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just because of a "slip of the hand", goods worth 70 million yuan were "grabbed" within 20 minutes.

recently, a small e-commerce store in a county of anhui province, little swan dongshan store, "dumped" goods worth more than 70 million yuan at 40% to 50% off the purchase price in just 20 minutes due to an operational error by the e-commerce operator. if the goods were shipped according to regulations, the store would face direct losses of up to 30 million yuan.

afterwards, the store posted an apology video on its homepage. in the video, the e-commerce operator explained that due to the wrong price setting, the price of washing machines in the store was far lower than the market price, causing huge losses to the store. at present, the store has paid more than hundreds of thousands of yuan in deposit compensation, and hopes that the buyer will agree to a refund.

although the e-commerce operator's "slip of the hand" was the direct cause of the loss, should all the responsibility be attributed to the store's personal behavior? is there a way forward?

e-commerce platform price setting errors are not isolated cases

in recent years, it is not uncommon for e-commerce platforms to have price setting errors, and this incident is not an isolated case.

on august 21, jiahua food flagship store also made a mistake in setting prices, setting the flash sale price of a product originally priced at 39.9 yuan to 1 yuan. in just a few hours, sales surged to nearly 6 million units. according to the store, this mistake is expected to result in hundreds of millions of yuan in economic losses.

lu tailai, the manager of local life mcnin an interview with guoshi direct express, he said that price is the top priority for selling goods, and setting prices incorrectly is a taboo in the e-commerce industry. goods sold in live broadcast rooms are usually confirmed multiple times before going online, but e-commerce snap-up events like "little swan" that are not supported by live broadcasts are more likely to have similar problems.

liu qiang, an e-commerce insiderit is pointed out that price setting errors are not uncommon among operators on the platform. 80% of e-commerce operators have experienced such mistakes, but usually only lose dozens to hundreds of orders at most. if the "little swan dongshan store" does not ship the goods, it will face penalties such as freezing of deposits and payments by the platform, and may even face legal compensation, and may eventually have to face the end of closing the store.

according to article 49 of the electronic commerce law of the people's republic of china:if the product or service information published by the e-commerce operator meets the offer conditions, the user selects the product or service and successfully submits the order, and the contract is established. if the parties have other agreements, they shall prevail.

meng guangyuan, senior partner of heilongjiang meng fanxu law firmin an interview with guoshi direct, he said that from a legal perspective, unless otherwise agreed, a contract is established when a user selects a product on a website and submits an order. if a merchant cancels an order, it is a breach of contract and the merchant must bear the liability for breach of contract. however, if the merchant can prove that the price setting error is based on a major misunderstanding or is obviously unfair, it has the right to request a court or arbitration institution to cancel the transaction.

the “wool tribe” may be involved in unjust enrichment

the operator’s apology video also mentioned that there were more than 40,000 orders within 20 minutes of the price being set incorrectly, most of which were for one person for multiple units.

analysts pointed out that even for top anchors, it is extremely rare to sell goods worth 40 million yuan in such a short time. in this case, more than 40,000 orders poured in within 20 minutes, which is even rarer. even with a huge fan base, it is difficult to achieve such efficient traffic and conversion in such a short time. therefore, most of these orders may be "wool tribes" who placed orders through some technical means.

what is the "wool tribe"?

the "wool-pulling tribe" is a group that is concerned with and keen on "fleecing", and refers to those who specifically choose the marketing activities of internet companies in exchange for high rewards at low or even no cost.

legal experts pointed out that the "wool tribe" who place large numbers of orders through technical means may be involved in unjust enrichment. the goods ordered by the "wool tribe" may not require compensation from the merchants, which has a certain chance of turning around for the merchants.

article 985 of the civil code of the people's republic of china clearly states:unjust enrichment means that the beneficiary obtains improper benefits without legal basis, which causes losses to others. in this case, the beneficiary shall return the improper benefits to the person who suffered the losses.

zhang ming, partner and lawyer at beijing jingshi law firmwhen accepting an interview with china news service's national affairs express, he said that e-commerce operators openly sell their products through e-commerce platforms. even if the prices are abnormal, ordinary consumers do not constitute unjust enrichment if the contract is not revoked.

meng guangyuan believes that in this case, it is difficult to determine whether the consumer's belief that the abnormally low price is a promotion or a mistake by the merchant. therefore, from an objective point of view, this behavior is a commodity obtained based on a legal relationship of sale and purchase, and is generally not considered to constitute "unjust enrichment". however, if there is sufficient evidence that the consumer's main purpose of purchasing the commodity is to use the merchant's price error for malicious arbitrage, such as malicious order brushing or the use of non-human technical means, then their behavior may constitute unjust enrichment.

in zhang ming's opinion, in this case, the e-commerce operator marked the wrong price, which was a major misunderstanding. he could suspend the shipment and then file a lawsuit in court to cancel the sales contract with the "wool tribe". however, the procedure for filing a lawsuit to cancel the contract is cumbersome and the litigation cost is very high.

according to article 147 of the civil code,the person who has performed a civil legal act based on a major misunderstanding has the right to request the people's court or arbitration institution to revoke it.

there are precedents for "wool-stealing" people being held accountable. in the "white paper on criminal prosecution of fraud crimes in changning district, shanghai from 2018 to 2020", there is a case in which a person was sentenced for "stealing" more than 5.1 million yuan from an e-commerce platform.

from july to september 2019, while fang moumou participated in a platform subsidy activity in the online store he operated, he worked together with wang moumou (an accomplice) and mu moumou (handled in another case), who were responsible for customer service and platform docking respectively. he also contacted more than a dozen "brushers" including diao moumou, lu moumou, and wang moumou (all of whom have been sentenced) to create the illusion of buying apple mobile phones, and defrauded shanghai xunmeng information technology co., ltd. of more than rmb 5.1 million in shopping subsidies for the store. however, he failed because he was discovered.

on december 9, 2020, the changning district procuratorate filed a public prosecution against fang and wang for suspected fraud. on march 12, 2021, the changning district court adopted the prosecution's opinion and sentenced fang to six years in prison for fraud and a fine of rmb 300,000; and sentenced wang to three years in prison for fraud, suspended for five years, and a fine of rmb 50,000.

the platform's preferential rules are complex and need to be optimized

some industry insiders interviewed also mentioned that the activities on the platform are becoming more and more complicated. for example, various coupons are stacked on top of each other. if the rules are not fully understood, it is easy to make setting errors and lead to serious losses.

"the various coupons during each big sale not only dazzle consumers, but also give us operations staff a headache," liu qiang said bluntly.

the discount rules of e-commerce platforms are cumbersome and complicated, causing operators to be dizzy. should they also bear joint liability for the mistakes made by store operators?

in meng guangyuan's view, the establishment of platform preferential rules and whether merchants participate in preferential activities planned by the platform belong to the category of civil autonomy. if merchants voluntarily participate in the activity, they should bear the possible consequences. therefore, the losses caused by merchants' mistakes cannot be attributed to the e-commerce platform.

however, he also pointed out that e-commerce platforms need to take more responsibility and establish a monitoring mechanism for price setting errors to verify the situation in a timely manner. the platform can immediately suspend the transaction of related products after discovering the error to prevent further losses. in addition, e-commerce platforms should continue to optimize the design of preferential rules to reduce erroneous operations caused by complex rules.