At least 17 e-commerce platforms have joined hands to form a cooperative mechanism to deal with consumer complaints. (Photo : REUTERS)
The China Consumers Association has initiated new measures to make it quicker and better for online shopping consumers to have their complaints resolved in the future, CRIENGLISH reported.
According to an announcement of the association on Tuesday, March 15, at least 17 e-commerce platforms have joined together to form a cooperative mechanism to deal with consumer complaints.
Under the new mechanism, if a complaint involves any of the online sellers from the 17 e-commerce platforms, the complaint will be sent directly to the platform's after-sale system and will be prioritized for action.
The report said that some popular e-commerce platforms, such as JD.com, Taobao.com and Vip.com, have joined in the cooperative mechanism.
Consumers often find it hard to protect their rights when issues arise since online shopping often involves consumers and sellers in different places. But with the establishment of the new cooperative mechanism, the problem is expected to be resolved.
As China celebrates World Consumer Rights Day on March 15, media focused on counterfeits from online shops.
The China Consumers Association said that 26.2 percent of consumers who did online shopping have encountered shopping conflicts last year.
For two consecutive years, e-commerce sites in the services sector received the most complaints from consumers, according to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce last week, China Daily reported on March 16.
The administration said that last year, some 145,800 individual consumer complaints were received, an increase of 87.3 percent year-on-year, with poor product quality and misleading advertising as the leading causes.
The report said that the administration has conducted several campaigns last year to crack down on fake goods sold online and to better regulate China's online market, which included the shutting down 1,134 online shops and the removal of 75,000 illegal products from the list.
