The quality of fruits and vegetables is uneven, and how to buy vegetables on the Internet is reassuring

Uneven quality of fruits and vegetables Deficiency of weight and shortness are not uncommon After-sales perfunctory rights protection is difficult

Just look at the page information, how can the Internet buy vegetables make people feel at ease?

Before work, I placed an order through the fresh app on my mobile phone, and the dishes I bought when I arrived home also arrived - this is time-saving and labor-saving for Liu Ling, a Beijing office worker, "no longer have to worry about buying vegetables." In the past, because she was too busy to buy vegetables every day, she had to take advantage of the weekend to purchase and fill the refrigerator; now, she buys vegetables through the Internet and receives fresh dishes in half an hour.

Like Liu Ling, there are not a few people who use and gradually rely on the Internet to buy vegetables. The 25 Beijing residents randomly interviewed by the "Rule of Law Daily" reporter recently, including many elderly people over the age of 60, have experience in buying vegetables on the Internet, and said that they will continue to use the fresh App as a daily way to purchase fresh food.

Behind the popularity of Internet grocery shopping is the sudden emergence of fresh e-commerce in the mainland. According to the "Research Report on market prospects and investment opportunities in China's fresh e-commerce industry" released by the China Commercial Industry Research Institute in April this year, in recent years, the overall transaction scale of the fresh e-commerce industry in the mainland has maintained steady growth, and the transaction scale of fresh e-commerce in 2021 reached 465.81 billion yuan, an increase of 27.92% year-on-year.

With the rapid development and growth of the fresh e-commerce platform, this "stay at home, send food to the door" lifestyle is gradually known, its convenience, product diversity and other advantages make the Internet to buy vegetables favored by consumers, but at the same time, product quality defects, pricing rations without standards, after-sales rights protection and other issues are also frequently complained about by consumers.

Buying groceries online is all the rage

Quality complaints occur from time to time

After the outbreak of the epidemic, "post-85" Yang Yang finally persuaded the "post-50s" parents to buy fruits and vegetables through the fresh App.

"Parents have a more traditional mindset, a natural distrust of online shopping, and they are always worried that what they buy online is not new." Yang Yang said that until one time, she bought a box of oranges online, full of color and moisture, 10 pounds less than 50 yuan, which is more than half cheaper than buying in the supermarket.

After this time, Yang Yang's father no longer resisted online shopping for fruits and vegetables as before, and even began to try online shopping, browsing the fresh sections of some e-commerce platforms on his mobile phone and asking her how to fill in her address. A few days later, my father "secretly" bought back a box of corn and went to pick up the courier.

Zhao Qi, who lives in Beijing's Xicheng District, is a loyal user of the fresh e-commerce platform. She cares about the freshness and quality of fresh food, the variety of dishes to choose from and the time cost of shopping, and fresh e-commerce meets these needs, and her daily purchase of fruits and vegetables is almost online.

"In the past, buying vegetables required picking and bargaining in the market, but now you can buy fresh fruits and vegetables through the App and get home half an hour after placing an order, especially during the epidemic period, which makes people feel more convenient and safe." Zhao Qi is not at all surprised that Internet grocery shopping is becoming more and more popular.

Internet grocery shopping and one-stop shopping do save consumers a lot of trouble. However, since the end of last year and the beginning of this year, there have been more bad reviews about fresh e-commerce.

"Once because of a system problem, the delivery timed out by an hour; another time because of the webmaster allocation problem, the overtime was more than two hours." Zhao Qi said that in addition, there is also a gap in the price of goods on various fresh e-commerce apps, and some differences can be more than doubled.

Zhao Qi also encountered a situation where the quality of dishes was uneven: bought a box of vegetables, in addition to the surface layer of perfect, the lower layer is full of small and leafy vegetables; the page marked "4kg a bag" of potatoes, the top of the large pieces full, the bottom of the small dry.

Zhou Zhou, a Resident of Beijing, said: "Some fresh platforms are often out of stock, and when the App is opened at 4 p.m. two days ago, there are only a few kinds of green leafy vegetables left." ”

Other respondents reported prominent food quality problems. The reporter used "fresh quality" and "quality of grocery shopping" as keywords to search on the third-party platform, and the related complaints exceeded a thousand, involving a number of different fresh e-commerce platforms, and some people bought smelly meat, shrimp full of blood, sprouted potatoes, etc.

