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Author: An Xiao

Editor丨Nuts

Cover source: Unsplash

Guo Yu squatted in the corridor for two days, but he didn't see anyone coming in or out of Room B on Floor 13. He lit a cigarette and said to the person on the other end of the video: "Are you sure this is the one? Don't let me squat in the wrong place."

The man in the video immediately responded: "I'm sure, this is the address she filled in when she bought it online."

As soon as he finished speaking, there were footsteps and the rubbing of plastic bags in the corridor. A woman passed by and looked at Guo Yu squatting on the ground, then took out the key from her pocket and prepared to open the door of Room B on the 13th floor. Guo Yu stood up and walked forward: "Ms. Xu from Room B on the 13th floor of Building 7, Ronghuayuan, right?"

The woman was startled by Guo Yu's action and stuttered, "I... yes, what are you going to do?"

"You bought a set of household tea sets from xx online store last week, and the platform only refunded you. I was sent by the store owner to take the items back."

Ms. Xu looked Guo Yu up and down again and said, "Then you wait here, I'll go in and get it for you." After a while, the door opened and she reluctantly handed the tea set to Guo Yu.

Just as he was about to close the door, Guo Yu stopped him and said, "Wait, let me check if anything is damaged."

Guo Yu opened the video for the man to check. During the video, Ms. Xu muttered: "It's not that I want a refund. It's the platform that refunded the money to me. What does it have to do with me?"

The tea set had slight marks on it, but it did not affect its secondary sale, so Guo Yu packed it up neatly.

Listening to Ms. Xu's complaints, Guo Yu didn't want to respond. Since the "refund only" policy was introduced on various e-commerce platforms, he has seen many such bargain-hunting buyers, and some "wool-gathering" parties make a living by "refund only" and specialize in fleecing small and medium-sized sellers.

In order to protect their own interests, some e-commerce sellers have united to chase after those who only ask for refunds, both online and offline.

1

Refunds alone have become an industry chain

Currently, if you enter "refund only" in the search box of the Black Cat platform, the latest data shows that there are 158,411 complaints. Among them, there are many complaints from online store sellers about buyers only refunding, and most of them are Pinduoduo sellers.

Since Pinduoduo launched the "refund only" service in 2021, Douyin also updated the new "refund only" regulations in the "Merchant After-sales Service Management Specifications" in September 2023; Taobao clearly stated in the public notice of the "Taobao Platform Dispute Handling Rules" on December 26, 2023 that it supports buyers to refund only under the circumstances that meet the rules; JD.com also quickly allowed consumers to refund only under certain conditions in the "JD Open Platform After-sales Service Management Rules". Since then, refund only has become the standard for e-commerce platforms.

After the policy was introduced, some of the "wool-grabbing" groups took advantage of the platform's unwritten rule of favoring buyers and endlessly took advantage of the platform. The Spiral Lab conducted in-depth observations and found that the "wool-grabbing" group has developed into a deep industrial chain, and some even made a huge profit of 20 to 30 million yuan a year.

Meng Yan was introduced to the "refund only" industry from a part-time job information on Xiaohongshu.

In April this year, Meng Yan saw an online part-time job posted by an account called momo: Moms and college students, come quickly, no deposit is required, the team will guide newcomers, there is new employee training every month, it is easy to get started, you can earn 100 yuan a day, and you will be paid on the same day, and full-time job is required.

Meng Yan had just given birth to her second child and was in urgent need of money. She sent a private message to the other party and asked him to add her on WeChat. The other party then added her to a group with nearly 200 people.

That evening, the group leader, Brother Wang, gave training to the new members, and Meng Yan realized that this part-time job was just a way to "take advantage of others". Brother Wang said that those who didn't want to do it could leave the group now. Meng Yan needed money urgently, so she stayed.

After the training, Wang sent a link to the group and asked everyone to download the software on their mobile phones. After the download, each person used their mobile phone, QQ number, Alipay number, and WeChat number to register 10 accounts. After the registration, the software account can be used to specify an order on the e-commerce platform. After receiving the goods, the software automatically requests a refund. Because the value of the purchased goods ranged from a few yuan to more than 20 yuan, the platform quickly refunded the money. As for the goods received, Wang's team sold them on Xianyu and WeChat at 70% of the original price.

Meng Yan was only responsible for placing orders on the e-commerce platform through the software according to Wang's instructions, and Meng Yan and other part-time employees were unaware of the subsequent operations. At 10 o'clock every night, Meng Yan received her salary of 100 yuan for the day on time, and sometimes she would receive a commission ranging from 30 to 50 yuan for a large amount of operations.

Meng Yan worked in the group for more than two months because of the stable income. Then one day, Brother Wang said in the group that the company was under investigation, and the group chat was disbanded as soon as he finished speaking.

According to many insiders in the "refund only" industry chain, some small companies can make hundreds of thousands of profits a year, while larger companies can make tens of millions of profits a year.

Since last year, a number of "refund only" tutorials have appeared online. Newbies need to pay to join the group, with the fee ranging from 28.8 yuan to 298 yuan. They mainly teach buyers how to "get something for free" by complaining about merchants and taking advantage of delivery time differences. The tutorials also include how to deal with customer service.

