Hong Kong people are enthusiastic travellers. Many go to Thailand and many to Malaysia but many also go to South Korea, Japan and Singapore.
One basic problem which frequently arises is where a Hong Kong travelling buyer in Japan wishes to make an online purchase in Japan and uses an online Japanese website for the purchase. A quality or other defect grievance arises and there are difficulties for the Hong Kong buyer (by that time very possibly returned to Hong Kong) to deal with the Japan seller on the problem. The Hong Kong Consumer Council has developed an avenue in which to channel the relevant complaints to its counterpart in Japan to take up the matter with the seller.
The Hong Kong Consumer Council has been developing cross-border collaboration for exchange of information on consumer disputes in the visited country. South Korea, Japan and Singapore are on board and in November 2019 the Consumer Council reached an agreement with the China Consumers' Association of Mainland China decided to allow online traders to directly handle complaints to speed up the resolution process. In the frantic current and enormous traffic of online commerce, this is a helpful beginning with a potential to grow into other online buy/sell situations.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.