In January this year, the Shanghai regulatory authorities issued a fine to a grocery shopping platform for the production and operation of pathogenic microorganisms, pesticide residues, veterinary drug residues, biotoxins, heavy metals and other polluting substances, as well as other substances harmful to human health content exceeding the limit of food safety standards, food additives.

Operating models vary

Pricing quantification lacks standards

The reporter's investigation found that "delivery can not keep up", "out of stock" and "quality is not passed" and other issues, and the operation mode of the fresh e-commerce platform, supply chain, etc. have a certain relationship.

The existing fresh e-commerce platform has a variety of operating modes, such as pre-warehouse, store warehouse integration, O2O platform, community group purchase and other modes coexist.

The front-end warehouse model usually relies on the warehousing points that integrate warehousing, sorting and distribution in the community layout to shorten the distribution chain and improve the distribution efficiency; the store warehouse integration model is only adopted by individual fresh e-commerce companies, integrating "in-store consumption + online shopping + instant delivery" to provide online and offline integrated consumer experience; the O2O platform model is to provide consumers with fresh home services through cooperation with offline supermarkets, retail stores and convenience stores; while the community group purchase model mainly meets the needs of users in the sinking market. Provide product supply chain logistics and after-sales support through the group purchase platform, the head of the group is responsible for community operation, and users pick up their own goods in the community.

In March this year, a certain site of Dingdong Grocery Shopping was exposed to the problems of using dead fish to impersonate live fish, recovering vegetables from vegetables that exceeded the optimal selling period, unauthorized "flipping" of signs, and daily disinfection in the form. The Beijing Haidian District Market Supervision Bureau then interviewed Dingdong to buy vegetables, filed a case against him, and guided the enterprise to carry out a comprehensive self-examination of the front warehouse.

This is thought to once again reveal the inherent pain points of the preposition pattern. As a kind of fresh e-commerce operation model, the front warehouse model first stores fresh products in warehouses close to the community, and then uses this as the origin to complete the "last kilometer" delivery, and the front warehouse is a "dark warehouse", not an offline store, and only undertakes the cold chain storage function.

On April 7, the reporter came to a fresh e-commerce offline store located in Chaoyang District, Beijing, whose main model is store warehouse integration. The reporter saw at the scene that the store is mainly self-service shopping, and there are few shopping guides for shopping guidance. Some distribution personnel carry distribution equipment on their backs, waiting for the sorter to sort the goods in a certain area, and then sort them separately according to different orders.

A delivery man at the scene told reporters that the fresh e-commerce platform has an exclusive distribution chain, and the delivery staff are all contracted riders under the platform. Recently, due to the epidemic, their order volume has increased significantly, but the manpower is relatively limited, so it is sometimes impossible to guarantee the delivery timeliness. "Usually delivery can be guaranteed within half an hour, but now most of them have delays." In the case of frozen and fresh products, there is no way to guarantee that they will be delivered on time, and it is true that the product may deteriorate due to the length of delivery. ”

Since Internet grocery shopping cannot observe and select products offline, some consumers pay special attention to the traceability and qualification of online platform products.

Zhao Lin, who lives in Hedong District, Tianjin, has two years of Experience in Buying Vegetables on the Internet, and she believes that it is crucial to improve product quality inspection information and clarify product qualifications, "Although it is convenient to buy vegetables online, the quality of the product is definitely the first, in the case of not being able to choose, we can only understand the product through the page product information, so we are more inclined to choose a platform with clear source and quality inspection information, at least it looks reliable."

However, the reporter's investigation found that on some grocery shopping Apps, the traceability and quality inspection information of fresh products is not "standard". For meat, eggs, poultry, fruits and vegetables and other products, some platforms will provide consumers with product quality inspection information on the product page, there are buyer recommendations, and even special test reports, showing that the standards such as veterinary drug residues and heavy metals do not exceed the standard; but some platforms only disclose product parameters, lack of traceability information or professional quality inspection information.

In addition to product traceability and quality inspection information, Zhao Lin also pays attention to the lack of standardization of various fresh e-commerce platforms. She has purchased the same "imported cherries JJJ level 450g" many times on a fresh e-commerce platform, but the goods received are obviously different, either the same packaging amount is different, or there is a significant difference in the size of a single cherries.

Zhao Qi had a similar experience. She bought grouper three times a week on the same fresh e-commerce platform, and on the product page, the weight of the grouper showed 600g, and the fish she received was smaller than the first, "the first time it was about 15 cm long, the second time it was barely 14 cm long, and the third time it was only 11 cm long."

