The Thai E-Commerce Association held a meeting with the Trade Competition Commission of Thailand (TCCT) on Tuesday, gathering sellers who had issues with e-commerce platforms over business practices and commission fees.
After the discussion, the TCCT set up a channel for affected sellers to submit complaints, according to Worawut Saibua, a committee member of the association.
Mr Worawut did not disclose the names of the large e-commerce platforms involved in the cases.
Vendors claimed that commission fees charged by platforms can increase at any time without a maximum level, a practice he said is unfair.
Unpredictable fee increases are unsuitable for normal business operations, as sellers typically prepare inventory three months to a year in advance, making cost stability important, said Mr Worawut. Volatile fees can reduce business margins.
Another significant concern is the platform loophole.
Some sellers participate in affiliate programmes, in which content creators promote products by attaching purchase links to their content.
When customers buy through these links, sellers pay commissions to the affiliated creators. Sellers may also allocate advertising budgets to the platform.
Mr Worawut said platforms' algorithms tend to concentrate advertising exposure and spending on creators who generate the highest sales. In other words, the more orders a creator drives, the larger the ad budget directed towards that creator, said Mr Worawut.
However, a loophole allows anonymous parties to use bots to place fake orders through affiliate links, he noted.
As a result, sellers are required to pack products and deliver them to the provided addresses, only to have the parcels rejected upon delivery.
In these cases, sellers incur costs for labour, delivery and commission fees. In some cases, a portion of their ad budget may be allocated to the affiliated creators' accounts.
Those accounts benefit from the ad allocations even though no legitimate sales occurred, said Mr Worawut.
Sellers have also reported issues with return parcels, which may be lost or replaced with cheaper products.
