From now on, JD.com fully supports refunds only

JD Taobao Pinduoduo, all support refunds only

As expected, JD.com also came.

Taobao has just released a public notice of refund-only, and JD.com has revised JD's after-sales and transaction dispute resolution policy, adding a new standard for users to refund only.

Recently, JD in the "JD Open Platform After-sales Service Management Rules", a new refund non-return implementation standard, this rule will take effect on December 29, at the same time, "JD Open Platform Transaction Dispute Settlement General Rules" added to support users only refund content, this adjustment has been officially effective today.

Source: Jingmai Merchant Center official account

Specifically, JD.com mentioned in the independent after-sales processing process that consumers do not need to return the original product, and after the refund is completed, the return application for the product will not be initiated again. On the merchant side, you can use "no return only refund" to refund consumers, and the status of the service order will be directly completed after the refund is completed.

There is also a detailed rule to note, "If the responsibility for the dispute cannot still be determined, JD.com has the right to handle or support the consumer's claim for refund only and return refund according to transaction Xi." ”

This means that when the merchant's products are of serious inferior quality and the goods are not on the board, JD has reason to believe that the merchant has no intention of performing the contract, and it will be deemed that the merchant refuses to perform the contract, and the transaction supports only refund or return the refund.

So far, the three giants of e-commerce, Taobao, JD and Pinduoduo have launched only refund services.

Looking back on the e-commerce circle in recent years, it has never been so lively, and the competition of several large platforms is getting faster and faster.

Coincidentally, two days ago, Taobao just issued a public notice on changing the "Taobao Platform Dispute Settlement Rules", and the core change point is "the new Taobao based on the platform's own big data capabilities, identify multi-dimensional combinations, and make a quick refund or return refund rule basis for buyers to initiate after-sales services that meet the relevant circumstances".

To put it simply, it means that sellers with too many bad reviews or violations on Taobao will be directly judged by the platform to return the product for refund or only refund once they are complained.

This new regulation also successfully topped the hot search on Weibo on December 27, triggering a big discussion among netizens and practitioners. For a while, "questioning Pinduoduo, understanding Pinduoduo, and becoming Pinduoduo" has become the voice of many netizens.

Source: Weibo hot search

As everyone knows, the refund-only service is not the first of its kind on Taobao, but comes from Pinduoduo.

In the past two years of rapid development, Pinduoduo has shaken off the previous stereotype, and the "refund only" big trick has successfully helped the platform gain praise from consumers.

This kind of direct click refund, you can achieve only a refund without returns, and the refund speed is extremely fast to the account, and the reputation among consumers is getting better and better.

Not only the three giants of Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo, but in September this year, Douyin e-commerce also added a "refund only" rule.

Douyin stipulates that if the praise rate of a merchant's product is less than 70%, the platform has the right to take measures to support consumers to refund only and return the refund package for the after-sales application of the product transaction order, and the praise rate of the product can be lifted if it recovers to more than 70% for 7 consecutive days.

And when we jump out of this lively mood, from the perspective of competition observation in the e-commerce industry, major platforms have supported refund-only services, which undoubtedly once again confirms a truth: users first.

Always insist on user first

In fact, in the e-commerce industry, there has been a lot of controversy about refund-only services.

The reason is simple, although only refunds protect the rights and interests of consumers to a large extent, for merchants, it also means uncertainty and risk in operation.

But from a deeper and longer-term perspective, consumer-centricity and pleasing users is indeed the only way for Pinduoduo to win.

In May this year, Ma Yun also pointed out that Taobao's three major directions in the future are to return to Taobao, return to users, and return to the Internet. The launch of the refund-only mechanism is a big step in the direction of "returning users".

Jack Ma returns

We have reason to believe that in this era of all-round low-price competition, measures such as "refund-only" that are more inclined to protect consumer rights and interests will become more and more common.

First of all, under the industry-wide low-price competition, it is inevitable that the price of the product will be reduced, but the problems related to the quality of the product will also emerge.

Similar situations have been staged in the live broadcast rooms of major anchors, and although the lowest-priced products on the whole network are attractive, they often overturn repeatedly in terms of quality.

Once a large number of low-cost and low-quality products enter the market, it will bring extremely high after-sales costs to consumers and platforms. For such merchants, refund-only is undoubtedly effective and efficient, and fully protects the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.

Second, in the past, refund-only measures were equivalent to Pinduoduo's differentiated services from other shopping e-commerce platforms. With the launch of such measures by major platforms, refund-only is no longer exclusive to a single platform, but has further become an industry standard, which has invisibly improved the service standards of the whole industry.

This will further force those "low-price and low-quality" goods and merchants to withdraw from the market. Help high-quality and low-cost merchants to truly stand out, rather than falling into the vortex of pure low prices.

