Consumer Rights in Algeria’s Digital Markets: Returns, Refunds, and the Protection Gap

A Consumer Protection Law Built for Brick and Mortar

Algeria’s primary consumer protection legislation — Law 09-03 of February 25, 2009, relating to consumer protection and fraud repression — was enacted when e-commerce in Algeria was virtually nonexistent. The law addresses product safety, labeling requirements, misleading advertising, and product guarantees, but its provisions were designed for physical retail environments: shops, markets, and warehouses where consumers can inspect goods before purchase, and return them to a physical location afterward. A 2018 amendment (Law 18-09 of June 10, 2018) strengthened certain provisions, including introducing a general withdrawal right and tougher sanctions for fraud, but remained oriented toward physical commerce.

The 2018 e-commerce law (Law 18-05 of May 10, 2018) partially addressed the gap by establishing requirements for online sellers, including the obligation to provide clear product information, a consumer return right for non-conforming deliveries, and rules around electronic payment and seller registration. Under Article 22, consumers can return products within four business days of delivery if the goods do not conform to what was ordered or delivery deadlines are breached, and the seller must process refunds within 15 days of receiving the returned product. However, the implementing regulations for several key provisions of Law 18-05 remain incomplete, creating a patchwork of rights that exist on paper but are difficult to enforce in practice. The return right, for instance, exists in the law but lacks clear mechanisms for how returns are processed across different product categories and what happens when sellers simply refuse to comply.

The scale of the problem is significant. Algeria’s e-commerce sector has grown rapidly, estimated at approximately $1.9 billion USD in 2025, with up to 200,000 active online merchants operating across the country. The market is driven by platforms like Ouedkniss (Algeria’s largest classifieds marketplace with over 800,000 daily visits), Instagram and Facebook-based sellers, and domestic platforms like TemTem (a super app offering e-commerce, delivery, and ride-hailing across 58 wilayas). The recent exit of Jumia from Algeria in February 2026 — the continent’s largest e-commerce platform citing profitability concerns and competition from Chinese platforms like Temu and Shein — underscores both the challenges and the evolving competitive landscape of Algerian e-commerce. Yet consumer complaints about non-delivery, defective products, misleading product descriptions, and refusal to process returns remain pervasive on social media and consumer forums.

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The Specific Digital Gaps

The first major gap is the absence of clear refund mechanisms. When a consumer buys a smartphone on Ouedkniss and receives a defective unit, the path to resolution is unclear. The four-business-day return right under Article 22 of Law 18-05 theoretically applies for non-conforming deliveries, but enforcing it requires the consumer to navigate a process that has no institutional support. There is no digital dispute resolution platform, no standardized return process, and no penalty mechanism for sellers who ignore refund requests. In practice, consumers rely on social media shaming — posting about bad experiences on Facebook groups — as their primary enforcement tool.

The second gap concerns marketplace platform liability. Ouedkniss, like eBay or Amazon Marketplace, connects buyers and sellers but argues it is not itself the seller. When a transaction goes wrong, who bears responsibility? Law 18-05 requires e-commerce operators to register with the trade registry and host websites on “.com.dz” domains, but the distinction between a marketplace platform and a direct seller remains legally ambiguous. Instagram and Facebook sellers operate entirely outside any regulatory framework — they are not registered e-commerce operators, they do not issue invoices, and they frequently use personal CCP (postal account) transfers rather than traceable payment methods. The emergence of BaridiMob and CCP Business Cashless digital payment systems from Algerie Poste is beginning to create more traceable transaction records, but adoption among informal sellers remains limited.

The third gap involves digital products and subscriptions. Algeria’s consumer protection framework has no specific provisions for digital goods — software, apps, digital content, online subscriptions. When a consumer subscribes to a service through an app and cannot cancel, what recourse exists? When a game or app purchased from the Google Play Store malfunctions, does the Algerian consumer protection framework apply at all, given that Google Play is operated by Google Ireland Limited and its terms of service may designate a foreign jurisdiction as governing? The intersection of global digital platforms and local consumer protection law is entirely unaddressed.

