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author: guo mengyi

merchants have suffered from "internal competition" for a long time, and e-commerce platforms have finally taken action.

over the past year or so, merchants have been involved in various competitions: competing for the absolute lowest prices and only offering refunds. while providing consumers with more cost-effective products, they have also become a tool for some people to take advantage of them.

long-term disorderly competition on some platforms has also forced many merchants to sell goods at a loss under the pressure of price cuts, and even reduce product quality. the pressure of returns has increased operating costs in disguise, and merchants have fallen into a vicious cycle of "difficult operation, high costs, and low profits."

merchants can no longer "roll".

when low prices gradually become the standard, merchants have less and less room to maneuver. what else can they do to gain advantage?

the turning point came soon. in july, taobao took the lead in announcing the relaxation of the "refund only" policy, firing the first shot in optimizing the business environment for merchants; then, taobao launched the "return treasure" to reduce costs for merchants in the after-sales scenario. after taobao, other e-commerce platforms followed suit, including jd.com and pinduoduo, which recently launched policies to benefit merchants.

when e-commerce entered the "post-low-price" era, platforms began to actively adjust their strategies, from competing for low prices and services to competing for the business environment, striving to find a new balance between users and merchants.

01 users need a refund, but the cost for merchants is high. what to do?

after "competing for low prices", refund is the hot word in the e-commerce industry this year.

"several of my business friends have complained to me that the return rate has directly wiped out their profits." wang jian (nickname), a staff member of e-commerce outsourcing operations, told business data that this year, the return rate of most of the merchants they cooperate with has increased, and one merchant's return rate has increased by 30% year-on-year. this silent indicator change is also eroding the interests of the upstream and downstream of e-commerce.

in the early days of e-commerce development, refunds were a necessary measure taken by e-commerce platforms to ensure user experience. however, this practice, which has existed for more than a decade, has gradually become the last straw that broke the camel's back under the influence of some wool-gathering parties.

many people may not have expected that the refund rate of many categories in e-commerce is so high. for merchants in these categories, the "refund rate" is also something that must be considered when calculating the business model.

in addition to returns, the "refund only" service that was launched not long ago has been controversial. the reason is that this function that improves user experience is very easy to be abused under a one-size-fits-all model.

a snack merchant once complained to business data that because the pickled chicken feet were not "chicken feet", he was "only refunded" and the platform automatically approved it, which made him unable to explain himself.

some experts say that this policy makes sellers particularly passive in transactions and their own rights and interests cannot be protected. however, some experts believe that this actually reflects the e-commerce platform's care for consumers and shows that the e-commerce industry is becoming more and more attentive in after-sales service.

e-commerce is developing so rapidly that service policies must keep up, but how to balance the interests of sellers and buyers is indeed a technical job.

the sensitive e-commerce platforms began to sense that something was wrong.

on july 26, taobao relaxed the "refund only" binding and announced that starting from august 9, the platform will optimize the "refund only" strategy based on the new experience points, enhance merchants' after-sales autonomy, and reduce or cancel after-sales intervention for high-quality stores.

faced with the unreasonable policy of only refunding, taobao has established a more complete "experience score" system. in the process of continuous optimization and upgrading, the experience score has gradually become an important basis for consumers to select high-quality merchants when shopping on taobao and tmall.

but after-sales issues are not just about “refunds only”. the increase in return rate is also one of the main reasons for the surge in merchants’ operating costs.

wang jian explained that, taking a women's clothing store as an example, the main costs after returns are shipping and promotion costs.

in the past, the cost of freight insurance was only 0.7 to 1.5 yuan per order, but now it has doubled to 4.5 to 5 yuan per order. if the store sales volume is as high as 1,000 orders, the daily freight insurance cost will be tens of thousands of yuan; on the other hand, promotion costs are also a large part of the return cost.

so, how to ensure the user consumption experience while reducing the merchant's costs? this is a difficult problem.

on september 12, taobao officially launched the return service for all taobao and tmall merchants.

many merchants told business data that after opening the return treasure, the freight cost per order can be reduced by 10%-30%. according to the platform's calculations, the return treasure is expected to reduce the return and exchange freight costs of merchants by 2 billion yuan throughout the year.

it is understood that for this function, as long as consumers place an order to purchase goods with the "return treasure" service logo, and apply for a return or exchange (including return, exchange and replacement, etc.) after the merchant ships the order and the return or exchange is finally successful, the consumer will be guaranteed the first shipping fee for the return or exchange (excluding packaging costs, cargo damage costs and other fees, up to 26 yuan).

"my freight insurance used to be 1 yuan per order, but now it only costs 0.81 yuan per order. some of my friends have freight insurance that can reach 4.5 yuan per order, but now it only costs 3.5 yuan per order." wang jian told business data.

wang jian was a little dissatisfied with the "90-day guarantee period" at first, thinking that the "7-day no-reason return and exchange" was changed to "90-day no-reason return and exchange". after studying the policy, wang jian found that he had misunderstood it.

