Reporter Wan Jing
Recently, the Public Opinion Analysis Report on Consumer Rights Protection in double 11 in 2023 released by China Consumers Association (hereinafter referred to as the Report) shows that China’s consumer market continues to pick up, and consumer demand tends to be diversified and personalized. In this year’s "double 11", competition for "price power" is the main theme of business marketing, and the pursuit of "cost performance" has become a new trend of residents’ consumption. However, the problem of consumer rights protection is still the focus of attention from all walks of life. The rights protection problems mainly focus on the chaos of live broadcast, the quality of goods, the bad experience of mobile phone software advertising, and the dispute over promotion price.
Live broadcast and low price become hot topics.
China Consumers Association used the Internet public opinion monitoring system to analyze the related consumer rights protection from October 20th to November 16th. The results show that consumer feedback tends to be positive as a whole, and live broadcast and low price have become hot topics of consumer rights protection in double 11 this year. Besides the old problems of preferential price dispute, counterfeiting and poor after-sales service, price monopoly and software advertising have also brought consumers a bad consumer experience.
According to the Report, consumers mainly rely on video, Weibo, clients, news websites, WeChat, forums and other channels to reflect various consumer rights protection issues. It is worth noting that this year, consumers use video release to protect their rights with the highest amount of information, accounting for 42.93%; Followed by Weibo, accounting for 24.61%; The third is the client, accounting for 15.67%. This also reflects the "fancy renovation" of China’s consumer rights protection channels. The new media technology has been more and more widely accepted by consumers, and it has shown good "rights protection strength" in the actual consumer rights protection.
According to the monitoring data of China Consumers Association, the negative information about "live broadcast with goods" reached 1.565 million, accounting for 47.99% of the spit information, with an average daily information of 55,900. The amount of relevant information is mainly concentrated in the first half of double 11, reaching a peak of 94,700 on October 25th. The negative information of "live broadcast with goods" involves price monopoly, vulgar goods, false propaganda and other issues.
The case of rights protection disclosed in the Report shows that the anchor who made his fortune by judging ugliness in the "live broadcast with goods" is causing more people to resent it.
In addition, the problem of "fake and shoddy" commodity quality involved in "live broadcast with goods" can not be ignored. According to the monitoring data of China Consumers Association, there are more than 870,000 negative messages related to "commodity quality", accounting for 26.68% of the spit information. These negative messages were concentrated in the early days of "double 11" and reached the peak on October 25th, with 55,600 messages.
In addition to the problem of "live broadcast with goods", another "slot" that double 11 consumers spit out this year is the bad experience of mobile phone software advertising. People’s hot topics focus on the many forced jumps in mobile phone software advertisements, which make consumers hard to prevent and have a particularly headache.
According to the Report, many users have been voicing on social platforms recently, saying that their mobile phones are often disturbed by "shake" jump advertisements, and if they are not careful, they will jump to the "double 11" special session of shopping software, which is unbearable.
The dispute over promotion price is still the focus.
During the "double 11" this year, the old problems such as "promotional price dispute" are still the focus of consumer complaints, which mainly reflect the problems that merchants and platforms arbitrarily change preferential policies, suddenly cut prices, fail to protect prices, and induce consumers to cancel orders. For example, the recent incident that the price of the iPhone15′ double 11′ was reduced in the last two hours, which was highly concerned by public opinion, made many consumers who bought the iPhone 15 in the early stage of the "double 11" campaign feel that they were "backstab in price".
According to the Report, there are 63,800 negative messages about "promotional price disputes", accounting for 1.96% of the spit messages, with an average of 2,277 messages per day. The overall trend fluctuates and rises. On October 31, November 10 and November 13, spit messages appeared in a concentrated manner, with the highest amount of information on November 10, at 4,635.
