A lack of confidence is holding back China's e-commerce
development according to survey findings released yesterday.
The survey, sponsored by the China Electronic Commerce
Association (CECA), identifies 36.3 percent of Chinese companies
with experience in online trading as not trusting e-commerce. For
consumers the figure stands at 13.3 percent. Rampant fraud led 23.5
percent of Chinese companies to list trustworthiness as their
biggest concern about online trading.
An earlier report by the China Internet Network Information
Center found 71.1 percent of Chinese Internet users, who'd yet to
buy or sell something online, were wary of fraud.
"A lack of mutual trust between sellers and buyers has become
the biggest bottleneck to the rapid growth of e-commerce in China,"
said Zhao Yinhu, vice-president of CECA at the opening in Beijing
yesterday of the Ninth China International E-commerce
Conference.
In response to the concerns Chinese e-commerce companies have
launched evaluation schemes to rate sellers' reputations in online
commerce.
Before starting online transactions CECA's survey found that
64.2 percent of Chinese consumers and 71.1 percent of enterprises
check the sellers' record of previous buyers'
feedback.
However, despite the increasing use of evaluation schemes 40.3
percent of enterprise purchasers still fail to give feedback to
sellers after completing transactions, Zhao said. "If such a
practice continues an effective evaluation mechanism will hardly be
established," observed Zhao.
Inadequate security for online payments and ineffective laws and
regulations had also led a large number of consumers and
enterprises to shun online commerce, said Zhao.
(China Daily September 5, 2006)