why do live broadcasts of goods frequently “overturn”?
2024-09-29
한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina
"china economic weekly" reporter zhang yan
counting from the launch of taobao live in 2016, live streaming has gone through eight years. the "2023 china livestreaming e-commerce industry research report" previously released by iresearch shows that the transaction volume of china's livestreaming e-commerce in 2023 will be 4.9 trillion, with a growth rate of 35%. today, live e-commerce has become one of the important ways for online shopping users to purchase goods.
at the same time, chaos in live streaming e-commerce has continued. statistics from the state administration for market regulation show that last year, 12.611 million online shopping complaints and reports were received by 12315 platforms across the country, accounting for 56.1% of the total number of complaints and reports. the growth rate of complaints and reports for emerging e-commerce, mainly live streaming e-commerce, was significantly higher than that of traditional e-commerce. e-commerce platform. the number of complaints and reports received by the platform over live streaming increased by 52.5% year-on-year.
recently, a "hong kong meicheng mooncake" sold by crazy little brother yang (zhang qingyang) and his company's "three sheep" company in multiple live broadcast rooms has attracted attention from the outside world. regarding the origin of this product, the outside world has questioned whether it is suspected of "false propaganda" and "misleading consumers." as the head anchor, this is not the first time that crazy little yang has been involved in a product-carrying scandal. and it’s not just crazy little brother yang, there are already many leading anchors in the industry who have fallen into a “rollover” crisis.
while live streaming e-commerce is developing rapidly, why does the industry continue to suffer from chaos?
"live broadcast is actually a show"
mooncakes that have never been produced or sold in hong kong are called "hong kong high-end mooncakes." such exaggerated and false propaganda is not uncommon in live broadcast rooms. not long ago, when "northeast rain sister", an internet celebrity with 20 million fans, was selling rice field crabs, a specialty of panjin, in a live broadcast room, netizens discovered that it was a staged photo shoot. the crabs, which were obviously much larger, were placed in the rice fields to fake the photo. rice field crab.
a few years ago, top anchor simba was punished and suspended for selling a product with an actual bird's nest solid content of less than 2 grams as "bird's nest".
if the above-mentioned practice of selling dog meat at the expense of sheep can still be exposed through clues, then the following side-stepping tactics make it even more difficult for consumers to trace and defend their rights.
according to regulatory requirements, commercial advertisements released during live broadcasts must be strictly reviewed and checked in accordance with regulations to ensure compliance with relevant advertising release requirements. therefore, each major platform has established a dictionary of sensitive words for live broadcasts, especially professional terms related to disease prevention, treatment functions, etc. in order to avoid triggering platform supervision, anchors have a set of alternative words of "you know and i know". for example, "rice" is used to replace money, "minmin" is used to replace sensitive skin, "ceiling level" is used to refer to the best, "99+1" is used to describe hundred percent, etc.
take products such as "fruit and vegetable meal replacement", "probiotics" and "white kidney bean blocker" that are commonly seen in live broadcast rooms as examples. during the investigation, the reporter found that most of the products were actually registered as ordinary food. according to relevant regulations, ordinary foods are not allowed to promote treatment, health care and other effects. however, in actual sales, anchors often use phrases such as "big meal savior" and "no need to shut up or open your legs" to allude to weight loss products.
under the fierce competition, some small and medium-sized anchors and merchants are using any means to bring goods, performing various routines in the live broadcast room.
at the beginning of this year, the people's court of zhaojue county, liangshan prefecture, sichuan issued a first-instance verdict on the case of "liangshan mengyang", "liangshan aze" and other internet celebrities' live broadcast sales. the court found that since 2021, tang and others have registered a company, hired guo and others, used specific words and scripts to stage short videos of poverty and tragic life experiences, create false characters, and package and incubate the "liangshan mengyang" internet celebrity anchors such as “liangshan aze”. after these internet celebrity anchors accumulated a certain number of fans, they began to live broadcast and sell products. most of the products sold were agricultural products such as walnuts and snow swallows that were claimed to be "local to liangshan". after in-depth investigation, the public security organs found that these internet celebrities and mcn companies have formed a gray industrial chain of counterfeiting, manufacturing and selling fakes at the front end, incubating internet celebrities, filming scripts at the mid-end, e-commerce operations, supplying agricultural products at the end, and monetizing traffic.
"a live broadcast is actually a show. a platform is set up, and the anchor sings, chants, and fights on it. the purpose is to sell goods." wang tao (pseudonym), the head of a domestic mcn organization, told a reporter from china economic weekly that whether it is stage live negotiations with merchants, shoot videos of factory visits to attract attention, or create various personas such as bitterness, professionalism, and poetry in the live broadcast room. the ultimate goal is money in consumers' pockets.
"take our anchors as an example. the short videos released daily have script designs. whether it is content output or emphasis on personality, the purpose is to increase the trust and stickiness of fans. during the live broadcast, the scenes, words, the linking rhythm of product traffic and profit payment needs to be designed in advance. but the core secret of attracting consumers in the live broadcast room is still low price. "wang tao told reporters whether he can get a good price mechanism through negotiation with merchants. this increases the fans’ stickiness to the talent anchor.
in interviews, many merchants admitted to reporters that the "lower price agreement" does exist, but only a few top anchors and major anchors can get this price. in addition, some leading anchors will also require the length of price control. for example, they cannot give the same price to others within three months or six months.
anchors all hope for "the lowest price on the entire network", but for merchants, there are conditions for losing money and making a profit. a businessman told reporters that cooperation with top anchors is basically not profitable, and brands value more the exposure that top anchors can bring to the brand. but there will also be situations where the price is severely undercut. sometimes businesses are forced to have no choice but to make a batch of "live streaming exclusives" to balance costs. in this environment, it is not ruled out that some merchants may resort to shoddy goods due to cost considerations.
