The State Administration for Market Regulation ("SAMR") has recently issued the Opinions on Working Effectively on the Registration of E-commerce Business Operators (the "Opinions").
The Opinions state that, an e-commerce business operator shall register itself as a market player according to law; where an e-commerce business operator opts to register itself as a privately-owned business, it is allowed to register its online business place as the site for business operations; a privately-owned business that registers the online business place as its site for business operations will only be allowed to carry out business activities on the internet and is prohibited from changing the use of its residential house for the purpose of conducting offline production and business activities without authorization, and is required to make a commitment in this regard. In addition, the Opinions explicitly state that, an e-commerce platform operator shall report to the market regulator information regarding the identification of business operators on its platform, as required by relevant provisions, and remind those business operators that have not yet been registered as market players, to handle the registration according to law. Furthermore, the Opinions require that, an e-commerce business operator shall, in a prominent position on its homepage, consistently make public information about its business license, or information indicating that it does not need to register as a market player according to provisions of Article 10 of the E-commerce Law, or a link for such information.