E-COMMERCE IN SAUDI ARABIA: AN ANALYSIS OF THE LAW AND PRACTICAL CHALLENGES FOR BUSINESSES AND CONSUMERS

Abstract

E-commerce between businesses and consumers has developed tremendously in recent years, which led to the need to develop legislation to keep up with technical, infrastructural and legal changes. Therefore, countries have issued the necessary legislation to help regulate e-commerce activity and provide legal protection for the contracting parties.

Noting this significance, the Saudi Arabian legislature issued the E-Commerce Law in 2019 as the first e-commerce law in Saudi Arabia that regulates the contractual relationship between a service provider and a consumer in Saudi Arabia. This dissertation is one of the first to complete an in-depth, comprehensive analysis of the many significant changes occurring in law and policy in Saudi Arabia related to e-commerce over the past few years. In addition to describing the relevant history, laws and policies underlying e-commerce in Saudi Arabia, it also examines and analyzes the service provider's obligations in the pre-contract stage, regarding electronic advertisements and the disclosure of contractual information before committing to an electronic contract. In addition, this dissertation examines and analyzes obligations of the service provider and the consumer at the implementation stage of the electronic contract. It also examines, through in-depth interviews, the current challenges facing the e-commerce market development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that relate to practical and logistical issues. The research also includes an empirical survey designed to identify on-the-ground challenges that Saudi Arabian consumers face with e-commerce transactions.