Recently, the General Office of the Ministry of Commerce ("MOFCOM") and the General Office of the Standardization Administration of China ("SAC") have jointly issued the Guidelines for the Standardization of Online Retails (the "Guidelines").
The Guidelines set forth the objective that the time effectiveness, comprehensiveness and applicability of standards for key fields will be significantly increased, and relevant standards will play a much stronger role in respect of online retailers' subject responsibilities, transaction behavior, the market order, competitive environment, quality of services, authentication and monitoring, quality traceability, and credibility construction, by the year 2020. To achieve this end, the Guidelines establish eight major tasks at three levels. First, at the level of general foundations, it is proposed to reinforce the development of standards for the management of online retails data and for the credit system; second, for better operating services, it is required to step up forming standards in respect of the mutual recognition of online retail e-permits, improvement of express delivery and logistics, and online payment security; and third, as to the supervision and administration, more efforts shall be made to work out standards for the administration of the quality of online retail commodities traded online, the safe consumption, and the protection of intellectual property rights.