Title VCCI - SOCIAL COMMERCE IN VIETNAM: A LEGAL REVIEW ✅

RESEARCH REPORT - SOCIAL COMMERCE IN VIETNAM: A LEGAL REVIEW 02 PREFACE Electronic commerce (E-commerce) in Vietnam is growing at an extremely high annual rate. In addition to e-commerce websites, a large number of individual and corporate entities are using social network’ tools to sell and purchase goods and services. The current legal framework for e-commerce and social networks has been in place since 2013. Since regulations were initiated in the early phase, many issues were generally specified or not successfully covered, resulting in application difficulties. Moreover, many regulations have become out of date due to rapid development of Internet-based e-commerce services. Therefore, regulations on social network and e-commerce management have been reviewed and are expected to revised in the near future. The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) has developed this report to include a legal review of social commerce in Vietnam. The main research methods include legal review and in-depth interviews of relevant subjects. The research revealed that the social commerce is relatively typical and not completely similar to any e-commerce forms, including e-commerce exchanges. One of the outstanding differences between the social networks and the e-commerce exchanges is that the social network has not been characterized by online ordering functions as of today. Buyers and sellers are required to directly contact with each other to complete transactions. Meanwhile, e-commerce exchanges may be supported by online ordering functions. Accordingly, e-commerce deals are successfully finalized through the Internet environment from ordering to shipping and delivery. Some social networks have deployed functions to facilitate e-commerce-related activities (such as Facebook Marketplace or Zalo Shop); however, these functions aim to facilitate good and service introduction and information provision only, not online ordering functions. This practice requires the regulations on e-commerce to be developed properly to effectively regulate and facilitate e-commerce development. Management and control of social commerce should address differences between social networks PREFACE