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According to surging news, recently, Taobao and Jingdong have successively announced the latest platform dispute handling rules and after-sales service management rules. It is clarified that under certain conditions, consumers can initiate a refund without returning to the merchant, that is, an application for "refund only". This means that the "refund-only" rule, spearheaded by Pinduoduo, has become the common choice of China's three leading e-commerce platforms.
Theoretically, in the future, if consumers buy "seriously inferior and incorrect" goods on the platform, or encounter delayed delivery or forced delivery by the seller without the buyer's permission, the platform will support consumers to return the goods and refund them or only refund them. It can be said that this is a big step forward in the tilt of online shopping rules to the rights and interests of consumers after the "7-day no reason to return". Therefore, on the surface, this new regulation is a passive optimization of the rules between platforms under the competition mechanism, but it is also an inevitable choice for the protection of consumer rights and interests and the improvement of the online shopping environment.
Some people are also worried about whether the "favor" of consumers is excessive, and whether it will even hurt the legitimate interests of businesses and enlarge the space for some people to "gather wool"? It should be noted that "refund only" is not an "unconditional" rule like "7-day no reason to return", but has clear restrictions and can only be achieved if the relevant circumstances are met. For example, merchants with too many bad reviews or violations are more likely to be directly judged by the platform to return the product or only refund it after encountering complaints. In addition, the platform also provides merchants with a fast appeal channel, and merchants can file an appeal for orders within 30 days.
The judge reminded that for consumers, although applying for a refund only is in line with the rules of online platform consumption, according to the principle of good faith, this kind of behavior of only refunding and not returning is not in line with the original intention of the law to protect the rights and interests of consumers, and touches the bottom line of the law.
E-commerce companies have followed up with the new "refund-only" rule, showing that the differences between e-commerce platforms are gradually being smoothed out under fierce competition. This initiative is to cater to consumer needs, improve the user experience, and attract more consumers. With the gradual saturation of competition in terms of products and prices, the refund policy has become a new focus of competition for e-commerce platforms. In such a competitive environment, e-commerce platforms need to constantly innovate and improve service quality to win the favor of consumers. This will also prompt e-commerce platforms to pay more attention to the protection of consumer rights and interests, improve the overall service level, and promote the development of the entire industry in a healthier and more mature direction.
-- Transactions in China's e-commerce market
From 2011 to 2021, the e-commerce transaction volume in mainland China increased year by year. In 2021, the national e-commerce transaction volume reached 42.3 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.6%, resuming rapid growth. Among them, the transaction volume of commodities was 31.3 trillion yuan, and the transaction volume of services reached 11 trillion yuan.
-- The growth of China's online retail sales
In 2021, the national online retail sales reached 13.09 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.1%, of which the online retail sales of physical goods were 10.8 trillion yuan, accounting for 24.5% of the total social sales.
From the perspective of user groups, data from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) shows that as of June 2022, the number of online shopping users in mainland China reached 841 million, a decrease of 1.53 million from December 2021, accounting for 80.0% of the total number of netizens.
A number of experts and lawyers interviewed said that "refund-only" is beneficial to both platforms and consumers, and there is a certain trend at present, but it is not yet known whether it can become an industry standard. Some wool parties are eyeing the "refund only" rule to hurt merchants, and the solution requires the platform to take action.
Hong Yong, an associate researcher at the Institute of E-commerce of the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute, suggested that some malicious users and fake accounts should be screened out. The platform should start from strengthening the review of user accounts and setting the order limit, and adopt risk control measures such as password login and SMS verification to ensure the authenticity of user identity.
Hong Yong also pointed out that in the actual implementation of the "refund-only" rule, there may be challenges such as how to accurately determine various refund situations and how to prevent the rules from being abused, and the platform needs to continue to improve the rules and strengthen technical support and supervision to achieve a win-win situation for consumers and merchants.
Prospective Economist APP Information Group
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