Online sellers slam DTI’s P1,130 trustmark fee

MANILA, Philippines — Still reeling from the additional P5 order processing fee recently imposed by e-commerce giants Shopee and Lazada, online e-commerce entrepreneurs are again in an uproar over a “Philippine Trustmark” requirement set to be mandatory, with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) setting a Sept. 30 deadline that was extended until December.

Online sellers have to pay a total fee of P1,130 in applying for the Philippine Trustmark, which the DTI said was a digital badge to serve as a government mark of recognition for “online merchants and platforms that demonstrate a commitment to trustworthiness, safety and adherence to fair e-commerce practices.”

According to DTI E-Commerce Bureau, the P1,130 fee was broken down to P1,000 for application or renewal fee; P100 as web admin fee and P30 documentary stamp tax fee.

The P1,130 is a yearly fee that has to be paid by online sellers as the Philippine Trustmark issued by the agency only has a one-year validity from date of issue.

Online sellers have lambasted the trustmark requirement as yet another burden apart from other various fees and charges by the different e-commerce platforms.

The online sellers also questioned the haste with which the DTI’s E-Commerce Bureau was instituting the trustmark requirement, even with the apparent lack of readiness of their systems to implement the program.

They noted that the DTI’s website was down over the weekend for scheduled maintenance. They pointed out that even the DTI’s E-Commerce Philippine Trustmark Website is merely on a “pilot version” with improvements still in progress.

Online sellers livid over the new mandatory requirement have besieged the DTI and Secretary Cristina Roque’s social media accounts with their complaints against the trustmark requirement, which has led the DTI and Roque to turn off the comments section on their respective Facebook accounts.

Roque’s mall-based clothing line business, Kamiseta, has also been a target of the rants of online sellers, saying the trustmark requirement was anti-online seller and favors mall-based businesses.

The DTI and Roque had just recently been the target of online rants in various Facebook e-commerce forums due to the P5 additional new order processing fee imposed by Shopee and Lazada on completed sales transactions starting last Sept. 3.

This is on top of the value added tax and other transaction fee already charged on each completed sales transaction that goes through the online store of the two giants.

Previously, both Shopee and Lazada already imposed a service fee and a transaction fee on all completed sales transactions by a merchant or online seller on their platform.

There is also a 10 to 12 percent value added tax charged on each sale transaction that is for the Bureau of Internal Revenue.