On June 29, an administrative ruling published on the China Judgment Documents Network showed that Guangzhou Sanshuai Liujiang Education Technology Co., Ltd., the operator of Taobao's social e-commerce platform "Tao Xiaopu", and related companies were frozen for more than 44 million yuan for suspected pyramid schemes. Not long ago, the news that the social e-commerce "Zebra member" related company suspected of pyramid schemes was frozen by the court for 30 million yuan attracted attention.
It is worth noting that among the related companies whose assets were frozen this time, not only Guangzhou Sanshuai Liujiang Education Technology Co., Ltd., but also Cloud Data (Hainan) Technology Co., Ltd., Tongcheng Jincaihuizhi Information Technology Co., Ltd. and Hangzhou Xinxuan E-commerce Co., Ltd., the operator of Taobao Xinxuan, of which Hangzhou Xinxuan E-commerce Co., Ltd. was frozen in amounts of up to 26 million.
(Note: The picture is collected from the China Judgment Documents Network)
According to the enterprise investigation data, Guangzhou Sanshuai Liujiang Education Technology Co., Ltd. is the chief strategic cooperation operator of Taoxiaopu, providing model consulting, brand cooperation, channel investment, community operation, team training and other services for Taoxiaopu. The legal representative of Hangzhou Xinxuan E-commerce Co., Ltd. is Zhang Di, which is 100% controlled by Taobao (China) Software Co., Ltd.
(Network Economics and Social Note: The picture is collected from the official website of Qichacha)
According to the Administrative Ruling, on April 16, 2020, the Binzhou Bincheng District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau received a report from the public that after it registered its shop in Taoxiaopu, its sales model and commission model were suspected of pyramid schemes, because the operating company of Taoxiaopu was Guangzhou Sanshuai Liujiang Education Technology Co., Ltd., and the Binzhou Bincheng District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau filed a case for investigation on April 16, 2019.
After investigation, it was found that Guangzhou Sanshuai Liujiang Education Technology Co., Ltd. was suspected of organizing and planning pyramid schemes in its operation, which violated article 7 of the Regulations on prohibition of pyramid schemes. Guangzhou SanshuaiLiu Will Education Technology Co., Ltd. through the "Tao Xiaopu" APP membership management system in Bincheng District to organize personnel, development personnel, remuneration rebates and a series of system design, organize and plan pyramid scheme activities, in order to prevent the respondent from transferring or concealing illegal funds, the applicant submitted an application to our hospital on June 8, 2020, requesting the freezing of the respondent's bank account deposits in financial institutions.
According to the network economic society (100EC.CN), Guangzhou Sanshuai Liujiang Education Technology Co., Ltd. was established on January 31, 2011, with a registered capital of 10 million yuan, and Li Weibin served as a legal person, executive director and general manager. On October 28, 2019, the signing ceremony of the cooperation between Taobao's TaoXiaopu and SanshuaiLiu will be held in Hangzhou, and Sanshuailiu will be the chief strategic cooperation operator of Taoxiaopu.
(Note: Pictures collected from the Internet)
At the same time, on June 10, the Hanshou County People's Court of Hunan Province disclosed a non-litigation preservation administrative ruling, which showed that the Hanshou County Market Supervision and Administration Bureau applied to the Hanshou County People's Court on April 23, 2020 in order to prevent the above companies from transferring or concealing illegal funds in the investigation and handling of the suspected pyramid scheme case of Hangzhou Xunlan E-commerce Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Kuli Technology Co., Ltd., and Guangzhou Yunting Network Marketing Planning Co., Ltd. It is requested that the funds of the above-mentioned company in the settlement account opened by Alipay Company total 30 million yuan be frozen. According to the data of enterprise investigation, Hangzhou Xunlan E-commerce Co., Ltd. is precisely the main company of the "Zebra Member" e-commerce platform.
