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The world of e-commerce has reached a new critical juncture.

Just in July, #Whose cheese was moved by the only refund# became a hot search, and the number of readings has reached 130 million so far. It has been reported that since only refunds became the standard feature of e-commerce platforms, various versions of buyer's "薅羊毛" tutorials and merchant rights protection and prosecution tutorials have been circulating on social platforms, buyers and sellers are in fierce competition, and related disputes and lawsuits continue.

It is obvious that both consumers and merchants have a lot of opinions about the platform's refund-only policy.

Taobao was the first to respond to this.On July 26, Taobao announced that it would optimize the "refund only" strategy, increase merchants' autonomy in after-sales service based on the new experience score, and reduce or eliminate after-sales intervention for high-quality stores. The relevant strategy will be officially implemented on August 9.

In addition, Taobao will upgrade the abnormal behavior recognition model for refunding goods that have been received, and reject requests for refunds with abnormal behavior.

Taobao's optimization of "refund only" this time, on the one hand, gives high-quality merchants more after-sales autonomy through the experience point system, encouraging merchants to proactively serve users; on the other hand, it continuously improves the ability to identify abnormal behavior, ensuring that while protecting consumer experience, the legitimate rights and interests of merchants are not harmed.

In addition to the e-commerce platforms starting to take action, the "Interim Provisions on Anti-Unfair Competition on the Internet" (hereinafter referred to as the "Provisions") issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation will be officially implemented on September 1.

Article 24 of the Regulations states that platform operators shall not use service agreements, transaction rules and other means to impose unreasonable restrictions or attach unreasonable conditions on transactions within the platform, transaction prices and transactions with other operators.

With the combined effect of various driving factors, the "refund only" strategy may soon be reversed.This is undoubtedly good news for both merchants and consumers.

Optimizing "refund only" is the general trend

In December last year, many mainstream e-commerce platforms in China also began to support refund-only services, making this service an industry standard. For each platform, the original intention of setting up refund-only services is to assume governance responsibilities and provide better rights protection for consumers.

For example, Taobao’s previous rules showed that if a seller received too many negative reviews or violations and was complained by consumers, or if the seller delayed or forced delivery without the buyer’s permission, the system would support the buyer to only refund.

However, as time goes by, the controversy caused by "refund only" has become more and more. Since the beginning of this year, topics related to "refund only" have been on the hot search many times. The continuous hot searches reflect that the rough implementation of "refund only" may have deviated from the original intention of the platform to optimize consumer rights.

Not only are some normally operating businesses being harassed by the wool party, the conflicts between consumers and businesses are also starting to become fierce. Some buyers also tend to overuse the refund-only function, and most platforms choose to support consumers first. As a result, sellers have to bear additional costs for the loss of goods.

In this context, optimizing "refund only" has become a general trend. While consumers enjoy full rights and interests, merchants should also be treated fairly.

Recently, it has been reported that to improve the "refund only" service, e-commerce platforms should assume more governance responsibilities and balance the interests of consumers and merchants. On the one hand, the platform should improve the merchant complaint handling mechanism to ensure that the reasonable interests of merchants are protected; on the other hand, the platform should strengthen technology investment and data analysis capabilities to more accurately identify and handle malicious "refund only" behaviors and bad merchants, and maintain a good trading environment.

On July 26, Taobao took the lead in announcing that it would relax its "refund only" policy and would cancel or reduce after-sales intervention based on the quality of merchant service.

It is reported that after the strategy is launched, for merchants whose comprehensive store experience score is ≥4.8 points, the platform will not actively intervene through Wangwang and support refunds only after receipt of goods, but will encourage merchants to negotiate with consumers first.

For merchants in other segments, the platform will grant them different degrees of autonomy based on their experience scores and industry nature. The higher the experience score, the greater the merchant's autonomy.

While giving merchants more autonomy, Taobao will also provide multiple after-sales service plans for merchants to choose from, guiding them to continuously optimize after-sales services and reduce disputes and financial losses caused by "refund only".

