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A number of federal regulatory agencies on goods and services have teamed up to seek for immediate regulation of the trending electronic commerce (e-Commerce) sub-sector to check fakery and inconclusive deliveries after payments.

The consensus was reached in Lagos by participants at a stakeholders’ forum with the theme: ‘The Role of Standards and Quality Regulation in Electronic Commerce’, organised by the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON).

Other agencies that supported the move at the forum include the Consumer Protection Council (CPC), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), and others.

Already, Nigeria’s e-Commerce sector is estimated to worth $13billion, with over 400,000 orders daily. It has players including Konga, which recently merged operations with Yudala. Other operators include Jumia, Gloo.ng, Dealdey, Kaymu, Wakanow, and a host of many others.

However, many have gone extinct due to poor management and inability to withstand competition which is yet to be regulated.

Among those that have either closed shop or are having stressful outlook include Efritin.com, OLX and others.

Many Nigerians who are conversant with the trade say the most dangerous challenge of the sector which need to be regulated include insecurity of staff especially during the course of delivering goods to the doorsteps of buyers.

It would be recalled that several months ago, a staff of Jumia was killed in Port Harcourt by the customer that ordered for an iPhone product.

Similar act was also executed recently in Lagos where the culprit was arrested somewhere in Edo State, after killing the victim.

The story of how a house help deal brokered by OLX led to the kidnapping of some children in Lagos.

In his opening remarks, the Director-General of SON, Chief Osita Aboloma, represented by the Director, Corporate Affairs, Dr. Paul Angya, made it clear that “The need for a regulatory framework was borne from the need to improve the level of customers trust, and ensure quality for money spent in the sub-sector”.

He argued that the promotion of awareness on standards and quality regulation in the e-Commerce sector has become necessary, as the drive for digitalised market places increase, and the pressure on the standards community mounts.

Aboloma noted that with the increasing volumes of consumer complaints being received on the quality of products sold online by the SON, CPC, and other sister regulatory agencies, it has become necessary to have a robust regulatory framework in place for the sector.

According to him, “Products like mobile phones; electrical and electronic devices cannot be physically viewed and tested before purchase online, while the claims on what they can do have been found in many cases to be inaccurate, or sometimes out-rightly false”.

In his presentation, the Director-General of CPC, Babatunde Irukera, said the e-Commerce sector needed stronger regulations to stay afloat and offer services effectively,” stressing that e-Commerce operators need to have a standalone customer unit in order to aid complaint resolution mechanism.

Besides, he called for full product disclosure; transparent and factual advertising and warranty information; timely delivery of claims, right to privacy of consumers, among others for the sector to stand the test of time and growth.

Explaining more, Director, Product Compliance Directorate at SON, Tersoo Orngudwem, averred that “e-Commerce as an application of the Internet technology is accelerating fast, and reaching out to the huge market, but the law is needed to set the standards in commerce. The law will further regulate social order, safeguard reasonable consumer expectation in cyberspace, and impose punishment for anti-social behavior”.

“Standards are needed to prescribe the limits to permissible conduct, which are to be applied according to the circumstances of each case.

“Stringent security requirements must be in place to protect companies from threats like publishing attacks (credit card fraud), data errors or they risk jeopardising revenue and customer trust, due to the inability to guarantee safe credit card processing.

He argued that time has come for operators to come up with technologies that can provide relevant real-time information between retailer and consumer

SON director added that “Currently, the Internet and its various ecommerce mutations are a very chaotic system. Standards will provide some structure to this chaos. It is expected that this structure will reduce uncertainty and variance in the system, thus boosting organisational and consumer confidence in the system.”