Finally, although the after-sales service of "no return and only refund" is controversial, this measure does attract and attract many consumers for the platform.

Regardless of those refund-only players who specialize in maliciously placing orders, what most consumers expect and need is actually very simple: more convenient after-sales service, a simpler refund process, and a lower shopping threshold.

From this point of view, the essence of refund-only is completely consistent with the "efficient return and exchange" service that JD Logistics continues to promote.

On December 7, JD Logistics announced an upgrade to the return solution: when users return goods through JD Logistics, as long as the courier passes the inspection on the spot, the amount of the goods will be immediately refunded to the purchase account.

From this point of view, Jingdong Taobao has actually been working hard to improve the return experience of consumers, and this collective launch is only a refund service, which just pierces the layer of window paper.

Source: JD Logistics

Of course, the above reasons are more from the perspective of consumers and users, and from the perspective of merchants, it will take a long-term exploration process to fully adapt to the refund-only mechanism and the changes in the rules of the platform.

From the perspective of business operation, a problem that must not be ignored is, how to eliminate and reduce the probability of malicious orders?

Some merchants believe that this refund-only model has a great negative impact on the normal operation of the store, as long as they apply for a return, the platform will push the application message for a refund only, and many consumers take advantage of this to get the "wool" of the merchant and refund without return.

Therefore, in the process of refund-only service, the platform needs to provide merchants with a convenient and efficient appeal channel. When a merchant encounters a malicious order or other situation, it can appeal through the platform or use legal means to protect its own rights and interests.

Only when merchants and consumers abide by the rules of the platform can they work together to create a more stable, fair, transparent and predictable business environment based on the rule of law.

The e-commerce industry in 2024 is absolutely wonderful

A month ago, Pinduoduo's market capitalization surpassed Alibaba's.

According to the market value comparison at that time, the market value of Pinduoduo was the first in the industry, Alibaba temporarily ranked second, and JD.com's market value was only a quarter of that of Pinduoduo.

Therefore, this major event in the industry is regarded by many people as a full stop and a stop to the competition in the e-commerce industry in 2023.

But I never expected that every day after that there would be new surprises.

Pinduoduo, while continuing to stabilize the current high valuation and high growth advantages, the platform will put more energy into Temu's overseas business. Trying to take the lead again in that less involuted track.

In terms of Alibaba, the founder Ma Yun first replied on the intranet: "Ali will change, Ali will change."

On December 20, Ali announced the third senior management change, and Ali veteran Wu Yongming is also the third CEO, officially in charge of Taotian Group.

For this move, the e-commerce newspaper interpreted it as: Alibaba wants more young people to become executives. It is no longer about seniority, but it is necessary to have talents who can really dare to do it.

Wu Yongming, CEO of Taotian Group

Subsequently, Wu Yongming, who served as the CEO of Taotian Group for only 48 hours, immediately carried out drastic organizational adjustments.

On December 22, Wu Yongming announced the latest organizational decision of Taotian Group, and the younger management team was fully launched. Six young managers were appointed to lead each of the key businesses of Taotian Group, reporting directly to Wu Yongming. Among them, there are many post-85 Wu Jia, 87-year-old Shaoyou and a group of young Zhuang executives.

Tsai Chongxin said in the letter: "Since Wu Yongming took over as CEO of Alibaba Group for three months, he has comprehensively promoted the reform of the younger management team. Next, we will fully use the young management team that has been trained at the grassroots level and is up-and-coming, so as to create an innovative environment for young people. ”

The new general will take office, and the big changes in Taotian are still accelerating. JD.com's measures are the same, from the attitude of the founders to the rules of various platform services, to accelerate the change.

On the evening of December 9, Liu Qiangdong, founder and chairman of the board of directors of JD.com, replied to employee comments on the company's intranet, saying that JD.com must change, otherwise there is no way out.

Dongge's sentence "I won't lie flat, and I hope that the brothers will never lie flat" instantly appeared on the hot search, and also caused a big discussion about Jingdong in the industry.

Screenshot of netizen comments

Looking back at the whole 2023, it is a year for JD.com to fully return to low prices, and it is also a year of intensive organizational adjustment. But as Liu Qiangdong said, "JD.com's organization is now huge, bloated and inefficient, and it will take time to change".

This time, JD.com followed up on the user's refund-only service standard in a timely manner, which undoubtedly showed their response speed, which is still very fast.

Overall, for all viewers, this last month of 2023 is exciting enough.

But obviously, the competition in the e-commerce industry has also shifted from the past to speed and price to deeper competition. Taobao Jingdong collectively Xi learned from Pinduoduo and released the refund-only service standard, which proves that the competition between giants has never been shy about it, but continues to concentrate excellent experience to bring better service experience to users.

It is reasonable to predict that the battle for the e-commerce industry in 2024 will definitely be more exciting and fierce than we imagined.

Author | The old electric team