Recently, an agricultural products online store in Weifang, Shandong Province issued an announcement on the closure of the store, saying that due to a misunderstanding of the rules of the platform's activities, the sales price of ginger in the store was wrong, and nearly 80,000 orders were placed. If you sell at the wrong price, you will incur a lot of debt, and we kindly ask buyers who have already placed an order to initiate a refund as soon as possible.
An announcement of the merchant's closure. Picture/Screenshot of the shopping platform
[1] More than 40,000 people placed orders in ten minutes, and some people bought thousands of pieces at a time
On April 22, Jiupai News contacted Mr. Tian, the owner of the online store. He introduced that this year is the third year of his own online store, the products sold in the store are mainly local agricultural products in Anqiu, Weifang, such as ginger, etc., the price is divided into several grades according to the weight, there are 8.8 yuan / catty, 13.8 yuan / 2 catties, 19.8 yuan / 3 catties, 29.8 / 5 catties and 55.8 yuan / catty, usually only sell twenty or thirty orders a day, the transaction amount is several hundred yuan.
On April 19, in order to increase the exposure of the store and let more people know about the products in the store and place orders, he participated in the "Juhuasuan" activity.
He told Jiupai News that when setting the price of the event, he needed to fill in two amounts, one was the usual selling price, and the other was the discount strength, but he mistakenly thought that the second amount was filled in the event price, that is, the price after the discount, which led to the price of several grades of ginger in the store being set at a few cents to one yuan.
"A few cents for 1 catty, a piece is more than 9 catties, almost half of the orders are bought for 9 catties, but the cost of 9 catties of ginger is more than 40. Mr. Tian said.
A total of more than 40,000 people placed orders within ten minutes, and the number of orders generated was more than 76,000 orders, and there were also repeated purchases, and some even placed hundreds or thousands of orders at one time, and there were 8.9 million pieces in terms of the number of pieces, and the transaction amount was as high as more than 80 thousand. He said that the losses are much more than that, and if all the goods are shipped, including costs, freight and so on, it is roughly estimated that millions will be lost.
Thousands of orders returned. Photo/@BRAVE
Mr. Tian said frankly that he found something wrong in the first minute of the event at 20 o'clock that night, and he planned to remove the goods immediately, but he couldn't do it, so he had to ask for help from the platform's customer service, and the other party said that he could apply to withdraw from the event and remove the goods. However, due to the fact that too many people placed orders at the same time, their mobile phones and computer pages were all stuck, and the application was successfully submitted after more than ten minutes.
"Submitting an application does not mean that the product is directly removed from the shelves, the platform also has to review the application, the operation takes time, it was night, and the goods have not been removed from the shelves during the review process, and finally it should be (customers) who have taken all the hundreds of thousands of inventory, and the goods are automatically removed from the shelves, and then I didn't pay attention to when the review passed. He said.
After the incident, he kept trying to contact the buyer in private messages to explain the reason, hoping that the other party would take the initiative to refund, but because the number of people was too large, "I couldn't send a private message and reply alone."
The next day (20th), Mr. Tian posted an announcement on the homepage of the online store and implored buyers who had placed orders to initiate refunds as soon as possible. He told Jiupai News that after the private message and announcement, many buyers were very considerate of themselves and expressed their understanding, so they took the initiative to refund the order, and many netizens spread the news on social platforms, calling for more people to take the initiative to refund the order, and he was very moved.
As of 12 o'clock on the 22nd, more than 76,000 orders generated by this event have been refunded one after another, and there are still 52,912 orders left.
Reminder of the store's product removal and store closure on the shopping platform. Picture/Screenshot of the shopping platform
Mr. Tian said that at first, when opening a store on the platform, he needed to pay a deposit of 50,000 yuan, and the merchant would pay compensation once the situation occurred. Due to this omission, the store has received a lot of complaints, and has paid more than 20,000 yuan, but due to the active assistance of the platform's customer service, some orders have been eliminated, and now as long as the remaining orders are not complained, there will be no compensation.
"As for the closure of the store, in fact, the store can no longer be opened, not only the deposit, but also the annual fee of 30,000 yuan and some of the payment that has not yet arrived, there are nearly 90,000 yuan on the platform that cannot be withdrawn, and now the margin is less than 50,000, and once the payment arrives, it will immediately make up for the gap in the margin. He said helplessly.
