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author |tin

mooncakes are not selling well anymore, but “hong kong mooncakes” have become the best-selling product.

amid the "crazy" promotion by e-commerce anchors such as xiao yangge, hong kong meicheng mooncakes became the "sales champion" of the platform this year, with sales exceeding 50 million yuan, because it calls itself a "hong kong brand" and its name and products are very similar to the well-known hong kong brand maxim's mooncakes, and it has a "low price" that maxim's mooncakes cannot achieve.

the operator of meicheng mooncakes told the media that the origin of meicheng mooncakes is in guangdong, and it is clearly written on the packaging. it never says that they are produced in hong kong, and there is no false advertising involved. meicheng's operation registration and origin are only in guangdong, and the trademark registration and brand registration are both in hong kong. the brand belongs to hong kong meicheng group co., ltd.

on the evening of september 14, amid a storm of public opinion, the live broadcast room under "three sheep" stopped selling meicheng mooncakes, and live broadcast rooms such as "crazy little yangdi" removed the display of meicheng mooncakes, and the same mooncakes were also removed from the merchandise windows.

in response to this, the operator of meicheng mooncakes stated that whether the "three sheep" live broadcast room involves false advertising has nothing to do with the brand, and the reason why it is taken off the shelves now is also not related to false advertising."the mooncakes sold so well this year that as the mid-autumn festival approaches, we can no longer ship them before the festival, so we have chosen to remove them from the shelves."

when xiao yang was caught in the whirlpool of public opinion again, luo yonghao once again stepped forward to add fuel to the fire, saying bluntly, "if you have purchased in any of our live broadcast rooms, we will refund one and compensate three."

according to the data from chanmama, in the past 30 days on the douyin e-commerce platform, the maximum sales of goods brought by brother yang reached 4.548 million. if the policy of "refund one and compensate three" is adopted, the compensation amount will reach more than 18 million yuan; the sales in zeng zhiwei's live broadcast room reached 18.94 million, and the maximum compensation amount may reach more than 75 million yuan.

on tiktok, some bloggers have begun to give advice to consumers and teach them the "three times the compensation for fake products" compensation plan.

in this regard, liao jianxun, senior partner of guangdong guoding law firm, said in an interview with the media that the mooncakes were advertised as hong kong brands when they were sold, but consumers were not clearly informed that it was only a registered trademark in hong kong and that the mooncakes were all produced in guangdong.this infringes upon consumers' right to know and will lead consumers to misunderstand that the mooncakes are produced in hong kong, which is misleading advertising.

the operator of meicheng mooncakes said,it is impossible to "refund one and compensate three" when purchasing from the official website and offline channels. there is no fraud or false advertising in the sales process. everything depends on the results of the regulatory authorities and consumer associations.

yi xu, senior partner of hunan jinzhou law firm, said that according to article 55 of the consumer rights protection law, if an operator engages in fraudulent behavior, consumers have the right to demand that the operator bear punitive compensation liability of "refund one and compensate three".consumers need to collect sufficient evidence to prove the operator's fraudulent behavior, including but not limited to live videos, screenshots of product promotion pages, customer service chat records, etc.

under the banner of "hong kong", they sell mooncakes produced in guangdong. in this "fake hong kong mooncake" incident, the reputation of brother yang and eric tsang has been shattered.

in the past month, the founders of three sheep group, zhang qingyang (crazy little brother yang) and zhang kaiyang (crazy big brother yang), have vigorously promoted meicheng mooncakes, which are available in different styles, including 99 yuan for 3 boxes and 169 yuan for 3 boxes.

among the 199 talent shows under meicheng mooncakes, most are strip ads posted by accounts under the "three sheep" account. on september 4, someone asked under the video, "is it hong kong meixin mooncakes?" in response, "crazy three little sheep" replied, "it's hong kong meicheng, and it's also a well-known brand in hong kong."

some netizens said that on the evening of september 14, another account under the three sheep group, "crazy little yangdi", was still selling meicheng mooncakes, and "meixin mooncakes" were always placed next to this mooncake. this is easy to confuse people, and it is easy for consumers to mistakenly think that both "meixin mooncakes" and "meixin mooncakes" are made in hong kong when they are sold together.

netizens were also quite angry when hong kong movie star eric tsang and his daughter-in-law minyi wang appeared in xiao yangge's live broadcast room to promote meicheng mooncakes.

zeng zhiwei introduced in the "three sheep" live broadcast room that "meicheng mooncakes are very good gifts", and zhang qingyang immediately responded, "they all know in hong kong that hong kong meicheng sells a box offline for 700 yuan." he also mentioned in the live broadcast that 24,000 orders were sold in 2 minutes.

well-known anti-counterfeiting expert wang hai believes zeng zhiwei's behavior is "disgusting". he said, "even if zhang qingyang and zhang kaiyang did not select the products and have never been to hong kong, zeng zhiwei must know that there is no such brand in hong kong."

zeng zhiwei, the head of the hong kong branch of three sheep, modified the douyin homepage overnight and removed all information related to three sheep after simba exposed many problems of three sheep on september 3. but on the afternoon of september 4, zeng zhiwei posted a photo with big brother yang and little brother yang on the social platform, with the caption: we are fine!

many netizens believe that zeng zhiwei's endorsement of meicheng mooncakes has definitely increased consumers' inherent perception that meicheng mooncakes are a hong kong brand, encouraged xiao yangge's "false propaganda", and also increased the popularity of meicheng mooncakes.

regarding such a brand that plays "edge ball", zhang kaiyang said that hong kong meicheng mooncakes have been "sold for three years and everyone's cooperation is very smooth."as a public figure with a certain influence, zeng zhiwei should have selected products with "value for money" for consumers, but he condoned the emergence of "inferior brands".

