Name: Lê Nguyễn Anh Vũ

Class: High quality Bachelor of Law 33

Subject:

THESIS STATEMENT

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or electronic

business, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic
systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. Since the very first
development in the late 1970s1, it has become an important sector and played a major role
in the world’s economy. According to recent statistics2, the e-commerce market
worldwide has the growth rates around 70% per year and reached nearly 4,000 billion US
dollars in 2005. In Vietnam, as forecasted by the local industry experts, after the Law on
Electronic Transactions took effect in March 2006, e-commerce has been developing
strongly3 along with the widespread of internet usage. This can be showed by the amount
of trade conducted electronically recently and the continuous presence of many new
shopping online forms. Among them is the collective buying (group buying), one of the
latest trends in Web commerce around the globe.
Collective buying, which traces its origins back to 2000 4 in the USA, is a way to
use the Web to get a volume discount: “Groups of consumers will band together to buy a
particular good, and manufacturers will be forced to offer wholesale prices to these
groups”5. It’s truly a win-win-win business model. The customers could buy the products
at lower price, “the merchants is selling product at the volume they desire”6 (they set the
quantity of people who have to agree to buy) and approach their online marketing
purpose while the services suppliers (website owners) get interest from the discount.
Vietnamese e-shoppers, certainly, are not the trend-outsider. From the late 2010 to
now, Vietnam has witnessed the burst-out of collective buying wave: more than 30
entrepreneurs built their websites for this kind of business7, which attracted a keep-
growing quantity of internet users, especially the office workers and the youth. On the
one hand, many people could save a lot of money from it especially in the economic
crisis times. On the other hand, many legal issues have also arose and set out the need for
it to be considered deliberately:

1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_commerce. Last visited on 30/04/2011
2
http://tuangisni.blogspot.com/2010/03/thong-ke-ve-giao-dich-thuong-mai-ien-tu.html. Last visited on 30/04/2011
3
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200602/09/eng20060209_241189.html. Last visited on 30/04/2011
4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_buying. Last visited on 30/04/2011
5
http://www.slate.com/id/86925/. Last visited on 30/04/2011
6
http://www.onemoneydesign.com/groupon-others-offer-collective-buying-power/#ixzz1L0mIllN0. Last visited on
30/04/2011
7
http://www.baomoi.com/Mua-hang-theo-nhom-Con-sot-moi/45/5544917.epi. Last visited on 30/04/2011
 Firstly, the role of laws is to regulate social relations according to the will of the
State and the ruling class. The appearance and fast growing of collective buying as a new
social relation in Vietnam requires for that regulating role: Laws must recognize the
basics and then ensure its development. Besides, there exists a gap between statues and
practice: this new kind of web commerce and promoting activities such as discount by
offering vouchers are not stipulated in the current legislations such as Civil Code 2005,
Commercial Law 2005, the Law on Electronic Transactions 2005, Ordinance on
Advertising 2001… as well as in the documents guiding them. In other words, laws can’t
keep up with the development of life in the case of collective buying.
Secondly, despite the short period of adoption and development to the country,
this trend of web-commerce reveals many shortcomings in practice. Many customers
didn’t received goods or services at the quality described in the offers/contracts. In fact,
the right of consumers has not been guaranteed effectively since they must sign and being
legally bound to the model contract which aims at protecting and helping to exempt the
merchants and the service suppliers from legal liabilities.
Moreover, the websites owner has also sell the customer’s information to others.
So the question raised before us is: Does this action violate the privacy right of the
citizens in general and the customers in particular?
In commercial transactions, payment is a sensitive issue because it related to the
essential interests of both parties. When commercial activities are conducted online,
the electronic payment method is also different from traditional one. Due to the lack of
governing laws and the application the modern forms of online payment, the performace
of collective buying in practice recently faces many problems especially from the
payment as well as the dilivery process. Therefore, finding out the solutions (both
technique and legal) for the electronic payment is very important to create conditions
for business e-commerce goes smoothly.
Lastly, collective buying which is booming in Vietnam for nearly two years is not
a temporary but an inevitable trend in web-commerce in the near future due to its
economic benefits and the popularization of e- shopping. So researching that subject
matter would bring positive social as well as economic effects.
From that point of view, this thesis will focus on the legal aspects and analyzing
legal issues as well as the shortcomings in practice of collective buying. From which, the
author also recommend some solutions and make some forecasts for its development.
This has a theoretical and practical meaning for current and near future of e-commerce in
Vietnam.