Fomca: Local e-commerce industry expected to hit RM13.3b by 2018

PETALING JAYA: The Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations (Fomca) revealed that by next year the local e-commerce industry is expected to hit RM13.3 billion.
Its deputy president Mohd Yusof Abdul Rahman said that the positive growth is mainly attributed to the various initiatives and support systems that are widely available to consumers as well as those that are underway.
“However, although the industry’s outlook is relatively positive, consumers on the other hand are exposed to various risks due to the nature of online shopping particularly when the highest complaints that the National Consumer Complaints Centre (NCCC) had received in 2014 and 2015 is mostly on e-commerce or online shopping.
“Most of the complaints revolved around the issue of insufficient disclosure on business terms and conditions like refund policies, product quality, inconsistent return policies, poor customer service, items received does not tally with items purchased, and problems with returning wrongly described or faulty products,” Mohd Yusof said during a press conference today.
To address this, Mohd Yusof said more regulatory and constant enforcement attention as well as changes should be made from time to time in order to keep up with the rapid changes in technology.
“For that, we (Fomca and NCCC) have sent a memorandum to the government last year suggesting certain changes that ought to be made to some of the existing laws in order to safeguard the interest of Malaysia’s e-consumers.
“Some of the suggestions include extending the existing cooling off period of 10 days to 14 days, more awareness programmes informing the public of their rights and having a platform to be established within e-commerce practitioners’ site so that buyers can comment about the product purchased,” he added.
At the same time, Mohd Yusof revealed that to further enhance consumer protection across borders, both Fomca and NCCC have also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Japan’s National Consumer Organisations, National Consumer Affairs Center (NCAC), and Singapore’s Consumer Association (Case).
“With this, consumers and tourists from the participating countries would no longer have any issue finding solutions for any of their purchased products,” he explained.