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Recently, an employee of a kitchen appliance online store on Taobao posted that due to an error in setting up preferential conditions, more than 4,000 orders were placed by consumers at low prices overnight, with a transaction amount of about 12 million yuan. The online store had to close, which attracted the sympathy and attention of many netizens.

On August 8, a reporter from Upstream News (reporting mailbox: [email protected]) contacted the owner of the online store, Mr. Liang. He said that he was refunding or compensating all orders, but because he could not ship the goods, the platform deposit had already been lost, and some consumers demanded a 30% refund or a three-fold refund, so he had no choice but to close the store.

According to reports, he has two online stores in total, and this year marks his fifth year in business. The products sold in the stores are mainly kitchen appliances, etc. The monthly revenue of each store is approximately 10,000 to 20,000 yuan.

The staff of the online store posted a message to describe the incident.

On July 26, Mr. Liang's store participated in a Taobao promotion, but due to employee negligence, the event price was set repeatedly. "The original price of the five or six promotional products was around 2,000 yuan, and we planned to set it up as a 1,000 yuan discount for purchases over 1,000 yuan, but our operations staff set it up again, which was equivalent to giving away 2,000 yuan worth of products for free."

Mr. Liang said that the activity took effect from midnight on July 26, when the customer service and operations were off work and no one noticed the loophole. In just five or six hours, thousands of low-price orders were successfully traded.

"After someone discovered this 'wool', they spread the news on major social platforms and WeChat groups, and people flocked to place orders." Mr. Liang said that many people posted online to show off that they bought a disinfection cabinet for a few yuan and a range hood for about 100 yuan. "A rough calculation shows that the transaction amount is about 12 million yuan, but the actual value of the goods is about 200 million yuan." Mr. Liang helplessly admitted that his store could not afford such a huge loss and could not ship the goods to the buyers.

Mr. Liang said that when they discovered the loophole, the situation had already developed to a point where it was difficult to control, and many people called the market supervision and 12345 to complain about the company's deception of consumers, demanding "refund one and compensate three". "Although some consumers knew that it was our operational error and contacted us for a refund, a large number of people still seized on this loophole and demanded that we ship the goods or pay compensation."

According to the rules of the e-commerce platform, if the goods cannot be delivered normally after the buyer has paid, he will have to pay a penalty of 30% of the transaction amount. "There are more than 4,000 orders in total, and the average compensation for each consumer ranges from a dozen yuan to several dozen yuan, with a maximum of 500 yuan. In total, the total compensation is more than 100,000 yuan."

Netizens claimed that they found a "big bargain" in the online store in the early morning of that day.

Mr. Liang said that initially, a deposit of 50,000 yuan was required to open a store on the platform, and the merchant would pay compensation if any problems occurred. Due to this omission, the store received many complaints, and the 50,000 yuan deposit has been used as compensation and has been fully paid out.

Mr. Liang believes that for such mistakes, the platform could have helped him cancel the order after verifying the situation, but the platform did not do so, and instead allowed consumers to complain and demand compensation. "My two stores may only make 300,000 yuan a year, but I lost more than 100,000 yuan because of this mistake." He said helplessly that now both online stores can no longer operate normally, all products have been removed from the shelves, and the stores are closed. "If there is a poor coordination with the seller in the future, it will also affect the store's reputation. If I want to reopen the store, the star rating will also be affected."

On July 27, the store staff posted the relevant situation on social media, which attracted the sympathy of many netizens. Upstream News reporters saw on social media that in the early morning of July 26, some netizens shared posts about "fleecing" the online store, and some netizens commented that "this is eating human blood buns."

Taobao customer service said that if a large number of order problems are caused by merchant settings errors, the platform will make corresponding handling after receiving feedback from the merchant. In this case, there is a special control department to verify, and will review and handle each dispute issue impartially.

Upstream News reporters learned that in recent years, there have been many cases on e-commerce platforms where employees made operational errors and incorrect pricing, resulting in users placing large orders and rushing to buy.

On October 26, 2021, a Taobao store selling Yuanqi Forest Sparkling Water had an error in its discount settings. The original price of 79 yuan per box (12 bottles) of sparkling water was reduced to an average of about 3.5 yuan per box, resulting in a surge of 300,000 orders for the sparkling water. It is said that the store may have lost more than 2 million yuan. The next day, the solution proposed by the Yuanqi Forest official store was that consumers who placed orders should apply for a refund in the background.

On September 17, 2023, due to an employee's operational error, the official live broadcast room of the domestic brand Jie Rou mistakenly set the original price of 56.9 yuan per box of paper towels to 10 yuan for 6 boxes, triggering a large number of users to place orders and rush to buy. The final number of orders exceeded 40,000, and the amount of losses exceeded 10 million yuan. On September 19, Jie Rou officially issued a statement promising that all orders would be shipped.

Some netizens posted messages asking for compensation from the merchants, which was accused of "fleecing" and "eating human blood buns".

Mr. Liang also mentioned relevant cases in the interview, but he said: "We are not like those big brands and companies that have sufficient supply and working capital. If they make mistakes, they may be able to ship as usual or bear all the losses themselves. For small businesses like us, it is very difficult to handle such mistakes."

Fu Jian, director of Henan Zejin Law Firm, believes that as the sales entity, the merchant’s mistakes in setting preferential conditions are obviously the result of poor management, and they should bear the corresponding breach of contract liability to consumers.

The merchant's price setting error may be suspected of major misunderstanding, because the sales price is obviously lower than the daily selling price, and the consequences of its behavior are contrary to its true intention. If the price is not wrong, the merchant will not sell the goods at that price. Therefore, the merchant can provide evidence to prove that it is a major misunderstanding and claim to cancel the contract. In addition, considering that the continued performance of the contract will cause the merchant to suffer greater economic losses, the rights and obligations of the two parties to the transaction are obviously unbalanced, and there is a certain degree of unfairness, the contract can be revoked.

Fu Jian said that the platform is not at fault and generally will not bear responsibility, but if the contract is revoked and invalid from the outset, the merchant can claim that the sales contract is invalid and ask the platform to return the deposit. If the interests of consumers are damaged due to work errors, they should bear certain compensation liability, but the specific amount needs further negotiation between the two parties.

Source: Upstream News