Author: Guo Ji'an
"Is Taobao crazy or am I crazy? My page has been updated!
"In the future, small items should be boldly bought and bought!"
"88VIP has amplified the move this time!"
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A few days ago, as soon as the news of the upgrade of the 88VIP rights and interests of the Tao Department and the unlimited return package shipping came out, the major social platforms reacted strongly, and even some users voiced: "Can other industries follow up?", and backhanded Aite started a ticket marketing platform.
"E-commerce platforms are really about to spoil consumers. A practitioner in the music field sighed at chopped pepper. Indeed, compared with the performance industry that is still fighting for "whether it can be refunded freely" and "whether it needs a strong real name", the after-sales service of the e-commerce circle can be called "far ahead". From free shipping in Xinjiang to 7-day no reason to return, from second refund to refund only, and then to today's free return shipping, the e-commerce platform is iterating at a high speed on "pet fans", "This service standard is inevitably too high." ”
In addition to jokes, the evolution of the after-sales side precisely reflects the core contradictions of the huge e-commerce industry - lower and lower prices, increasingly rich categories, and high-speed growth of live broadcast e-commerce, and the consumer experience and rights and interests protection that have not kept up with this progress.
As of December 2023, the number of online shopping users in mainland China has reached 915 million, and according to analysts at the China Business Industry Research Institute, China's e-commerce transaction volume will reach 50.43 trillion yuan this year. With the further expansion of the market, how to protect the basic rights and interests of consumers has become the top priority of the country and the industry.
This year, the supervision of the market side has become stricter, and in order to solve the problems of false advertising and the quality of goods, the relevant departments have issued relevant regulations many times to further regulate the industry. In February this year, the state promulgated the "Regulations for the Implementation of the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests", which will come into force in July 2024, which is known as the "most stringent new regulations in the e-commerce circle". At the same time, a number of platforms have also reached a consensus that this year, 315, including Taotian, Vipshop, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, Kuaishou, Dewu, Pinduoduo, Jingdong and other eight platforms jointly issued an initiative to strengthen the protection of consumer rights and interests, with the goal of allowing users to "buy with peace of mind".
It is precisely because of this that the rights and interests upgrade of 88VIP has aroused the collective attention of the public and the industry. It seems that it is just an upgrade of the free shipping service for returns, but behind this is the "deterministic deadbolt" added to the last stop of e-commerce after-sales. At the same time, the new regulations on unlimited returns leave the choice to users, which also means that higher requirements are put forward for the long-term operation and maintenance capabilities of the platform and the merchant's product capabilities.
This time, Taotian's first effort seems to have opened the curtain of the next round of industry evolution: in the second half of e-commerce, it is not only the low price that breaks the head, but also the rights and experience of consumers.
"Every time the goods do not match the advertisement, there are always people who say, how can you buy good things so cheaply? Anyway, if you don't have much money, forget it! But I can't accept it, now the platform says that it is the lowest price, and it is said that it is profitable for consumers, so the quality of the goods should be guaranteed. Otherwise, what's the difference between buying and selling? Even if I spend a small amount of money, it's not that I can't be unhappy to buy!"
315 ago, an evaluation about e-commerce consumption said the voices of many users. With the rapid development of live broadcast e-commerce, a large number of white-label products and industrial belt merchants have entered the game, coupled with the start of the "low price" battle on various platforms, behind the intensification of competition, how to create a more silky consumer experience while providing high-quality and low-cost goods, so that buyers have less to worry about, is the core concern of consumers.
"It is important to increase GMV, but to walk on the right rather than fast path, if the development of the e-commerce industry is compared to numbers, then consumer rights are the first 1, and the others are the back 0. An industry analyst told Chop Pepper. When it comes to optimizing services, paying attention to after-sales issues has become a common choice for many parties.
In the "2024 E-commerce Consumer Rights Hot Trends" report released in April this year, it was pointed out that among the four core keywords of consumer rights, fast after-sales is the key to improving users' happiness. In after-sales, return shipping has always been the "heart disease" of a large number of users. In Xiaohongshu station, there are as many as 120,000+ notes related to "return freight", "online shopping return strategy", "what to do if you have to pay for your own shipping if you have no reason to return", "what to do if you don't have return shipping insurance" and other posts are all highly praised content under the topic.
"70g of clothes are not in remote areas, and the return fee is 16 yuan", "I buy a pair of socks and return it for 16 yuan, but the freight insurance pays up to 9 yuan ......", while sharing experience, there are also many consumers who vomit bitterness. Chop pepper observation found that in a large number of small orders, low-cost daily necessities and clothing products, many female consumers have expressed a higher demand for after-sales service. Further opening up logistics to achieve door-to-door service, and merchants to return goods in a timely manner to bear the freight is the core of the appeal of a large number of consumers.