The reporter noted that in view of the situation of fresh lack of pounds and short two, many platforms adopt the price difference model, but the specific number of pounds and two pounds is missing, and the platform will not inform consumers.

"Because of the lack of standards on the platform, there are obvious differences in the goods received, which not only affects the mood of consumers, but also makes consumers question the platform's ability to control product quality." Over time, it is undoubtedly 'pushing consumers outward'. Zhao Qi said.

After-sales service was perfunctory

Consumer rights protection is not easy

What should I do if I encounter a shortage of two pounds and a lack of quality when buying vegetables? A number of consumers interviewed by reporters at random said, "There is no way, only to suffer losses."

"There's not a lot of money, forget it." After repeated unsuccessful communication with the customer service of a fresh e-commerce platform, Zhao Qi finally gave up the idea of rights protection.

In July last year, Zhao Qi purchased a 400g base shrimp on a fresh e-commerce platform for more than 200 yuan. At that time, she noticed that in the product information introduction, the positioning of the product was "chilled aquatic products", and the recommendation clearly stated that "the seafood that has just been fished out of the water is kept fresh by refrigeration, that is, it is iced." Buyers are carefully selected and transported throughout the cold chain to ensure freshness and safety."

An hour later, Zhao Qi received the goods. When she opened the bag, she was dumbfounded—the dead shrimp was soaked in blood and emitted a foul smell, and the size of the kiwei shrimp was particularly small, only about 6 centimeters, "not worth the price at all."

She immediately looked for customer service feedback on the small size and freshness of the shrimp, but the other party replied: "Although the size of the shrimp is relatively small, but the weight is enough, then there is no problem." For the situation that the shrimp is not fresh, the platform sells chilled products, not fresh products, which are originally dead shrimp. ”

After several communications, the platform proposed a "coupon return", but refused to refund.

Li Yang, who lives in Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, has also encountered difficulties in safeguarding his rights. He once bought a banana on a fresh e-commerce platform, after receiving the goods found that several bananas were bumped and not fresh, he proposed a refund to the platform and was rejected; another time, he bought a bottle of soy milk with a shelf life of 3 days on a fresh e-commerce platform, but the next day after refrigeration, there was a solidification and deterioration, and the reply he got after reflecting to the platform was "improper preservation, no refund".

After the same experience, Li Yang "found out the law": shopping on the fresh e-commerce platform, unless there are obvious defects in the product, such as moldy spots in the product can be intuitive feedback, the other party may be more crisp and neat refund, other such as "odor", "not fresh" and "uncomfortable after eating" such feedback that lacks direct evidence, usually will not be accepted by the other party. "Over time, I didn't bother to pull back and forth with customer service for these small things, and I could only think that I was unlucky."

The reporter noted that complaints about the difficulty of shopping rights protection on fresh e-commerce platforms are not uncommon. On the black cat complaint platform, the search was carried out with the keyword of "fresh e-commerce platform" and 1903 complaints were obtained. Of the first 20 complaints, 16 involved "customer service non-refundable" and "platform non-handling".

For this phenomenon, Zhao Qi is indignant: "Some fresh e-commerce platforms have overwhelming marketing advertisements, exaggerating themselves in advertising words, but they are extremely perfunctory about food quality and after-sales service." We hope to improve the channels for consumer rights protection and protect our legitimate rights and interests, so that we can enjoy the convenience of buying vegetables on the Internet, and truly buy with peace of mind. ”

Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law Research Association of the China Law Society, suggested that fresh e-commerce operators should strictly follow relevant laws and regulations to comprehensively, truthfully, accurately and timely label commodity or service information to protect consumers' right to know and choose. At the same time, the quality of fresh goods is where its life lies, is an important criterion for consumers to choose the platform, should be from the commodity supply chain, sales and distribution of the whole link should strictly control the quality of goods, to provide consumers with reliable quality of goods.

In view of the difficulty of consumer rights protection, Chen Yinjiang believes that a multi-channel customer service system should be improved to effectively improve after-sales service capabilities. "In fact, consumers' consulting experience with intelligent customer service is not good, and intelligent customer service cannot solve many of the more practical and detailed problems. To this end, the fresh e-commerce platform should establish and improve the multi-channel customer service system such as manual online customer service, manual telephone customer service, and intelligent customer service, and communicate with each other, so that consumers can make independent choices according to their own needs. ”

Source: Rule of Law Daily

Guangzhou Daily New Flower City Editor: Chen Tingting