Governance of the chaotic phenomenon of live broadcasts to protect consumers
Beijing Consumers coordinated investigation of some of the ten live broadcast platforms with cargo anchors suspected of false propaganda
□ Reporter Zhang Wei
Thousands of shopping guides in department stores transformed into "Cloud Cabinet Sisters" live-carrying goods; brand car manufacturers organized the heads of several departments to launch "Executive Live Broadcasting Group" to introduce product highlights, sales policies and products to the audience How to repair, maintain, etc.; the mayor and county head personally went out, acted as the "anchor" on the Internet platform, and personally "brought the goods"...
The sudden emergence of the new coronary pneumonia epidemic has spawned an unprecedented prosperity in the live broadcast economy. However, while live broadcasts are extremely popular, making positive contributions to enterprises' resumption of production and product sales, some issues such as false publicity, incomplete information disclosure and no guarantee of after-sales have damaged consumers' rights and interests.
Recently, the Beijing Consumers Association commissioned the Beijing Sunshine Consumer Big Data Research Institute to conduct a live streaming consumer survey and found some problems. For example, 30% of live broadcast merchants have not fully fulfilled their obligation to publish their license information, and some anchors are suspected of having problems with the promotion of product efficacy or the use of limit words during the live broadcast.
The Beijing Consumers Association recommends the establishment of an industry self-discipline and integrity evaluation mechanism; the live broadcast industry and the live broadcast platform should actively bear the main responsibility, and actively carry out industry self-examination, self-correction and self-discipline actions; for live broadcasts that exaggerate publicity, deception and mislead consumers The behavior of goods should be included in the social integrity evaluation system; in addition to financial penalties, the anchors who carry false propaganda for live broadcasts should also include anchors with serious violations and frequent violations of laws into the "blacklist", and prohibit the live broadcast market. Increase the cost of illegal live broadcasts and enhance regulatory deterrence.
The live broadcast brought goods hot hit
Deep integration of marketing innovation
Live streaming is not something new this year, but it has reached an unprecedented level of popularity this year.
As early as March 2016, Mushroom Street launched the live broadcast function. Soon after, mainstream e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, Suning, and JD.com also launched live broadcast functions, and short-hand video platforms such as Kuaishou and Douyin immediately launched live broadcast delivery. Live broadcast delivery has become increasingly popular.
According to the statistics of the research company Ai Media Consulting, the total size of China's live broadcast e-commerce industry reached 433.8 billion yuan in 2019, and it is expected that this year's scale will double. The 44th "Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet Network" released by the China Internet Network Center (CNNIC) also affirmed that live streaming has become a "new bright spot in the growth of online consumption". The in-depth integration of e-commerce with live broadcast and short video is an industry marketing innovation .
"If you understand the essence of live streaming, you will not easily judge that this is another shortcoming of a new Internet species." Zhou Zhenghua, an expert at Tencent Research Institute, told the Legal Daily that the essence of live streaming e-commerce is accumulated on the basis of the social attributes of the platform The value mining of traffic and social relations, with the help and influence of online celebrities, turns fans accumulated on social platforms into product consumers, and transforms their trust in themselves into consumption power. Live streaming with goods has contributed to varying degrees in improving the efficiency of all parties including e-commerce, short video platforms, and many brands and consumers.
This year's epidemic has given a new development opportunity for live streaming. "Although the epidemic has severely damaged the real economy, it has also magnified the effect of the "house economy". E-commerce live broadcasting has become a bridge connecting businesses that have "suspended business" with consumers who have not stayed at home. The short video spread to live streaming with goods' consumption process in one go." Zhou Zhenghua said.
The popularity of live broadcasts has become a certain necessity. While bringing a rich consumer experience to consumers, it also exposes many new problems. For example, some anchors falsely advertise in the process of live delivery, some live delivery goods do not have quality assurance, and some live delivery goods merchants have unsatisfactory after-sales services.
Promote the use of limit words
Bringing cargo anchor suspected of breaking the law
According to reports, this live broadcast consumption survey mainly includes three parts: questionnaire survey, experience survey and expert discussion. Among them, the questionnaire survey started on May 26, 2020, and ended on June 2, 2020, through the "Beijing Consumer Association" WeChat public account, consumer network and other channels, a total of 5,415 samples of valid questionnaires were recovered.
The experience survey selected 10 live broadcast platforms as the subject of experience survey. The experience staff conducted three simulated shopping experiences on each live broadcast platform as consumers, and completed a total of 30 samples of live broadcast experience surveys.
The experience survey found that 9 of the 30 samples of live streaming experience were suspected of having problems with the disclosure of license information, accounting for 30%; 3 samples were suspected of having false publicity issues, accounting for 10%; 1 sample was implemented "7 days no reason to return" is not in place, accounting for 3.33%.
The experience survey also found that although some live streaming merchants marked "return package shipping fee", they actually paid 12 yuan for shipping when returning the goods, and the merchant only subsidized 10 yuan for shipping. There is no text or picture information of any products on the merchant's page; some live streaming merchants require a deposit first and prompt "I have agreed to a pre-sale agreement such as a non-refundable deposit", otherwise the order cannot be submitted.
The survey found that nearly 90% of the respondents had live shopping experience, and most of the goods purchased were clothing, cosmetics and food. Respondents were most concerned about product quality and product price during live streaming, accounting for 63.86% and 63.51% respectively; followed by product brand, product sales and anchor popularity, accounting for 41.75%, 32.63% and 23.16% respectively.