in the live streaming world, exaggerated publicity and false propaganda are not only aimed at consumers. when facing merchants, anchors or the mcn organizations behind them will also create fake data by swiping orders to create better live broadcast effects to attract merchants to cooperate. .
in august this year, a video released by the "taiyuan internet police" revealed that internet celebrity "taiyuan lao ge" was accused of cutting off 9 million yuan from a merchant, and was filed for fraud. according to the merchant who reported the case, "taiyuan laoge" brought goods to him 4 times and collected a total commission of 9 million yuan, and claimed that he could guarantee sales of tens of millions. however, after the live broadcast, there were a large number of chargebacks in the trading volume, and it was suspected that the other party used fake orders to defraud the pit fees.
live streaming e-commerce frequently overturns, how to effectively supervise it?
different from traditional sales, live streaming is actually a kind of trust marketing. the anchors kept talking about "family", "sisters" and "babies". why did they repeatedly overturn and encounter a crisis of trust in actual operations?
"every anchor will emphasize the rigor of product selection, the length of the trial, including the inspection of the product manufacturer's production qualifications. but in fact, it is not that they are unwilling to strictly control product quality, but that they really cannot do it." wang tao said frankly.
wang tao told reporters that the sources of goods brought by celebrity anchors generally come from two aspects, one is the supply chain provided by the platform, and the other is the brands that actively contact or come to their door. generally speaking, celebrity anchors with more than one million fans will be equipped with a professional product selection team to verify the qualifications and product characteristics provided by the brand and manufacturer. but it is limited to asking the other party to produce relevant information and will not verify the authenticity.
"for any product that enters the live broadcast room of our company's anchor, we will ask the other party to provide a quality inspection report, but we will not ask the other party to do another quality inspection. even if the quality inspection report provided by the other party is problematic, we will there is no ability to check. the usual way to deal with counterfeit and shoddy products in the industry is that the brand side is fully responsible for the after-sales service. for the sake of their own image, some anchors will pay for it themselves. he told reporters that the threshold for live streaming is not high. many vertical experts (referring to bloggers who focus on a specific field and have a certain fan base) will also provide products through the platform after the number of effective fans exceeds the minimum number required by the platform. use the resource library to proactively contact the platform to bring goods. most of these anchors work alone, without signing an mcn contract or a basic team, and the product selection inspection is even more empty talk.
"generally speaking, celebrity anchors with a small number of fans like to broadcast big brands, while those with a large number of fans prefer to broadcast white brands (without brands)." wang tao said that the master anchors with a small number of fans do not have the ability to check brands. it's safer to broadcast big, well-known brands. the top anchors are more inclined to white brands, especially brands that rely on anchors to increase their popularity, and their profits will be relatively higher.
for anchors carrying goods, whether the brand to be broadcast opens a flagship store on the platform is also a consideration. because each platform sets corresponding thresholds for different store levels, it can also help them "clear mines" to a certain extent.
in wang tao’s view, live broadcast e-commerce involves anchors, mcn institutions, merchants and platforms. each participating subject is pursuing the maximization of their own interests. this also makes live broadcast e-commerce in product selection, review, sales, after-sales and other levels. unable to achieve self-restraint and clear rights and responsibilities.
kuang xu, director of the law enforcement and inspection bureau of the state administration for market regulation, revealed the following set of data at a regular policy briefing in april this year: “in the past five years, the live broadcast e-commerce market has increased by 10.5 times, while the number of complaints and reports has increased by as much as 47.1 times. , is significantly higher than traditional e-commerce, indicating that development and regulation are still unbalanced.”
with the prosperity and development of live broadcast e-commerce, the setting of relevant regulatory systems and regulatory work practices are also constantly improving.
in 2021, the state administration for market regulation revised the "measures for the supervision and administration of online transactions" to clearly include "business activities of selling goods or providing services in information network activities such as online social networking and live broadcasts" into the scope of supervision. in 2022, the supreme people's court promulgated the "regulations on several issues concerning the application of law in the trial of online consumption dispute cases (1)", which provided a detailed explanation of the applicable law for "live streaming of goods".
the "regulations on the implementation of the consumer rights protection law of the people's republic of china" (hereinafter referred to as the "regulations"), which officially came into effect on july 1 this year, targets online consumption chaos such as live streaming, big data sales, automatic renewals, fake orders and credit fraud. specification. the "regulations" elevate the relevant content in the normative document "online live broadcast marketing management measures" to legal obligations, clarifying that "everyone is responsible" for the platform, live broadcast room and anchor.
yang yifei, a senior lawyer at heda law firm, said in an interview with a reporter from china economic weekly that when it comes to consumer rights protection, when defining the responsibilities of anchors, it is necessary to first confirm the anchor’s role in the product sales process. generally speaking, there are three situations: advertising spokesperson, advertising publisher and actual seller. the definition of the situation must be determined according to the actual situation.
in judicial practice, the supreme people's court once disclosed a judicial judgment case that identified the anchor as an operator. in december 2020, when hearing a case of selling counterfeit mobile phones through live broadcasts, the beijing internet court pointed out that the anchor continued to have "little yellow cars" during the live broadcast, and his behavior could be regarded as using the identity of the anchor to continuously divert promotions for merchants. have the subjective intention of making profits from external sales and have the identity of an operator. using the identity of a host to divert traffic and realize traffic monetization should be considered business behavior.
however, the court also pointed out that under normal circumstances anchors do not participate in actual transactions and do not have the status of operators. if, in addition to bringing goods, the anchor also participates in the provision and operation of goods or services, and becomes the counterparty to a goods or service sales contract, he has the status of an operator and must bear operator responsibilities.
(this article was published in "china economic weekly" issue 18, 2024)