According to the analysis of China Consumers Association, this year’s routines of platforms and businesses have been simplified, which are all attributed to "low prices", but more new competitions have also been derived from this. The progress of science and technology and the development of live broadcast format have brought more convenience to consumers, but their extensive management and loopholes have also affected consumers’ shopping experience to some extent. Specific performance in the following three aspects:
Simplification of rules does not mean that there are no rules, and the integrity consciousness and contract spirit of merchants need to be improved. "Price power" is the key to strengthening user stickiness in major platforms this year, and consumers are more sensitive to price than ever this year. However, this year, there are still cases of preferential policies adjustment or even direct price reduction after the final payment, and consumers have said that they have "encountered backstab". Behind the "shopping" of low prices, businesses and platforms should realize that the formulation of preferential policies should follow the market rules and the spirit of contract, and it is not acceptable to raise prices first and then lower prices. The constant change of prices for the second time will also hurt consumers’ feelings and brand image.
More and more new platforms and businesses are entering the market, and the government’s assistance and supervision of platforms need to be strengthened. This year’s "double 11" is the most attended by small and medium-sized businesses and Internet platforms, and the foundation of these "fresh blood" is relatively weak. Behind the chaos of "rollover" of live broadcast, there are vulgar goods and false propaganda caused by chasing traffic, counterfeiting and refund disputes caused by craving for income, and lack of after-sales service caused by imperfect system. Merchants and brands need not only more intimate assistance policies, but also stricter regulatory measures, so as to seek the improvement of quality and service beyond low prices and adapt to the trend of diversified consumption.
Drainage advertisements should be "convenient" rather than "disturbing people", and related App behaviors must be restricted and guided. In this year’s "double 11", consumers nicknamed it "all roads are electrified". Frequent and chaotic jumping of open-screen advertisements is a short-sighted behavior, which may bring some convenience to consumers, but more often it leads to consumers’ disgust and resistance. From the advertiser’s point of view, this approach may get a certain amount of clicks, but it consumes the user’s goodwill and trust. Open-screen advertising governance has been introduced at the beginning of the year, but it still needs e-commerce platforms, App developers and businesses to reach a consensus and strengthen self-discipline.
Consumers should be assured of their peace of mind.
The reporter found that this year’s "double 11" consumer rights protection public opinion was mostly triggered by the "low price" promotion of platforms and merchants. Platforms, anchors, merchants and consumers played games with each other in order to obtain the greatest benefits, and innovation and change were also in line with the characteristics of the current economic environment.
Liu Junhai, executive director of China Consumers Association and a professor at the Law School of Renmin University of China, believes that China has entered a stage of high-quality development, and people’s yearning for a better life has generally shifted from "whether there is" to "whether it is good". With the improvement of residents’ income level, the consumption structure has gradually shifted from survival to development and enjoyment, and the people’s requirements for the quality, environmental protection and safety of goods and services have also been continuously improved. Guided by the concept of high-quality development, the government conforms to the trend of people’s consumption upgrading and vigorously promotes green consumption, intelligent consumption and healthy consumption. Among them, it is also very important to constantly improve the consumption environment and solve all kinds of market consumption disputes.
In this regard, the Report also suggested that the future market competition should adhere to refinement, institutionalization and standardization, and provide consumers with more cost-effective products, better services and more convenient consumption experience with the help of digitalization and AI empowerment. Platforms and businesses should aim at "price power" and continue to exert their strength, adhere to legal compliance, tap consumer demand, and provide consumers with more cost-effective products. At the same time, seek to improve the "service power" and win the favor of consumers with better service and low price strategy.
The platform should earnestly fulfill its management responsibilities and maintain market order. On the one hand, give more support to small and medium-sized businesses, reduce service fees, provide support policies and conduct professional training to stimulate market vitality. On the other hand, we should strictly supervise false propaganda and price misleading, eliminate the chaos of live broadcast, improve the professional quality of anchors and create a level playing field.
The regulatory authorities should continuously improve their regulatory capacity and level in the field of live broadcasting. Make good use of scientific and technological strength, use emerging technologies to develop new means of supervision, and further strengthen the standardized management of platforms, anchors, businesses, etc. Be wary of "price monopoly" and "new routines" to ensure consumers’ peace of mind.
The media should play a greater role in guiding consumer behavior and helping consumer rights protection. Guide consumers to establish a correct consumption concept through public opinion propaganda, improve consumers’ awareness of discrimination, and enhance their resistance to induced consumption; Constantly broaden the channels of consumer rights protection, pay attention to the information of consumer rights protection on social media platforms, guide and help consumers to rationally protect their rights, and provide consumers with more rights protection.