The staff of the Tmall platform told Jiupai News that the matter is true, and the platform has a dedicated customer service to dock and assist in handling order problems. According to the requested application for withdrawal from the activity by the inquired merchant, a staff member has received and completed the work order, but the processing result has not been verified, and the processing staff will be contacted to follow up the processing result.
The above-mentioned staff also said that this situation had occurred before, and there were special handlers to follow up and deal with it, and they could not disclose specific information.
[2] Lawyer: If it is a major misunderstanding, the actor can exercise the right of revocation and should also bear the corresponding responsibility
Can a merchant apply for a chargeback? Is the act of someone buying thousands of goods a malicious "wool picking"? In view of the above situation, Jiupai News consulted a lawyer.
Hu Hanbing, a lawyer at Guangqiang Law Firm, told Jiupai News that a large number of orders were placed by merchants due to the wrong price, legally speaking, it is indeed a civil legal act of major misunderstanding, and according to the provisions of the Civil Code, the actor has the right to request the people's court or arbitration institution to revoke the civil legal act based on the material misunderstanding.
According to the provisions of the Civil Code, after the revocation, the property obtained by the seller as a result of the act shall be returned. The party at fault shall compensate the other party for the losses suffered thereby, and if both parties are at fault, they shall each bear the corresponding responsibility. For sellers, it's not just about paying a deposit or closing the store.
Li Mei, a lawyer at Yingke Hefei Law Firm, pointed out that this case is more analyzed from the perspective of negotiation and mediation, because the buyer also has a basis for asserting rights.
Paragraph 1 of Article 19 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of the General Provisions (hereinafter referred to as the "Interpretation") provides that "if the actor has a misunderstanding of the nature of the act, the variety, quality, specification, price, quantity, etc., of the other party or the subject matter, and it is generally understood that the actor would not have made a corresponding expression of intent if such misunderstanding had not occurred, the people's court may find that it is a "material misunderstanding" as provided for in Article 147 of the Civil Code.
Article 19 of the Interpretation enumerates prices as typical situations of major misunderstandings, providing a clearer legal basis for merchants to exercise the right of revocation in response to consumers' malicious "wool picking" behavior. In this case, an information network sales contract relationship was established between the merchant and the consumer, and the merchant could claim to the people's court or arbitration institution to revoke the contract based on a major misunderstanding of the published commodity price, but considering the large number of consumers, the cost of going through the legal procedures one by one was huge.
In this case, Li Mei believes that the ginger order in this case has not yet been shipped, and in order to avoid causing more serious losses, the merchant can cancel a large number of orders caused by the wrong price labeling, and the consumer should no longer require the merchant to continue to fulfill the order. Of course, from the perspective of maintaining the image of the store, the merchant can issue an announcement and apologize in advance, and on the premise of ensuring operating costs and profits, he can choose to persuade consumers to take the initiative to cancel the contract by giving away purchase coupons.
In response to the malicious "wool picking" behavior of some buyers, Li Mei believes that the malicious "wool picking" is serious or the amount is huge, and it is suspected of violating the law and committing crimes. According to the parties, some consumers even bought 1,000 catties of ginger, which does not rule out consumers taking advantage of merchant negligence or platform loopholes to maliciously register a large number of accounts to "gather wool".
In order to avoid a farce similar to this case from happening again, Li Mei believes that the early warning mechanism of the platform and the legal statement of the merchant are very important. First, the platform establishes an early warning mechanism for abnormal orders, and automatically closes the order interface when abnormal orders are detected, and according to what the reporter learned, the merchant asked the platform whether it can close the order in a unified manner, but the other party said that it cannot be operated, and the platform has no authority. Second, when selling goods, the merchant should also declare in advance that it can unilaterally cancel the order in the event of a major misunderstanding or obvious unfairness in the signing of the contract, and does not need to bear the liability for breach of contract. Of course, if the consumer behavior has been suspected of a criminal offense, the merchant should also actively report the case.
"In the past two days, there have been a lot of messages to inquire and urge the goods, and I have to reply one by one, I have been busy with this matter all day and night, and I can't sleep for long at night, and I can't sleep at all. But now all I can do is send messages one by one, although it's hard, but after all, I set the wrong price myself, and more and more people just want to refund the order. Mr. Tian said.
Jiupai News reporter Dai Mengying
Edited by Liu Meng and Wu Feifei
Please contact the reporter on WeChat: linghaojizhe
[Source: Jiupai News]
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