E-Commerce Transactions and Return Policy:The Islamic Law Options

Abstract

Technology had permeated into every aspect of human endeavor; it had brought about ease in distant commercial transactions in that cross border transaction is now done with ease within the corners of the parties’ rooms, shops and workplace by virtue of the E-commerce through the advancement in internet facilities. Parties now do business and engage in buying and selling without the need for physical meeting and presence. One major drawback factor of E-commerce is the inability to assess the subject matter of the transaction especially by the buyer and its susceptibility to manipulations, these challenge had overtime led to the promulgation and design of return policies majorly to protect the buyer from being cheated as well as to ensure good customer service by the seller especially those who operates E-Commerce in order to ensure further patronage. The modern return policies are often fashioned in a conventional way, this paper however, adopts the doctrinal methodology to explore the Islamic law options of return policies and their applicability in the modern E-Commerce. The paper finds that some conventional return policies are similar and accommodated by the Islamic option of Khiyarat, though, there exist some contradistinctions of the conventional return policy with the Islamic concept of Khiyarat. The paper suggested that operators of conventional return policy should take a clue from the already elaborated concept of Khiyarat to expand the scope of the policy, trader and online Markets operator should also follow suit, the paper equally recommended that traders should ensure conformity of their return policy with the Shariah business and commercial principles as espoused in the concept of Khiyarat in order to ensure the inclusion of their consumers who are inclined to ensuring their commercial activities are Shariah compliant.