According to Dutch governmental organisation Consuwijzer, e-commerce has caught up with physical stores in terms of the number of complaints. The consumers authority notes this evolution in its latest half-yearly report.
More complaints due to lack of regulations
Most of the complaints were related to the absence (or quality) of response when a customer complains, late deliveries and refusal to reimburse a refused product – even if the latter is made compulsory (within a period of two weeks) in a new EU directive.
The consumers authority notes the lack of regulation on starting a website as the main cause. Anyone can start a web shop, but if something goes wrong, consumers might have nowhere to turn to. The authority also claims that practices like these damage the general credibility of e-commerce quite badly.
Booming business
The organisation also notes a positive cause for the rise of e-commerce complaints: the simple fact that web shops are becoming ever more popular – and therefore, the chance that something goes wrong is rising too. According to Thuiswinkel.org, the Dutch association of web shops, e-commerce transactions have grown with 11% to total a turnover of 8.2 billion euro.
The consumers authority expects that the new European directives will help the market to deal with some of these problems that are typical of recently emerging markets. It also advises online consumers to search enough information before buying somewhere, and it vows to monitor web shops even more.
