TEHRAN – E-Commerce Development Center of Iran has officially launched a system for recording customers' complaints against e-commerce businesses in the country, the chairman of the center announced in a press conference held at the place of the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade on Sunday.

Elaborating on the goals of the mentioned system, Ali Rahbari said the system is aimed to provide the customers with a profile of the electronic businesses for evaluating them.

According to the official, there are nearly 300,000 Iranian e-commerce businesses with an operating website, of which 59,000 had received the “Trust Seal” license issued by the center.

The official pointed to the evaluating of the e-commerce businesses and establishing trust for the customers as the first step toward the development of e-commerce market in the country, saying that the center started working on the mentioned system since the end of the Iranian calendar year of 1396 (ended on March 2018).

Over the past three years, more than 35,000 e-commerce businesses in the country have received the center’s trust seal license, the official said.

“Since the beginning of the current year [March 21, 2019] so far, more than 12,000 businesses have received licenses from the E-Commerce Development Center,” Rahbari said.

Asked about the value of Iran’s e-commerce market, the official said in the fiscal 2018-19, the nominal value of Iran’s e-commerce market grew 30.5 percent and reached 2.08 quadrillion rials (about $49.5 billion) from 1.594 quadrillion rials (about $37.8 billion) a year earlier.

According to Rahbari, nearly 10 percent of the country’s internet-based businesses are based in Tehran, followed by Khorasan Razavi Province.

Unlike most developed countries, most e-commerce firms in Iran are mostly registered by natural persons which account for over 75 percent of the businesses compared to nearly 25 percent which are registered by legal persons.

Back in September 2019, the E-Commerce Development Center announced the launch of an electronic signature system for ordering registration processes.

Head of the center said this center is active in three sectors of e-commerce, e-government, and electronic certificate.

According to Rahbari, policy making and setting regulations are two pillars of the e-commerce sector for which platforms bylaws have been already approved.

EF/MA