2

Sellers form an "Avengers Alliance"

In order to fight against the bad buyers, many sellers on e-commerce platforms have started to band together. Guo Yu joined the group in February this year. He is an online fishing gear seller with stores on Pinduoduo and Taobao.

Last year, Guo Yu's store only offered refunds on Pinduoduo Easy. After Taobao introduced the "refund only" policy this year, the number of refund-only orders in Guo Yu's store surged, with the focus on fishing nets, foldable plastic bait basins, fish baits and other products ranging from a few yuan to more than ten yuan.

Take the cheapest 4-yuan foldable plastic bait basin in the store as an example. After deducting the cost + packaging fee + postage, Guo Yu only makes 0.3 cents from a plastic bait basin. If a refund-only order appears, Guo Yu needs to sell at least 14 more plastic bait basins to cover the loss of the order.

With thin profits and a surge in refund orders, Guo Yu calculated that he had lost more than 7,000 yuan in January. Guo Yu's main business is e-commerce, and he was reluctant to quit immediately, so he began to think about ways to reduce losses.

By chance, big data led him to a mutual aid organization for sellers, and Guo Yu successfully joined forces with this group of sellers who were afraid of "freeloading". Merchants were divided into layers according to provincial capitals, cities and counties. If a seller had an order that was only for refunds, he would send the buyer's information to the group, and the sellers in the area would recover the goods.

Guo Yu discovered that some people who take advantage of the situation not only take advantage of goods worth a few yuan or tens of yuan, but also dare to choose to only refund goods worth hundreds of yuan.

This operation has greatly stimulated the unity of sellers. Everyone calls each other "brothers and sisters" in the group, and most of them help to recover the goods for free. High-value goods are sent back to the merchants; low-value goods that are not worth wasting shipping costs are first stored with the brothers, and then shipped by the brothers when other buyers place orders later.

If the buyer in a remote area only wants a refund, someone in the group suggested that the courier can be asked to retrieve the goods, and the courier will be paid part of the fee after the courier is successfully retrieved. Everyone shared the information of reliable couriers in the group to prevent similar situations as mentioned above.

There are also many sellers who are constantly being fleeced by the same buyer. They raise funds to hire a lawyer to send a lawyer's letter to the buyer. Many businesses even sue the "freeloader" buyers in court.

According to the official website of China Judgments,From July 2021 to date, there have been 324 civil disputes between merchants and consumers arising from "refunds only".

3

There are no winners under the “one-size-fits-all” approach

From "questioning Pinduoduo" to "understanding Pinduoduo" and now to "surpassing Pinduoduo". The reason behind the collective upgrade of e-commerce platforms to "refund only" is the frustration of the platforms' lack of growth.

By the end of 2023, the market value of the rising star Pinduoduo will surpass Alibaba and JD.com. For a while, the two traditional e-commerce giants could not sit still. Jack Ma said within the company: "Alibaba's past methodology is no longer applicable." Liu Qiangdong also repeatedly emphasized to employees: "JD.com must change."

"Refund only" is one of the measures taken by the two companies to change. In the long run, the refund only service is actually beneficial to e-commerce platforms, merchants and consumers.

Initially, "refund only" was an initiative launched by Pinduoduo to combat the proliferation of counterfeit goods on the platform. It is no longer the platform that punishes merchants selling counterfeit goods, but consumers, which reduces the platform's huge anti-counterfeiting burden. For merchants, they may face certain losses in the short term, but the platform and store reputation will improve, which will drive more repeat purchases and word-of-mouth communication in the long run. Refund only provides consumers with a convenient return channel and a simple return process.

No matter from which side, "refund only" can bring sweetness. Although the merchants who bear the losses cursed, they still cannot do without Pinduoduo. In 2021, Pinduoduo's daily active users and annual active users topped the list of China's largest e-commerce platform for the first time. That year, the number of merchants on the platform reached 8.6 million, and the number of express parcels exceeded 100 million.

But slowly, the meaning of "refund only" changed. Around the refund only loophole, a tens of millions of industry chains were derived, all of which were attributed to the platform's over-reliance on refund only.

Some merchants said that when they mentioned words such as "discount", "quality" and "compensation" during communication with users, customer service suddenly intervened in the conversation and automatically pushed a message to the buyer saying "Pinduoduo can help you get a full refund, and you can handle the product yourself."

For a considerable number of consumers, if they buy a product of poor quality but there is no after-sales service, although the platform will refund the full amount, they will have to spend time and energy to re-select on other platforms. Instead of doing this, it is better to choose a platform with guaranteed after-sales service from the beginning.

In order to retain buyers, the platform simplified the after-sales process and directly implemented a one-size-fits-all policy of "refund only". This can help Pinduoduo retain users in the short term, but in the long run, it is harmful to all three parties. Buyers are trained to have the habit of "freeloading"; merchants cannot make money, so they naturally choose to leave the platform.(All characters in this article are pseudonyms)