overview and quick review | "the freeloaders" made off with 70 million overnight. how can the platform tolerate this "evil trend"?
2024-09-02
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overview news commentator niu kexin"a short 20 minutes is longer than a lifetime." on the evening of august 28, due to a price setting error in the "little swan dongshan store", the price of all washing machines in the store was far lower than the normal market level. this "accident" caused the goods with a value of more than 70 million yuan to be sold at only 40% to 50% of the cost price. in just 20 minutes, the number of orders exceeded 40,000, most of which were orders for one person to buy multiple units.what does it mean to have 40,000 orders in 20 minutes? in other words, 33 orders need to be placed within one second. 12 o'clock in the middle of the night, 20 minutes, 40,000 orders, one person with multiple machines, 33 orders per second... all these phenomena make people doubt that this incident is not a simple "sales accident", but may be deliberately done by the "wool party" behind it.in fact, similar "薅羊毛" incidents are not isolated cases. in 2019, a fruit store named "guo xiaoyun" on taobao received tens of thousands of orders in a short period of time and lost millions of yuan because of the wrong setting of discount information. for example, in 2020, a third-party store on the jd platform made a promotional activity, but due to the wrong setting of coupons, a large number of orders were completed at prices far below cost. after discovering the abnormal prices, some consumers not only did not stop placing orders, but spread the news through social platforms, triggering more people to rush to buy, and ultimately causing heavy losses to the store.
some professional “wool-pulling parties” buy at low prices or even for free, and sell at high prices to earn hundreds of thousands of yuan a month. some even have n “wool-pulling groups” and have turned “wool-pulling” into a business. in their view, “wool-pulling” is a “natural” thing, and it is no different from working to make money.
the loopholes in the rules of e-commerce platforms and the lack of morality of a few consumers are the main reasons for the frequent occurrence of the "薅羊毛" phenomenon. while pursuing maximum benefits, a few consumers ignore the principle of fair trade and even regard the mistakes of others as opportunities for their own profit. in addition, the shortcomings of the e-commerce platforms in the design of rules also provide opportunities for "薅羊毛" behavior.
in a case recorded in the "white paper on criminal prosecution of fraud crimes in changning district, shanghai from 2018 to 2020", someone was sentenced for "stealing more than 5.1 million yuan" on an e-commerce platform. these cases show that malicious "stealing" behavior has touched the bottom line of the law and is no longer a simple consumption behavior, but is suspected of illegal crimes. for consumers, there is nothing wrong with pursuing discounts, but it should be based on honesty and law-abidingness. malicious "stealing" behavior not only harms the interests of merchants, but also destroys the fair competition environment in the market.
in short, in the face of the phenomenon of "薅羊毛", we cannot just focus on individual incidents. only when every market participant can follow the rules and respect ethics can the e-commerce market achieve real prosperity and development.