Zebra members have been exposed to suspected pyramid schemes many times The Tao Shop, which is backed by Ali, is also difficult to escape the suspicion of being involved in rumors
The suspicion of social e-commerce zebra members suspected of pyramid schemes has never been interrupted, and many media reports have said that its model of relying on "pulling people's heads and multi-level profits" to obtain customers has been accused of pyramid schemes, and has also been exposed to suspected pyramid schemes twice in just one month. Public information shows that the predecessor of Zebra members is a global catcher, in fact, as early as 2017, the "predecessor" global catcher of Zebra members was officially banned by WeChat for its three-level distribution model suspected of pyramid schemes, and "global catchers" have also been reported by the media many times for suspected pyramid schemes.
In November 2019, the CFO of Zebra members was "noisy" for embezzling 260 million yuan of the company for personal gambling, and even Li Xiao was "put in", which indirectly shows that there must be serious management loopholes and chaotic financial relations within the global catcher.
In addition, from birth with its own "halo" behind Ali is more optimistic about many people, but it is still questioned by rumors, it is understood that on December 3 last year, Tao xiao shop for the third time to open the internal test, users spend 399 yuan to buy product packages to become treasurers, and then can earn remuneration by recruiting new treasurers. Shortly thereafter, iFLYTEK, head of Alibaba's Tao Xiaopu project, announced that from now on, TaoXiaopu will close its membership system and open it to everyone for free. But in fact, the new way of Tao Xiaopu is divided into two, on October 28, 2019, Taobao's Tao Xiaopu and Sanshuai Liu will cooperate with the signing ceremony in Hangzhou, and Sanshuai Liu will be the chief strategic cooperation operator of TaoXiaopu.
(Network Economics and Social Note: The picture is collected from the official website of Tao Xiaopu Publicity)
According to China-Singapore Financial Media reports, at present, ordinary people have two ways to participate in Tao Xiao shop: free participation (there is a commission for selling goods, no team award); 399 yuan high commission goods (both the sale and the team have commissions). Relevant people revealed that the free is the official operation of Tao Xiaopu, and the latter is the major agent sales companies signed with Tao Xiaopu, and its agency model has been questioned by many netizens who know that it is suspected of pyramid schemes.
In this regard, Mr. Huang Wei, a special researcher of the E-commerce Research Center of the Network Economic Society and a senior partner of equity at Beijing Yingke (Hangzhou) Law Firm, believes that the risk of being involved in transmission is still accompanied by the social e-commerce industry. In March 2019, Guangzhou Peanut Diary Biotechnology Co., Ltd. was punished by the Guangzhou Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau with a penalty of 74.56 million yuan, and in December 2019, the famous micro-business brand Lv Jiachuan was suspected of pyramid schemes, and the person in charge, Lu Zhupan, and others were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two years and ten months to 13 years by the People's Court of Jiyuan City, Henan Province, for organizing and leading pyramid schemes. Last year, while enterprises, scholars and other aspects of the personnel appeal for tolerance, we found that there are still differences in the understanding of whether social e-commerce is involved in different regions, so a more clear and unified regulatory standard is urgently needed to be clarified. As a social e-commerce, we must also adhere to several development red lines, one is the number of levels of development personnel, the fraud of their own behavior, whether the pricing of the product is reasonable, and whether the product quality is qualified.
(Note: The picture is collected from Taobao's official website)
What are the criteria for judging the compliance of social e-commerce?
In recent years, social e-commerce has become the focus of public attention, on the one hand, the rapid development of Pinduoduo", from 0 to 1, has created a myth of listing in the United States for three years; and Yunji has also been successfully listed after just four years of development, and many social e-commerce companies such as Haoyiku, Beidian, Idle Premium, Love Inventory, Whale Spirit, Zebra Members, Peanut Diary, Pink Elephant Life, Global Knight Privileges and many other social e-commerce have also received a lot of financing. At the same time, with the rapid rise of the micro-business distribution model, it has also attracted head platforms including NetEase Pusher, Alibaba "Micro Supply", Jingdong "Enjoy Orange", "Jingxi" and "Fragrant Fragrance", Vipshop "Cloud Pincang", Siku "Library Store", Xiaomi "Youpin Pusher" and other head platforms to enter.
