Standardized online shopping contract effective on Jan. 1, 2011

Chuang Hui-yuan, the CPC official, made the remarks in response to the recent mis-pricing case by Apple Computer Inc. on its online store.

Chuang said that the Ministry of Economic Affairs has worked out a set of requirements concerning what must be clearly instructed and what cannot be written on the online shopping contracts after Dell Computer committed two rounds of pricing mistakes associated with online sales of its products in 2009.

The requirements will be put into practice on Jan. 1, 2011 to standardize online shopping contracts to more effectively safeguard the interests of both online sellers and buyers, Chuang continued.

A key requirement calls for the seller to reject orders within two business days from the placement of orders, if there is any pricing mistake or dispute that may undermine the interests of sellers, such as the ones committed by Dell and Apple.

In the latest case, Apple priced its Mac Mini with 8-GB RAM at NT$19,900 instead of the original NT$47,710 on its online store on July 23, but later changed those orders back to the original price unilaterally after the incorrect price attracted a large number of bargain hunters.

In total, consumers placed orders for 41,518 Mac Minis at the bargain price.

To counter, Apple decided to honor a number of mishandled orders at NT$19,900 apiece to qualified customers who had placed the orders. The price is set for orders intended for education purposes, and is only available to college students or faculty or staff members.

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