growth and reaching out to the huge market, but that the law was needed to set the standards in commerce, regulate social order, safeguard reasonable consumer expectation in cyberspace and impose punishment for anti-social behavior.
Orngudwem noted that standards are needed to prescribe the limits to permissible conduct which are to be applied according to the circumstances of each case.
“Stringent security requirements must be in place to protect companies from threats like publishing attacks (credit card fraud), data errors or they risk jeopardising revenue and customer trust, due to the inability to guarantee safe credit card processin,” he stated.
In his own contribution, the Director-General, CPC, Mr Babatunde Irukera, said that the eCommerce sector needed stronger regulations to stay afloat and service effectively.
Irukera, who wanted eCommerce operators to have a stand alone customer unit, said this would aid complaint resolution mechanism.
Accordingly, he said there must be full product disclosure; transparent and factural advertising and warranty information; timely delivery of claims, right to privacy of consumers, among others.
Participants at the forum raised issues including underhand dealings by vendors; delay in delivery of shopped items; fictitious items, withholding of consumer funds in botched transactions, among others.
In the Communique issued at the end of the forum, it was agreed that Local content development should be given adequate attention and protection so as to develop the local economy; need to define new or review existing penalties to financial service providers for withholding of consumer funds in botched transaction by financial service providers.
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