Who benefits from “refund only”?
2024-08-18
한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina
In order to recover 12 pairs of socks that were “refunded only”, a female shop owner traveled thousands of kilometers to find the buyer to ask for an explanation. Recently, the phenomenon of buyers “refund only” has triggered extensive public discussion on the “refund only” rule of online shopping platforms: merchants are already in such a “difficult situation”, why do they still provide “refund only” service?
This is because "refund only" is not only a service, but also a marketing trick.
"Refund only" reduces the trial and error cost of consumers' shopping, and the friendly after-sales experience makes consumers more "active" and more willing to buy. For products with low unit prices and high price elasticity, this strategy can effectively stimulate demand and increase sales.
In the field of fresh food, "compensation for damage, refund only" is a secret to the business growth. This kind of goods are prone to problems during transportation. If consumers are provided with complete after-sales service, they will develop trust in and use online fresh food e-commerce.
It can be seen from this that the original intention of e-commerce platforms to support "refund only" is good, but in actual operations, some users take advantage of policy loopholes to maliciously "take advantage of the situation", and even a "zero-yuan purchase" gray industry chain has emerged. The platform's judgment on "refund only" is often biased towards consumers, and the merchants who have difficulty speaking can't swallow this, so the scene at the beginning happened.
Why are all the major platforms trying to please consumers? It’s simple, because at this stage, the platforms need consumers more.
When e-commerce platforms were just beginning to develop, they needed a large number of merchants to join them. At that time, the platform's policies, services, and subsidies were all favorable to merchants. Now, however, competition among major platforms is fierce, and consumers are more sought after than goods. In order to make consumers more willing to spend money, "shipping insurance", "seven-day unconditional return and exchange", "15-day price guarantee", "refund only" and other policies have become standard features of major e-commerce platforms.
However, "refund only" is not suitable for all platforms. The "refund only" model is more suitable for fresh or low-priced goods. Because these goods are either returned and cannot be resold, or the shipping and labor costs after return are higher than the value of the goods themselves, which is not worth the loss. This is the case with Pinduoduo, which was the first to open up the market through "refund only". For other platforms that have already developed more maturely, it is not so easy to lock in customer base by "refund only".
We often mention a concept: bad money drives out good money. When merchants are maliciously "fleeced" and have difficulty defending their rights, they will not feel the good business environment of the platform, so they will reduce cost investment, lower service standards or withdraw from the platform and market, and over time they will fall into a vicious cycle. Product quality declines, return rates increase, customer consumption experience deteriorates, and more merchants withdraw, which in turn affects the survival of the platform.
There are no winners in the "refund only" war of wool-pulling. On the surface, it is customer-centric and respects the customer's consumption experience, but in the end, the customer may also become a victim. Many platforms have gradually realized this. Starting from August 9, Taobao officially implemented the optimized "refund only" strategy. The platform will enhance the after-sales autonomy of merchants based on the new experience points, and reduce or cancel after-sales intervention for high-quality stores. At the same time, the abnormal behavior recognition model of "refund only" for received goods will be upgraded, and refund-only requests with abnormal behavior will be rejected. This move indicates that while the e-commerce platform is improving the consumer experience, it has also strengthened the protection of the rights and interests of merchants.
The essence of business is not to please others. The relationship between merchants, platforms and customers should be interdependent. There is no such thing as one person "pleases" another. It should be like the slogan in an advertisement: Only when everyone is happy can we be happy. (Source: Economic Daily, Author: Fan Chuchu)
Source: Economic Daily
