I don't know if everyone is the same as me, but whenever you buy something, you always have to go to the official flagship store, after all, it is a store opened by a large company itself, and it is genuine and childlike.
However, something happened recently that made me feel that the official flagship store is actually not so official and not so flagship.
Recently, the Hangzhou police detected a corruption case of a private enterprise, and the male protagonist involved in the case is the basic operator of an e-commerce platform, but you don't underestimate the amount of money he was involved in, which once again refreshed my cognition.
The investigators opened Wang's stock account and found that the loss was nearly 10 million, but there was still more than 24 million left in the account, and this was only part of it.
Together with gold bars, cash, property, etc., it reached a total of 92 million. Together with other accomplices, the amount involved is as high as 130 million yuan.
Can you think that an employee of a grassroots private enterprise can take bribes to approach a small target? What's even more surprising is that the bribes are only the amount he has received for nearly a year.
So how did he do it? Let's take a brief look.
In our impression, the official flagship store is the only store opened by a brand on the platform, and the goods it sells are the same as the specialty store, and the brand directly supplies and manages directly.
There is no such thing as counterfeiting or collusion.
If this brand goes to Taobao, Jingdong, and Pinduoduo to open an official flagship store, it will inevitably be strictly reviewed, and the review process and content are open and fair.
However, after I watched Wang's operation, I felt that the water in it was too deep.
Wang's position on the platform is not high, but he has a lot of power and belongs to the real power faction, he is responsible for the approval business of the official flagship store of furniture, and if you want to open an official flagship store of furniture on the platform, you must get his approval.
According to the regulations, Wang should screen out those good companies and good brands and let them enter the platform, so as to protect the rights and interests of consumers and the interests of the platform and the brand.
As the "gatekeeper" of the platform, it is his duty and responsibility to control the reputation of the business and the quality of the product, but Wang found the "business opportunity" in the responsibility and made this business very big.
After investigation, it was found that the number of official flagship stores approved by Wang far exceeded the normal level, and many merchants did not meet the requirements of the platform.
Most of these businesses brought hundreds of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of "gray income" to Wang, and finally "the East Window Incident" was "anonymously reported", the company decisively called the police, and finally Wang was also taken away by the public security organs.
The impact will be long-lasting
With the rise of the mobile Internet, online shopping has become a new fashion, and a large number of offline stores have moved their goods to the e-commerce platform, creating unprecedented e-commerce dividends.
According to statistics, Alibaba's GMV in 2023 will be 7 trillion, ranking first; Pinduoduo 4 trillion, ranking second; Jingdong is 3.5 trillion, ranking third, the fourth is Douyin, 2.2 trillion, and the fifth Kuaishou has also reached 1 trillion.
The sales of the top five e-commerce platforms reached 17.7 trillion, so what about the e-commerce platforms across the country? There will only be more.
As consumers, we think that we have bought high-quality and inexpensive goods, and it is normal to have some defective products occasionally, after all, no one can be "perfect", but what is the result?
The official flagship stores rely on bribery to enter the platform, and the stores are not qualified, so there are naturally a lot of problems with the goods in the store, as long as you place an order, you will inevitably be recruited.
When consumers complain, the platform often kicks the ball and allows users and merchants to coordinate by themselves, which is a typical dumping and inaction. The result is that the merchant and the user each take a step back and give you some money, and you make do with it, after all, it is also a trouble to package and mail large pieces of furniture.
And those unscrupulous merchants will also inform users that they can't give bad reviews, and the results can be imagined, and other users see that the merchants have a high praise rate, and they also place orders, forming a vicious circle.
There are even merchants, when they deliver the goods, they will put a small card by the way, with 5-star praise written on it, and there are red envelopes when they scan the code.
These behaviors will cause the effect of "bad money drives out good money", and really good stores, because they abide by the law, do not give some people "benefits", but cannot enter the platform.
Quality, transaction volume, brand effect, and after-sales service are the criteria for measuring the entry of merchants, but now it has become the "thickness of the red envelope", as long as the "thickness of the red envelope" is enough, the so-called threshold can be lowered, or even canceled.
The police cracked a "Wang approval case", who can guarantee that this phenomenon does not exist in other categories and other platforms, but Wang has replaced it with Li and Zhang......
There are a large number of unqualified official flagship stores on the platform, how to deal with it, the platform does not dare to make big moves, for fear of affecting itself, consumers see that this platform is fake, let's go to another platform!
Even, the platform did not dare to announce this matter, because in the secondary market, investors would vote with their feet, causing the company's stock price to plummet and its market value to shrink.
There is a high probability that the platform will introduce rectification measures, and in the end, the big thing will be turned into a small thing, and the official flagship store will continue to open! If there is a problem in the later stage, and then consider the issue of banning, the immediate thing is to prevent the situation from developing further.
Consumers have become the wronged ones, and they have bought a bunch of stalls at the price of the flagship store, and there is no reason to reason.
When will the e-commerce chaos stop?
In fact, there are many chaos in e-commerce in addition to approval problems, such as counterfeit goods, false publicity, price increases and then price reductions, order brushing, limited quantity and low prices, etc., so how to rectify it, or what method can be used to change this situation?
It is far from enough to rely on platform autonomy and business self-discipline, because in the face of interests, let alone merchants, even platforms will take risks.
Therefore, it is necessary for the government to strengthen supervision, establish and improve laws and regulations in the field of e-commerce, and never tolerate illegal acts, so that platforms and merchants are aware of the cost of violating the law.
For example, if you pay three for one and pay ten for one, you will pay three for three, and you will lose ten if you should pay ten.
In addition to daily supervision, government supervision focuses on surprise inspections, discovering problems, and directly exposing them. This time, Wang's illegal and criminal behavior, the relevant departments did not "expose", which made the platform and merchants have great illusions.
Self-discipline is indispensable, so that businesses are aware of the seriousness of the problem from both legal and ethical levels, and they must maintain their own reputation.
Consumers should also improve their ability to discriminate, effectively distinguish the authenticity and quality of goods, and have the courage to complain and report.
The use of high-tech means, such as blockchain, Internet of Things and other technologies, to trace the source of goods, increase transparency, this should be learned from Fat Donglai, the name of the goods, grade, use, specific origin, shelf life and use methods, daily sales, etc., are clearly marked.
In short, there is some chaos in e-commerce, and it is not an overnight problem to rectify, it requires the long-term joint efforts of the government, platforms, merchants and consumers.
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