(Web Economics And Social Note: The picture is collected from Baidu's screenshot of the information about Zebra members)
According to the incomplete statistics of the network economic society, social e-commerce such as Yunji, Zebra members (global catcher), shell shop, peanut diary, Darling's home, big V store, wanse city, dumping baby, global moment, talent store, Chu Chu Tui, onion overseas warehouse, good things, good clothes warehouse, boudoir mall, little blackfish APP, vegetarian shop, Youke life, red people's clothing, honey bud plus, love inventory, fragrant fragrance, future market, pink elephant life, global shopping knight privileges and other social e-commerce have been questioned by "suspected pyramid schemes". At the same time, due to the barbaric growth and unclear hierarchy, the good and the bad are uneven, and they are frequently suspected of pyramid scheme controversies and questions, and even tens of millions of yuan of administrative penalties for industry and commerce (for details, see the exclusive topic: http://www.100ec.cn/zt/sxcx/).
Since the two sessions this year, NPC deputies and CPPCC members have put forward proposals to increase supervision of social e-commerce. Therefore, social e-commerce is definitely not outside the law, so what are the criteria for judging the compliance of social e-commerce?
Through the comparative study of social e-commerce and MLM, Ma Kainong, a special researcher of the E-commerce Research Center of the Network Economic and Social Society and a lawyer at Zhejiang Zeda Law Firm, summarized the following points for the identification criteria of whether social e-commerce is a pyramid scheme.
1. Whether there is a real transaction. Where there is no real transaction of goods or services, it shall be deemed to be a pyramid scheme.
2. Whether there is reasonable consideration. If there is a real transaction of goods or services, it should be seen whether the price of the goods or services is fair and whether it is seriously beyond the general level, and it is suggested that subsequent legislative regulations can set a maximum floating ratio to facilitate identification.
3, whether it is a zero-sum game. The so-called zero-sum game refers to the parties involved in the game, under strict competition, the gains of one party must mean the loss of the other party, and the sum of the gains and losses of all parties in the game is always "zero", and there is no possibility of cooperation between the two sides. If the social e-commerce belongs to a zero-sum game, one party's loss is the other party's gain, and no other value is generated, it must be a pyramid scheme, and the party with the loss at this time is the victim.
4. Whether it is open to the public. If the social e-commerce is not open to the public, the entry and exit platform is not free, it must be invited by the original members to enter, which belongs to the typical "pulling people's head" model, it should be identified as a pyramid scheme, which is also in line with the closed characteristics of the MLM organization.
5. Whether to disrupt the socio-economic order. Disrupting the social and economic order is a legal definite element of pyramid schemes, and there is currently no clear definition of what constitutes disrupting the social and economic order, but in the case of small things, pyramid schemes must have social harm. Therefore, if it cannot be determined that a social e-commerce is socially harmful, it cannot be treated as a pyramid scheme.
In practice, to determine whether a social e-commerce platform is a pyramid scheme, a comprehensive judgment should be made in combination with the above identification criteria.
Lawyer: Quality, service level, and user experience are the winning magic weapons of social e-commerce
Finally, Ma Kainong, a special researcher of the E-commerce Research Center of the Network Economic Society and a lawyer at Zhejiang Zeda Law Firm, said that social e-commerce through the "pulling people's head" model to quickly acquire a large number of users is the original accumulation process of platform resources, the Internet era can also be called the original accumulation of traffic, the Internet era, traffic is king, which is the "first bucket of gold" for platform development. Only with this "first pot of gold" will there be a "snowball" growth process in the future. But when the original accumulation reaches a certain level, wise enterprises are bound to change the growth mode of simply pulling people's heads, but constantly standardize their own operating models, making themselves a legal and compliant social e-commerce platform under the sun.
"At present, the Internet era has passed, the era of big data has arrived, the era of big data, content is king." In the case that the major social e-commerce has completed the original accumulation, whose goods or services are more cost-effective, who is more likely to be favored by consumers; even if the new influx of social e-commerce traffic is insufficient, but based on the social attributes of social e-commerce, as long as the user experience is good, consumer word of mouth, the scale will be steadily improved. Therefore, improving quality control, improving service levels, improving user experience, and enhancing platform image are the winning magic weapons of social e-commerce. Ma Kainong said.