the anchor’s sales performance has declined, who will pay for the backlog of inventory?
2024-09-23
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a manufacturer invited a live streamer to sell goods. seeing the sales increase, they wanted to seize the "double 11" business opportunity to promote it again. unexpectedly, when "double 11" came, sales fell all the way. the manufacturer sued the cooperating live streamer to "pay" for the large amount of backlog of inventory. recently, the tongzhou court of nantong city, jiangsu province heard the dispute.
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case review
in july 2021, anchor guo signed a cooperation agreement with manufacturer zhang, stipulating that zhang would be responsible for production according to the fabrics and processes confirmed by both parties, and guo would be responsible for selling the inventory of cooperatively produced products, and the product supply price would be determined by negotiation between the two parties.
afterwards, guo sold goods for zhang through live streaming, and in the first two months, the monthly sales exceeded 700,000 yuan.
seeing that the product was so popular, the morale of both parties was high. guo urged zhang to speed up production in wechat, and zhang also said "hurry up the production".
however, the sales of live broadcasts on november 11 dropped sharply, and finally settled at more than 24,000 yuan, a significant drop compared with the sales in the previous two months. zhang then urged guo to sell the goods quickly, but guo refused to admit that the goods were customized by him.
in august 2022, guo's employees signed the statistical sheet issued by zhang and noted that "the inventory has been counted correctly." the statistical sheet stated the name, quantity and amount of the inventory products.
due to the poor live broadcast sales volume of inventory products, guo also reduced the live broadcast time for this product.
after another year of live sales, at the time zhang filed the lawsuit, there was still inventory worth more than 1.6 million yuan.
court hearing
during the trial, guo said that the cooperation agreement signed by the two parties was not actually implemented. he was only a sales agent, not a buyer or a commissioned processor. he never confirmed the product style and quantity. although it is true that he urged production, zhang blindly produced despite knowing that the sales volume had declined, so the responsibility lies with zhang. the sales volume declined during the double eleven period mainly because the live broadcast account was blocked for involving sensitive words and prohibited operations. however, the two parties did not make any agreement on the number and frequency of live broadcasts. if the products sell well, they will broadcast more, and if they don’t sell well, they will broadcast less. he is still live streaming for zhang, so he should not be held responsible.
after the trial, the court held that the relevant product styles were jointly selected by both parties, and zhang had informed guo of the production plan. combining the cooperation agreement with the wechat chat records of both parties, it can be determined that the relationship between the two parties is neither a contractual relationship of delivering products and paying remuneration, nor a commissioned relationship of being responsible for sales, but a cooperative relationship in which both parties confirm the product shape and fabric, zhang produces it, and guo sells it.
judging from the actual sales amount, inventory amount and previous sales trends of both parties, the materials purchased by zhang to fulfill the contract were in line with the sales expectations at the time. the reason for the product inventory was guo's poor sales, and guo should bear the sales responsibility for the inventory products. however, zhang's purchase of too much raw materials was also one of the factors causing the inventory, and guo should bear 80% of the responsibility as appropriate.
the court ultimately ruled that the cooperation agreement between the two parties was terminated, guo was required to compensate zhang for more than 1.32 million yuan, and zhang was required to return inventory products of equal value.
after the verdict, guo appealed, and the nantong intermediate people's court upheld the original verdict.
judge's opinion
with the development of the internet and the live streaming industry, live streaming has become an important sales model, and live streaming hosts have also become the objects of pursuit by many businesses.
however, disputes between merchants and anchors are easily caused by vague agreements on cooperation models and unclear distribution of rights and obligations.
the presiding judge of the case reminded that when both parties enter into a written agreement, it is recommended to clarify their respective rights and obligations, especially the need to make agreements on product selection, pricing, copyright and inventory handling to avoid subsequent disputes.
(source: nantong intermediate people's court wechat official account)
editor of this issue: lu yue
