Lack of trust stifles online trade
By Zi Mu (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-05 09:10
A trust crisis is stifling China's e-commerce boom, according to a survey
released yesterday.
The survey, sponsored by the China Electronic
Commerce Association (CECA), showed 36.3 per cent of Chinese companies with
experience in online trading don't trust e-commerce. For consumers, the figure
stands at 13.3 per cent.
Rampant online fraud has led 23.5 per cent of
Chinese companies to list trustworthiness as their biggest concern about online
trading.
An earlier report by the China Internet Network Information
Centre found 71.1 per cent of Chinese Internet users, who have yet to buy or
sell something online, are wary of online 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 Ninth
China International E-commerce Conference, which opened in Beijing
yesterday.
In response, Chinese e-commerce companies have launched some
evaluation schemes to rate sellers' reputations in online
commerce.
CECA's survey found that 64.2 per cent of Chinese consumers and
71.1 per cent of enterprises, before starting online transactions, check the
sellers' record of previous buyers' feedback.
However, despite the
increasing use of evaluation schemes, 40.3 per cent of enterprise buyers still
fail to give feedback to sellers after completing the transactions, Zhao
said.
"If such a practice continues, an effective evaluation mechanism
will hardly be established," he said.
Inadequate security for online
payments and ineffective laws and regulations have also led a large number of
consumers and enterprises to shun online commerce, said Zhao.
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
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