According to the survey data, 64.91% of the respondents expressed concern about product quality issues, 55.44% of the respondents worried that there was no guarantee for after-sales, 50.18% of the respondents were concerned about false propaganda, and 49.82% of the respondents were worried about the falsification of popular data.
Nearly half of the interviewees believed that platforms, anchors and merchants should share the responsibility, and over 60% of the interviewees encountered problems to find rights to the platform. "This shows that consumers still have high expectations for the platform. The platform occupies a very important position in the live broadcast cargo transaction process, and it should actively assume corresponding responsibilities and obligations." The live broadcast cargo survey report said.
It is worth noting that 30% of the live broadcast merchants have not fully fulfilled their obligation to publish license information. Among the 30 live broadcast samples of this experience survey, 9 samples were suspected of having information disclosure problems, accounting for 30%.
The E-commerce Law clearly stipulates that e-commerce operators should continue to publish business license information, administrative licensing information related to their business operations in a prominent position on their homepages, and belong to situations that do not require market subject registration in accordance with Article 10 of this Law. Information, or a link to the above information.
Some anchors are suspected of having problems with the promotion of product efficacy or the use of limit words during the live broadcast. Among the 30 live streaming samples of this experience survey, 3 samples were suspected of inducing consumers to purchase goods through the promotion of product efficacy or limit wording, infringing consumers' right to know and fair trading rights. For example, when an experience person buys a fish oil soft capsule on a live broadcast platform, the anchor announces that "the quality of our family's product is absolutely No. 1" and "the sales volume ranks second in the industry in China."
"In the final analysis, live streaming is a new form of advertising and sales under the Internet. As long as it is advertising, it must not contain false or misleading content, and must not deceive or mislead consumers." Research on Consumer Rights Protection Law of the Chinese Law Society Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary general of the association, said.
Clear division of main responsibilities
Increase regulatory penalties
In order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and promote the healthy development of the live streaming business format, the Beijing Consumers Association, in conjunction with the results of this live streaming consumer survey, recommends a clear division of responsibilities between different entities. Through legislation or the formulation of industry standards, the division of responsibilities between the live broadcast-related platforms, merchants and anchors should be further clarified, and the supervision and punishment of the parties such as platforms, merchants and anchors should be increased. On the basis of strengthening platform responsibilities, strengthen the education and management of the anchor, guide and standardize the evaluation mechanism through systematic training, strengthen the anchor’s professional quality and standard awareness, and do a good job of the anchor’s behavior through content supervision and flight inspection. Management and restraint to raise the entry threshold for live streaming.
In Chen Yinjiang's view, the anchor is actually an advertising spokesperson and should bear the responsibility of the advertising spokesperson in the Advertising Law. If the anchor is the owner of the online store and recommends the products of his own online store through live broadcast, the anchor at this time is not only an advertiser, but also an operator who has a transaction relationship with the consumer, should be responsible for the advertiser, advertising publisher and seller The legal obligation is not only responsible for the authenticity of the advertisement, but also for the quality and after-sales of the product.
Although the live broadcast platform is not the direct counterparty of the transaction, it is also obligated to disclose the real situation of the seller's name and address to consumers, and to exercise due diligence. The Beijing Consumers' Association recommends that the platform be clarified in strict accordance with relevant laws, regulations and policy requirements, and that internal supervision measures and autonomy rules be improved, from strengthening entry audits, product sampling, marketing promotion, product evaluation, violation management, after-sales security, dispute resolution, etc. The whole process of auditing and ecological governance of the live-broadband transaction is strictly investigated and dealt with various fraudulent behaviors such as popular fraud and commentary fraud, as well as various private transactions that induce transactions, false transactions, and circumvent security supervision, and cooperate with the supervision and inspection of relevant departments according to law And investigation and evidence collection to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
Chen Yinjiang said that the merchants in live broadcasts generally refer to operators who provide goods or services to consumers, and are also the first responsible persons for product quality and after-sales service. They should bear the Consumer Rights Protection Law, Food Safety Law, Electronic The Business Law and other relevant laws and regulations stipulate all responsibilities and obligations of the operator.
Chen Yinjiang believes that the relevant provisions of live broadcasts do not have the problem of imperfect laws. "In fact, the relevant provisions of the Advertising Law, the Electronic Commerce Law, and the Consumer Rights Protection Law all involve live broadcasts, as long as these laws and Relevant regulations can promote the healthy development of live streaming."
Chen Yinjiang suggested that it is necessary to consolidate the responsibility of large platforms and promptly investigate and deal with some typical cases that damage consumers' rights and interests. "For some falsely promoted Internet celebrity anchors, they can be punished in accordance with the advertising spokesperson in the advertising law, which will cause very serious Strong demonstration effect."
In addition, the Beijing Consumers Association reminds consumers to choose the live broadcast method to purchase goods. First of all, they should check the business information published on the live broadcast platform to see if they have a business license. If the platform does not have a business license for the merchant, try not to buy it. Goods or services. Secondly, don't believe in the product performance promotion and ultra-low price commitment of the anchor, but consume rationally according to your actual needs. Third, we must save evidence such as live video, chat records, payment vouchers, etc. In case of problems, contact the merchant and the platform to negotiate and resolve. If the negotiation fails, you can file a complaint with the local consumer association or market supervision department, or you can apply for arbitration or file a lawsuit in the court to protect your legal rights and interests.