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APOCE and Institutional Enforcement Capacity

The APOCE (Organisation Algerienne de Protection et d’Orientation du Consommateur et son Environnement) is Algeria’s most prominent consumer advocacy organization. Founded in 2015, APOCE has built a significant public profile through social media awareness campaigns, product testing, and advocacy for consumer rights. With approximately 15,000 members and a membership in Consumers International since 2024, its social media presence reaches hundreds of thousands of Algerians, and it regularly highlights consumer complaints, unsafe products, and deceptive commercial practices.

However, APOCE’s capacity to resolve individual consumer disputes is inherently limited. It is an advocacy organization, not a regulatory body. It cannot compel sellers to issue refunds, cannot impose fines for non-compliance, and cannot adjudicate disputes. The actual enforcement authority lies with the Ministry of Commerce’s Directorate of Commerce (Direction du Commerce) at the wilaya level, which has inspection and sanction powers. Consumers can file complaints with these wilaya-level directorates, which can issue orders to non-compliant operators and give them deadlines to rectify violations. But these inspectors are trained for physical commerce — verifying product labels, checking expiration dates, inspecting store conditions — not for investigating e-commerce complaints involving IP addresses, digital payment trails, and cross-border transactions.

The judiciary represents the ultimate recourse, but court proceedings for consumer disputes are disproportionately slow and expensive relative to the value of typical e-commerce transactions. A consumer who paid 15,000 DZD for a defective product will not initiate court proceedings that could take months and cost more in transportation and lost work time than the product’s value. The absence of a small claims mechanism or specialized consumer tribunal for e-commerce disputes effectively means that low-value complaints — which constitute the majority of e-commerce grievances — have no practical resolution pathway.

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Building a Modern Digital Consumer Rights Framework

Algeria needs a comprehensive update to its consumer protection framework for the digital era. The first priority is establishing a functional online dispute resolution (ODR) platform. The European Union experimented with a centralized ODR platform for years, but discontinued it in July 2025 due to low uptake — only about 2% of submitted complaints were ever forwarded to dispute resolution bodies. The lesson for Algeria is not that ODR fails, but that platform design matters: a successful Algerian ODR system, managed by the Ministry of Commerce, would need to be tightly integrated with existing wilaya-level enforcement mechanisms rather than operating as a standalone mediation service. The technical requirements are modest — the platform is essentially a structured complaint management system with escalation procedures — but institutional commitment to acting on complaints is what determines whether it works.

Second, marketplace platform liability must be clearly defined. Platforms like Ouedkniss should be required to verify seller identities, maintain complaint records, and implement standardized return/refund policies. The EU’s Digital Services Act, in full force since February 2024, offers a relevant model: online marketplaces must verify seller identity information before allowing them to list products, act promptly to remove illegal content, and publish transparency reports on their enforcement actions. Social media sellers (Instagram, Facebook) operating commercially should be required to register as e-commerce operators under Law 18-05, with platforms cooperating to identify and flag unregistered commercial accounts.

Third, the consumer return right under Law 18-05 needs stronger implementing regulations that specify: the clock starts upon delivery (not order placement), the process for returns across different product categories, clear allocation of return shipping costs, the existing 15-day refund processing deadline must be actively enforced with penalties for non-compliance, and the right should apply to all distance sales including social media transactions. Fourth, mandatory invoice issuance for all e-commerce transactions — including CCP and BaridiMob transfers — would create an audit trail that enables both tax compliance and consumer protection enforcement.

Finally, digital product provisions should address subscription cancellation rights (one-click cancellation if one-click subscription was possible), digital content refund policies, and automatic renewal transparency requirements. The EU’s Consumer Rights Directive provides a framework for these protections, and they could be adapted to the Algerian context without significant complexity.

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Sources & Further Reading

• Algeria Law 09-03 Consumer Protection — WIPO Lex
• Algeria Law 18-09 Amendment to Consumer Protection — WIPO Lex
• Algeria Law 18-05 E-Commerce — Digital Watch Observatory
• Algeria E-Commerce Registration Requirements — Digital Policy Alert
• Algeria E-Commerce Market Overview — U.S. International Trade Administration
• APOCE Algeria — Consumers International
• Jumia Exits Algeria — Semafor
• EU ODR Platform Discontinuation — Kluwer Mediation Blog
• EU Digital Services Act — European Commission
• Ministry of Commerce Algeria — Wilaya Directorates
• ARPCE Algeria — Regulatory Authority
• UNCTAD Consumer Protection in E-Commerce