China Consumer Association Exposes "Seven Pits" With Goods

This year, the Consumer Association of China launched the research on the types of infringement of consumers' rights and interests by webcast. On November 6, with the "double 11" gradually entering into the hot sales, the China Consumer Association released seven types of online live sales that infringe on the rights and interests of consumers, reminding consumers to "double 11" of live broadcast Carnival shopping, recognize the business routines, rational consumption, and legally protect their own rights and interests.

According to the "Research on the types of infringement of consumer rights and interests by webcast" carried out by China Consumer Association in 2020, on the basis of in-depth analysis on the sales behavior of online live broadcast, this paper systematically combs and classifies the phenomenon of infringement on consumer rights and interests, including false publicity, difficulty in returning and replacing goods, selling prohibited products, and misleading consumers by using "special shooting link" There are seven main types of infringement of consumer rights and interests in online live marketing, such as fee payer, inducing OTC trading, abusing extreme words and illegal live broadcast content.

1、 False propaganda

The so-called false publicity refers to the behavior that the operators make false information about goods or services that are inconsistent with the actual content by advertising or other methods in commercial activities, which leads to misunderstanding of consumers. According to the online survey report on consumer satisfaction of live e-commerce shopping released by the China Consumer Association in March, consumers' satisfaction with the publicity link in live shopping was the lowest, only 64.7 points. Among them, false publicity is an important assessment index. It can be seen that in live e-commerce shopping, false publicity is a high incidence of problems. According to the different contents of false propaganda, the false publicity in the network live broadcast sales mainly includes two kinds of behaviors: one is that the pictures and texts are inconsistent, and the recommended products are inconsistent with the real objects. Second, exaggerate the propaganda and exaggerate the efficacy of products without any basis.

2、 It's difficult to return or exchange goods

According to Article 25 of the consumer protection law, as a new way of online shopping, live delivery with goods should provide 7-day return and replacement service without reason. In reality, some webcast e-commerce providers do not comply with the regulation for various reasons, resulting in frequent consumption disputes due to refusal of after-sale, restriction of return and refusal of return, which seriously infringes on the rights and interests of consumers. According to the online survey report on consumer satisfaction of live e-commerce shopping, consumers' satisfaction with the after-sales return and replacement is 72 points, second only to the publicity link.

3、 Sale of prohibited products

There are all kinds of products promoted by live online e-commerce, and even provide breeding ground for sales of contraband goods. Some goods that are forbidden to be sold or restricted to be sold offline are quietly flowing into the market through live online e-commerce. It is mainly manifested in the following aspects: first, some live e-commerce companies openly sell wild animals in violation of the wildlife protection law; second, direct broadcast e-commerce does not have the corresponding qualification and sells prescription drugs at will; third, some live e-commerce sell fake drugs, which directly endanger the health of consumers.

4. Mislead consumers by using "special links"

Special auction link is a special link set by the seller to purchase goods. At present, some online live e-commerce use the "special shot link" to mislead consumers and infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. It mainly includes:

One is the lack of product details in the link. There is no clear product detail page for the products sold in the live broadcasting room, which accurately describes the commodity properties, quality and parameters. Only the links of second kill, postage link and even price link that can not explain the characteristics of the products are sold in the live room.

Second, the sale of goods and baby link description of goods seriously inconsistent. The anchor may introduce product a in the live room, but ask the consumer to take the link of product B for reasons such as being unable to link; or the anchor may introduce multiple items in the live room, but only one product is described in the link. This is different from the special auction links such as postage links and make-up links in online shopping platforms. In the online shopping without live broadcast, some of the products purchased by consumers do not appear in the goods on the shelves of the merchants. At this time, consumers can contact with the merchants, and after both parties reach an agreement, the merchants will provide the consumers with a special shot link. In this case, the link is in line with the provisions.

5、 Inducing OTC trading

The transaction outside the online live e-commerce refers to that the host directly or indirectly guides consumers to transfer to wechat and other social software platforms other than the original live online e-commerce platform by means of language, text, graphics, animation, action, etc. In order to protect the rights of over-the-counter transaction consumers, there are many difficulties, such as the ability of proof, the identification of the main body, the sharing of responsibility and so on. Therefore, consumers should try to avoid over-the-counter transactions. If they find that the anchor has induced the off-site transaction, they should timely save the relevant evidence through screen capture and video recording, and complain to the live online e-commerce platform in time, so as to purify the overall consumption environment. Online live e-commerce platform should also strengthen the education and supervision of the anchor, and strengthen the restriction on the illegal behavior of the anchor. In addition, the online live e-commerce platform should also establish a consumer friendly relief mechanism to constantly optimize the environment for online live sales and consumer rights protection.

6、 Abusing extreme words

Extreme words refer to extremely descriptive words such as "*", "No.1", "" * ", etc. there is no unified evaluation standard for these words, which may exaggerate the function and value of products and mislead consumers. In the network live broadcast e-commerce, consumers who are in the information disadvantage position tend to "impulsive consumption" under the guidance of "limited seconds", which also makes the anchor more inclined to use "extreme advertising words" to attract people's attention and boost sales.

7、 Live broadcast content is illegal

Live network e-commerce has two attributes of "e-commerce" and "live broadcast". As a new business form, it is still in a period of savage growth at this stage, and the content is uneven, which affects the healthy development of live network e-commerce. For example, in order to increase popularity and attract traffic, some e-commerce live shows have attracted capital's favor, and pornographic and vulgar content appears frequently. Although the relevant management regulations or regulations were issued in the early stage of the development of the live broadcasting industry, the effect is very little. There is still a large market for vulgar and vulgar content, and there is a trend to spread to live e-commerce.

As the "double 11" is approaching, the live e-commerce companies have "bright Recruitment", with anchor endorsements, preferential promotions, and various forms of live delivery "blooming everywhere", which has aroused a new round of consumer enthusiasm and attracted a large number of fans to spend a lot of money. As a new economic format with strong momentum, network live e-commerce has become a new economic growth pole and greatly improved people's living convenience by relying on the characteristics of strong internet interaction and wide dissemination range. But the resulting consumption problems also appear. In this regard, the Consumer Association of China reminds consumers that live broadcast Carnival shopping double 11 should not only act according to their ability, rational consumption, bypass the business routine, but also polish their eyes, pay attention to rights protection, legal self-protection, and really seize the preferential dividends brought by this shopping festival.