The development of e-commerce is booming. The Chinese Non-Store Retailers Association (CNRA) now has a complete no-store retail ecosystem with more than 200 operators, including e-commerce platforms such as online shopping, TV shopping, mobile shopping, and catalog shopping, as well as suppliers, third-party service providers, and payment and logistics operators. The 3rd CNRA held its 1st General Meeting and 1st Board of Directors and Supervisors Meeting on August 7th. Elections for the 3rd Chairman of the Board, Managing Directors, and Supervisors were held at the meeting, and Gary Wang, President of Eastern Group, was elected as the new Chairman of the Board by majority vote.

After officially taking up the baton as the Chairman of the Board of the 3rd Chinese Non-Store Retailers Association (CNRA), Gary Wang said in his speech, “the environment is changing rapidly. When I was involved in online and TV shopping 20 years ago, I never thought I would encounter a situation like today. In a time where other sectors are suffering, our industry has not really been affected, but I believe that in the future, the cloud will be an important platform that will change people’s lifestyle. The Chairman of the Board is only a title, but what is important is that we rely on the managing directors and supervisors to work together and create a better environment for Taiwan’s cloud industry.”

At the Supervisors Meeting, Liao Shang-Wen, chairman of Eastern Media International Corporation, was approved as honorary chair, while Lin Chi-Feng, chairman of Momo.com Inc., was appointed as vice-chairman and Mr. Hsu Sheng-Chung as secretary-general. This year’s Board of Directors and Supervisors includes well-known international companies such as Yahoo, LINE, Facebook, Shopee, and Rakuten, as well as O2O companies such as PX Mart, Uni-President Enterprises Corporation, and Watsons, and also electronic payment companies such as JKOS Network, NewebPay, and Suntech.

In the past, the CNRA has held many cross-strait e-commerce industry cooperation and exchange meetings (bridging plan), and also organized trips for industry operators to visit various East Asian countries (Korea, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia), and even to places as far as India and Sri Lanka. In addition, CNRA also assisted in the promotion of policies and facilitated the revision of outdated laws that greatly enhanced the protection of the business environment for sellers. These include promoting the opening of online sales of Class 1 and certain Class 2 medical equipment, and amending Article 19 of the Consumer Protection Act to add the “except with reasonable matters” clause, so that products in one of the seven categories, such as perishable, custom-made, and personal hygiene products, can be exempted from the 7-day rescind period. CNRA also facilitated the enactment of “The Act Governing Electronic Payment Institutions”, so that non-financial institutions can participate more in financial transactions and advocate the universalization of electronic payments. Furthermore, CNRA advocated for e-commerce personal data management and information security, in order to improve the online shopping environment, and also provided internship opportunities at e-commerce businesses for college students to narrow the gap between theory and practice.