At the beginning of this year, Taobao 88VIP upgraded and launched three rights and interests cards, among which the shopping card contains 10 25 yuan shipping coupons per month. This time, with the further upgrade of 88VIP rights and interests, the problem of difficult return for users has been further solved.
The upgrade stipulates: In terms of after-sales service, all 88VIP users can enjoy unlimited "return package freight" on the Tmall Taobao platform, with a maximum subsidy of 25 yuan per order, and the subsidy can also be used in conjunction with freight insurance. According to the common merchants, 10 yuan freight insurance is undertaken, which also means that users enjoy the right to return goods free of 35 yuan freight, which can basically cover the needs of most regions.
As soon as the new regulations on unlimited product categories and unlimited times were issued, the entire e-commerce industry has also completed another big step forward in the protection of consumer rights and interests. As an online business with the widest coverage of users and the largest commercial benefits, the e-commerce industry has further maintained a leading trend of "returning to user experience" in the entire consumer market.
"It can be predicted that after Taotian launches this service, many platforms are expected to follow further. The above-mentioned analyst told Chop Pepper.
According to Alibaba's latest financial report, as of December 2023, the scale of 88VIP has reached 32 million, and the average consumption amount per person has reached 57,000 per year, showing high activity and high consumption power, and it is a senior user of the Taotian platform. This rights upgrade will directly enhance the stickiness of this group of high-quality users and the Tao system, help further increase their consumption frequency on the platform, and directly guide shopping decisions.
From the perspective of strengthening platform service capabilities and competing for consumers, other e-commerce platforms are also expected to continue to follow up on the member service side, and upgrading consumer rights and interests will surely become a major trend this year.
"Will such a move blindly benefit consumers and increase platform expenses?"
"Will unlimited free shipping trigger a wave of malicious returns and increase the burden on merchants?"
"It won't change for a while, will it last?"
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With the release of new rights, this upgrade has also sparked a lot of discussion in the industry.
The study found that, first of all, in the process of enjoying the free return shipping service, the return shipping fee is borne by the platform, and the merchant can choose whether to participate in the activity. And this operation is carried out after the merchant receives the returned goods and confirms that they are correct, which also avoids damage to the goods caused by customer problems.
And the "problem of malicious return of consumers", first of all, 88vip users have gone through a round of screening of consumer groups, and the naughty value of the handling requirements exceeds a certain index, which means that the shopping credit of these consumers is guaranteed; at the same time, the upper limit of free shipping of 25 yuan also avoids excessive losses on the platform.
This is not without precedent. At the end of last year, Taobao opened the "refund only" service, and at that time, there were a large number of doubts from merchants in the industry. However, in the process of practice, it will be found that the platform party has made a relatively fair judgment when disputes arise. It is reported that Taobao's implementation of only refunds requires consumers to actively click to choose, and sellers can apply for rejection, after which the platform will apply for intervention. Taobao will conduct a comprehensive assessment of the dispute based on the information of both parties, the quality indicators of the seller's store (such as quality scores), the customer's complaints, and shoddy issues, etc., and then determine whether to support the product.
Obviously, as long as the platform can regulate and control in the middle and do a good job of "ruling", it is expected to establish rules through clear standards and big data, achieve balance as much as possible, and protect the rights and interests of merchants and users.
More importantly, in Chop Pepper's view, the unlimited return shipping fee is not only good for consumers, but also puts forward higher requirements for the operation and maintenance capabilities and service capabilities of platforms and merchants. From the platform side, the increase in operating costs will promote the platform to strengthen the quality control of goods in the station, strengthen the governance of false advertising, and further deepen the cooperation on the logistics side.
For merchants, although there is no need to directly bear the cost of freight, the increase in the cost of return packaging services and communication costs will also standardize merchants to improve the quality of goods, improve product competitiveness, reduce the return rate as much as possible, improve operational efficiency, and ensure the sustainability of services.
Therefore, under such guidance, with the follow-up of many platforms on the after-sales side in the future, the seemingly simple freight subsidy will actually force the entire industry to evolve in precision marketing, advertising communication, product quality control and service efficiency, and ultimately promote the improvement of the entire e-commerce consumption environment, and embark on a real multi-party win-win road.
Chop pepper also sincerely expects that with the joint efforts of the platform and merchants, the "1" of consumer rights and interests protection will be established first, and then the "0" of countless benefits and scale will be added later.