Online merchants are being urged to apply for Department of Business Development (DBD) trustmarks to create online identities and ensure consumer confidence in their shops and product quality.
According to Deputy Commerce Minister Sinit Lertkrai, the Covid-19 outbreaks resulted in massive growth of online business in Thailand the past couple of years as people stayed at home to avoid the risk of infection.
Even as outbreaks are easing, he said online business is still flourishing because of its convenience through the use of e-payment and delivery services, while competition has improved quality and prices.
A number of delivery service providers and merchants opted to open online business.
Mr Sinit said to build a profitable, sustainable business over the long run, e-merchants need prudent marketing strategies including real-time communications systems with customers and efforts that engender trust in their shops.
"The Department of Business Development created two types of e-commerce trustmarks in Thailand to help e-commerce businesses gain credibility and customer trust: DBD Registered and DBD Verified," he said.
"To ensure confidence in their shops and product quality, e-merchants should apply for those certification marks."
Trustmarks help customers decide which businesses are trustworthy, said Mr Sinit.
DBD Registered certifies that the merchant, either an ordinary or juristic person, has successfully registered online business operations with the DBD and that sales of products or services can occur online.
DBD Verified is only given to a juristic person that has registered its online business operations and met all qualifications and criteria specified by the department for certifying the reliability of electronic business operations.
The reliability level of DBD Verified is higher than DBD Registered.
According to the Electronic Transactions Development Agency, Thailand's e-commerce grew by 6.11% in 2021 from the previous year to 4.01 trillion baht.
Business-to-consumer e-commerce accounted for 50.6% of the total value at 2.03 trillion baht, with business-to-business tallying 27.2%, valued at 1.09 trillion baht, while business-to-government made up 22.2%, valued at 890 billion baht.
E-commerce from retail and wholesale tallied 1.63 trillion baht, representing 52.1% of the total e-commerce value.
Southeast Asia's internet economy is forecast to triple to US$300 billion by 2025 from the end of 2020, according to a report from Google, Temasek and Bain & Company.