"in fact, the 90-day guarantee period of huihuobao means that if consumers apply for a return or exchange within this period after purchasing a product with the huihuobao logo, and the return or exchange is successful, huihuobao will bear the first shipping cost for them. this does not change the original 7-day no-reason return or exchange rule, but provides consumers with additional shipping cost protection on this basis."

in any case, as long as it can reduce costs, it is good for wang jian.

taobao took the lead in the shift, and other e-commerce platforms realized this imbalance and gradually began to reflect and adjust their strategies, seeking a balance between the interests of merchants and consumers.

for example, after taobao relaxed its refund-only policy, pinduoduo also followed suit and launched similar new regulations on august 7, stipulating that for "refund only" requests for orders that have been shipped, merchants will have 36 hours to handle the matter independently.

these changes show that, under the leadership of taobao, e-commerce platforms are gradually realizing the importance of merchants and are improving the operating experience of merchants by adjusting their strategies.

the relationship between e-commerce platforms and merchants is essentially a mutually beneficial one. the sales of merchants directly determine the transaction volume of the platform, and the increase in transaction volume brings more profits to the platform.

02 e-commerce enters the “post-low-price” era

on singles’ day, the gmv reached 1,138.6 billion yuan. one kind of fruit sold millions of kilograms. li jiaqi sold as much as a department store…

from shelf e-commerce, social e-commerce to content e-commerce, merchants have created miracles, and these e-commerce platforms have also created miracles.

in the golden twenty years of rapid development of e-commerce, e-commerce has greatly improved the sales efficiency of the retail industry. it has not only become a high ground for the emergence of new brands, but also promoted the upgrading of china's retail industry.

however, no one can be perfect forever, and no flower can be red forever. the growth of the entire industry has slowed down, which is a fact that everyone needs to accept.

in the past two years, the most frequently mentioned word by both platforms and merchants is "cost reduction and efficiency improvement". however, after the growth slowdown, cost reduction is actually more important than efficiency improvement.

merchants can no longer attract customers, the platforms have figured it out, and e-commerce platforms have obviously realized this.

in addition to the return and refund issues that are of most concern to merchants mentioned above, the platform is also working on many details to gradually optimize the business environment for merchants.

recently, platforms, represented by taobao, have launched initiatives to benefit businesses.

in the e-commerce merchant circle, everyone has summarized the "seven major measures" of taobao's new regulations this summer.

in addition to optimizing the "refund only" policy and launching the "return bao", we also improved customer service quality, adjusted delivery management standards, introduced wechat payment capabilities, adjusted the search weight distribution system, and waived annual fees.

what concerns merchants most is the cancellation of annual fees.

previously, merchants in different categories on tmall had to pay an annual fee of 30,000 to 60,000 yuan. starting from september 1, in addition to new merchants, tmall will fully refund the annual fee for merchants whose operating turnover reaches the annual target from january to august 2024. taobao live will waive the "live broadcast technology service fee" for merchants for one year (from september 1, 2024 to august 31, 2025).

adjusting the search weight distribution system is also a focus of merchants.

in april, taobao optimized and adjusted its five-star price power strategy. this optimization and adjustment mainly involved some products with low price comparison and brand awareness, and their price weight was weakened. the platform will further integrate product brand power, service and other aspects into its assessment dimensions.

the original "five-star price power" strategy was weakened, and gmv was used as the main basis for weight allocation. this shows that taobao has shifted its strategy from pursuing low prices and sales to pursuing high-quality services and transaction value.

prior to this, taobao and tmall have launched a series of business-friendly actions: providing nearly 10 measures to all brands and merchants, including ai business efficiency improvement tools, free business advisors, and delivery logistics subsidies, to reduce operating costs and improve operating efficiency.

jd.com also announced last month that it would upgrade its “spring dawn plan,” launching a total of 15 new initiatives in three dimensions: supporting hundreds of billions of traffic, improving efficiency with ai technology, and ultra-light asset operations. these initiatives include homepage channel traffic incentives, upgrades to three star-level rules, over 100 million yuan in advertising subsidies, live streaming incentives for new merchants, and 10,000 yuan tool and service packages.

pinduoduo, as a representative of low-price e-commerce, finally followed suit. on september 5, after refunding the service fee, pinduoduo also lowered the deposit for merchants' stores from 1,000 yuan to 500 yuan.

it is not difficult to see that after taobao fired the first shot, e-commerce platforms also began to follow up on the optimization of the business environment, and "reverse rolling" is expected to become a new wave in the e-commerce industry.

03 low price starts to “break the volume”

are users more important, or are merchants more important?

this is a controversial topic, and major e-commerce platforms will come up with different answers at different stages.

when pursuing user scale and user retention, we grab users; when pursuing refined operations, we pay attention to merchants. each decision is the optimal solution based on the current environment.

however, paying attention to merchants or consumers does not mean ignoring the other party. protecting the interests of both parties is always necessary for a healthy e-commerce ecosystem.

especially in the current environment where the overall market growth is gradually slowing down, it is even more important to improve the business environment and establish a healthier e-commerce ecosystem.

for example, in march this year, taobao announced that important business services such as business advisor would be provided free of charge to merchants across the platform.

in april, alimama launched "full site promotion", which fully connected to taobao search and recommendation resources, broke through the barriers of taobao's natural and paid traffic pools, activated taobao's global traffic in the form of paid and free linkage, and helped merchants drive an overall increase in product turnover. this product helps bring more certain growth to merchants.

in wang jian's opinion, if the platform does not change its business thinking, it will be difficult to face the future business environment. taobao has obviously set an example for other platforms.

a good price has always been a consumer demand, but the conflict between low price and high quality should be avoided through the improvement of technology models (such as c2m model, flexible supply chain), so that low price and good quality can be compatible, rather than blindly pursuing absolute low prices.

platforms and merchants need to put more resources and competition into the direction of "improving efficiency and increasing revenue" and demanding growth from the market. this is the best solution to the problem of "involution".