In addition, Taobao has also optimized the refund appeal process. After the merchant files an appeal, the platform will ask a third-party testing agency to conduct random inspections on the products. If the inspection passes, the platform will compensate the merchant for the loss.

Taobao optimizes refunds based on store experience points, taking the lead in making useful explorations in balancing user experience and merchant rights.While ensuring the rights and interests of consumers, it has significantly optimized the business environment and formed a more benign and healthy e-commerce ecosystem.

Regarding the e-commerce platforms starting to optimize the refund-only policy, Cui Lili, professor of the Digital Economy Department and executive director of the E-Commerce Research Institute at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said, "Refund-only policies should be targeted at merchants with poor reputations. Adjusting this policy is a return to fair values."

Benefits both businesses and consumers

Currently, with the help of technology, e-commerce platforms have been able to better balance the rights and interests of consumers and merchants.

It is reported that Taobao has recently upgraded its "refund only" recognition model, which will accurately identify and reject abnormal refund only behavior.An e-commerce practitioner analyzed that the abnormal behavior recognition model will be a powerful means to identify and crack down on wool parties and scalper teams.

It is understood that Taobao's upgraded refund-only identification model has enhanced the recognition of abnormal behaviors such as abnormally high-frequency refunds only, returning empty packages with few items, and high-frequency refunds for counterfeit products. At the same time, it pays close attention to unreasonable refund behaviors to protect the rights and interests of merchants.

In other words, after the upgrade of Taobao's "refund only" model, the legitimate rights and interests of Taobao merchants will be more reliably protected, saying "no" to the malicious "refund only" behavior of wool parties and scalpers.

It can be found that Taobao's new refund-only policy is more balanced. It has not been completely cancelled for the sake of protecting consumers, but has also made important updates from the perspective of merchants to ensure fairness.。Only when the rights and interests of both buyers and sellers are fairly protected can the e-commerce ecosystem develop healthily and in the long run.

It is worth mentioning that optimizing the “refund only” strategy can not only enhance the sense of security of merchants in their daily operations, but also help protect the rights and interests of consumers.

Previously, faced with malicious “wool parties” who only refunded products and rising costs, merchants felt pressured and were easily tempted to raise prices, switch to other sales channels, or even reduce product quality. At the same time, when merchants are obsessed with saving costs, customer experience is not that important.

Taobao's pioneering attempt is commendable as it retains the advantages of "refund only" and finds ways to circumvent the loopholes of this strategy.In a good e-commerce ecosystem, merchants and users need to be treated equally and fairly, and more e-commerce platforms also need to shoulder the responsibility of maintaining the smooth and healthy development of the e-commerce ecosystem.

In addition to the room for improvement in the "refund only" policy, e-commerce platforms have also taken rectification actions against the "black and gray industries" of insurance fraud related to freight insurance.

According to an insider of Taobao, Taobao and Tmall have previously joined forces with partners and the police to crack down on gangs in Maoming, Guangdong and Pingxiang, Jiangxi, who committed insurance fraud. The suspect in the Jiangxi case has been arrested and a case has been filed in Guangdong. With Taobao's intensified crackdown on "black and gray industries" and the implementation of a series of optimization policies in the future, the freight insurance problem currently prevalent in the e-commerce industry is expected to be alleviated.

In addition, there are reports that Taobao is discussing upgrading its freight insurance strategy, and merchants are expected to receive more freight insurance-related subsidies.

Whether it is the optimization of related strategies such as "refund only" or the rectification of "black and gray industries", it is not only a positive response to market feedback, but also a purification of the entire e-commerce environment. It reflects the platform's respect for consumer rights and interests, and also highlights the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of merchants. This is not only a change in rules, but also a profound reflection on fairness and justice.

In a healthy e-commerce environment, the interests of consumers and merchants should be equally respected and protected. Only in this way can the e-commerce industry continue to prosper and create more value for society.

edit|Meng Jintao

Daily Economic News