A shop that closes sales on a livestream, or confirms an order by messaging a customer directly, falls under Thailand’s direct marketing law rather than ordinary e-commerce rules. That classification usually hands the buyer a right to cancel and return the order within 7 days of receiving it — whatever the shop’s own return policy says — and it comes with a registration duty many sellers have never heard of.
Why a live sale or a direct chat pitch is “direct marketing”
According to the Office of the Consumer Protection Board’s own explainer on the Direct Sales and Direct Marketing Act B.E. 2545, Thai law splits online selling into two categories with different duties. “E-commerce” (พาณิชย์อิเล็กทรอนิกส์) is a storefront a customer browses and checks out from themselves — a website, an app, or a shop on a marketplace like Shopee or Lazada — registered with the Department of Business Development. “Direct marketing” (ตลาดแบบตรง) is a business reaching a single customer directly to make the sale: a LINE OA inbox message, a cold DM, or — the exact example OCPB names — a livestream sale with real-time back-and-forth that closes on the spot. Registering only as an e-commerce business isn’t enough once a shop also sells this way: OCPB’s own guidance states that a seller who closes sales by livestream must separately register as a direct-marketing business with OCPB, and skipping that registration risks up to a year in prison or a ฿100,000 fine, plus up to ฿10,000 for every day the violation continues.
The 7-day right most return policies don’t mention
That same classification carries a consumer right your shop’s own terms can’t write around. Under the Direct Sales and Direct Marketing Act, a customer who buys from a direct-marketing business can cancel the contract and return the goods within 7 days of receiving them, regardless of what your posted policy says. The law’s own process is formal: the customer sends written notice by registered mail with a return receipt, then keeps the goods and proof of purchase for 21 days; if they return the item by post, they can send it cash-on-delivery; if they’d rather keep the item than mail it back, they’re entitled to hold it until the refund arrives. In practice almost no one writes that letter — the request shows up as a message in your inbox instead. Treating that message as day one of the same 7-day clock, rather than asking the customer to go find a post office first, is the difference between honoring a right they already have and turning one complaint into two — the same reasoning behind writing a refund escalation rule around the words customers actually type instead of the ones a rule-writer would have guessed.
ตั้งค่าใน 1CS — one canned reply, not five different answers
A return-rights question that gets a different answer depending on who’s online is worse than a slow one. Set up Quick Replies — 1CS also calls them Canned Responses — from Settings, and write one shortcut, for example return7, that lays out the 7-day right, what you need from the customer, and what happens next. Every agent then sends the same accurate answer instead of guessing at the rule from memory, ready before the next message arrives — worth building into the same after-event habit as sweeping a live sale’s comments once it ends. Attach your return address and any proof-of-purchase note to the same canned reply so nothing gets typed twice. The click-by-click steps live in 1CS’s Quick Replies guide (Thai only); in the product this sits inside the unified inbox feature.
A reply and a checklist to copy
As a recommended default — not a legal requirement — aim to acknowledge a return request the same working day it arrives, before the customer has a reason to raise it anywhere public. A starting template:
“Hi [customer name], thanks for letting us know. Order [order number] is within the 7-day return window, so we can process this. Please reply with the reason for the return and a photo of the item, and we’ll confirm the return address and next steps within [your stated timeframe].”
Checklist for whoever answers it:
- Confirm the order was delivered within the last 7 days.
- Ask for the reason and a photo in chat — a formal letter isn’t required to start the process.
- Send the canned reply with the return address and timeframe.
- Hold the refund status open until the item (or its tracking number) is back with you, and update the same thread rather than opening a new one.
None of this replaces reading the Act itself for an unusual case, but a return message from a live sale or a chat order isn’t unusual anymore — it’s a customer using a right the law already gave them, seven days at a time.
