National e-commerce strategy for Fiji still in progress

A PARTNERSHIP signed to strengthen the Pacific digital economy program and a national e-commerce strategy for Fiji is in the pipeline and this is the time for discussions on key concerns for Fiji’s future with e-commerce.

Vodafone head of e-commerce and digital financial services Shailendra Prasad raised such a concern saying, “many people prefer buying and selling their products on social media, but there is no way to vet or verify whether they are genuine sellers or will be in the market for the long haul.”

“Some people create this business online that really doesn’t exist. But because now there’s an ability for these businesses to receive money through mobile wallets, they ask people to send money into their personal accounts and people believe that they may be genuine, that goes online and they send them the money, and these fake vendors then disappear from the scene with the money,” he elaborated.

Mr Prasad believes that while discussing an e-commerce strategy, one of the elements in need of addressing is how to build trust with consumers in terms of whether those who are selling things online are genuine vendors and will deliver the promised goods and services.

“And one of the ways to do that would be to have an agency, through the Ministry of Trade or some separate authority, under which all the merchants who wish to sell online are given some sort of accreditation, that they have gone through a certain checklist in terms of who the business owner is, where they’re operating from, what sort of capability they have to provide their goods and services.”

While social media sales may be near impossible to monitor, the uplifting and popularising of e-commerce platforms may be a possible solution.

As of February 2023, Vodafone’s VitiKart has about 120 local businesses operating via the platform and reportedly has very few complaints.

“We do our own due diligence,” Mr Prasad said.

“We actually vet who they are, we sign the commercial onboarding agreement and there are clearly stipulated terms and conditions, such as if we receive several complaints against you from customers we can take you off the platform.”