judging from the information displayed on the packaging box of meicheng mooncakes, the brand operation center of meicheng mooncakes is guangzhou meicheng food company, the manufacturers are guangzhou meicheng technology company and foshan meicheng food co., ltd., and the place of origin is foshan city, guangdong province.

industrial and commercial registration information shows that guangzhou meicheng food technology co., ltd. has a registered capital of 3 million yuan and was established on april 17, 2014. its address is located in shiling town, huadu district, guangzhou. its legal representative and largest shareholder is li shuiqing, and the second largest shareholder is zhang shaodeng.

guangzhou meicheng food co., ltd. has a registered capital of 10 million yuan and was established on april 24, 2019; foshan meicheng food co., ltd. has a registered capital of 1 million yuan and was established on february 17, 2023.

a query through the hong kong companies registry found that hong kong meicheng group co., ltd. was established on april 15, 2019, later than guangzhou meicheng technology co., ltd.

although guangzhou meicheng technology co., ltd. claims that the brand belongs to hong kong meicheng group co., ltd., industrial and commercial data show that there is no equity relationship between guangzhou meicheng food co., ltd., guangzhou meicheng technology co., ltd. and hong kong meicheng group co., ltd.

through inquiries with the hong kong intellectual property office, it was found that the hong kong meicheng group co., ltd. has registered the words "meicheng", "meicheng bakery art", "hong kong meicheng mooncakes", "meicheng life" in hong kong. among them, the registration time of "hong kong meicheng mooncakes" is september 22, 2023, which is less than 1 year ago.

in addition to the right to use the trademark, when selling meicheng mooncakes, the various accounts of three sheep claimed that a certain flavor of mooncakes was the best-selling in the country, which is also suspected of violating the advertising law.

according to the guangzhou daily, some netizens took screenshots and found that meicheng mooncakes were previously sold for only 59 yuan for three boxes on other shopping platforms, but in the live broadcast of "three sheep", they were priced at 169 yuan for three boxes.

as the three sheep network evolved rapidly, problems also arose.

this year, cctv's "3.15" gala exposed that anhui donghui technology food co., ltd. produced meicai kourou, which used only trough meat. the meicai kourou produced by the company was sold in the live broadcast room of three sheep network. on march 18, three sheep network issued a statement on the matter, apologized, arranged a special team to verify, started consumer registration, and began to advance refunds.

but on the evening of september 4, lu wenqing, co-founder of three sheep network, released a video saying that up to now, three sheep network has not received any punishment from any relevant department for the meicaikourou incident. he also said that if the relevant department punishes the company, three sheep network will not evade or shirk responsibility.

why can three sheep escape punishment for selling inferior products in their live broadcast room?

on september 5, the market supervision and administration bureau of hefei high-tech zone responded to relevant media that three sheep was the advertiser, and the production and sales issues of trough head meat had nothing to do with three sheep: although consumers purchased preserved pork with preserved vegetables in the live broadcast room of three sheep network, since the recipient was hubei xiaocheng youxuan technology development co., ltd., hubei xiaocheng youxuan was the seller, and anhui donghui food technology co., ltd., which was exposed by the 3.15 gala, was the producer. three sheep network was merely an "advertiser", and there was no evidence to show that funds flowed to three sheep network.

hefei hi-tech zone market supervision and administration bureau stated that according to relevant laws and regulations,consumers of the "caotou meat incident" can only demand compensation from sellers and producers; as for three sheep network, they can only pursue advertising responsibility.

in some of xiao yangge’s live broadcast rooms, they also started playing "word games", marking the product page with notes such as "the seller of this product is the store operator to which the shopping link belongs, not this live broadcast room/window", trying to draw a clear line of responsibility between the anchor and the seller, but no relevant words were marked during the promotion of meicheng mooncakes.

just on september 9, wang hai released a video saying that the "xian duo yu" fake original cut beef rolls promoted by "crazy xiao yang ge" were fined 500,000 yuan, and 42,000 consumers were deceived. according to the regulations of refunding one and compensating ten, 42 million yuan needs to be compensated to consumers.

according to the "administrative penalty decision" made by the wuhan qingshan district market supervision and administration bureau on july 16, 2024, the "xian duo yu" beef rolls sold by "crazy brother yang" for 89.9 yuan per 4-jin package were determined to be not original cut beef.

when a media called the hefei market supervision hotline, the operator responded that there have been a lot of feedback from citizens recently regarding the issue of xiao yangge's live broadcast room misleading consumers. "we attach great importance to it and have immediately reported it to the responsible unit. it is now being processed, and we have not yet received a reply from the responsible unit." when asked about the specific responsible unit, the staff stated that the relevant responsible unit is the management committee of the high-tech industrial development zone, and subsequent staff will be dispatched to handle it.

"if 'hong kong meicheng mooncakes' is a self-operated product of three sheep, then three sheep is the advertiser. if three sheep is just promoting the product, according to the internet advertising management measures, even if there are notes such as 'not a seller', it cannot completely draw a clear line of responsibility between the anchor and the seller." li zerui believes that "in actual operation, the anchor's words, behavior, and promotional content may have an impact on consumers' purchasing decisions."

the quality of goods has deteriorated, but the anchors who sell the goods are not affected at all, and even "turn a blind eye to it", which is obviously unreasonable.in the process of online live sales, the host who sells the goods is an extremely critical factor influencing consumers' purchases. if there is a problem with the product, especially food, the host should also take responsibility, rather than letting consumers' trust be exhausted in the process of repeated rights protection.