Zhongxin Finance, April 25 (Reporter Wu Tao) Recently, the price increase of e-commerce members has entered the fast lane. After the price increase last year, Tencent Video once again announced the price increase for VIP members, and then the JD PLUS+ Tencent Video membership annual card also increased the price.
The reporter noticed that selling members on major e-commerce platforms has become a routine operation, and membership fees range from tens of yuan to several hundred yuan a year.
Many consumers say that this has become a silent cost, and no one can tell how much money these various members can save.
Members have increased their prices, do you still buy them?
Recently, Tencent Video announced that the continuous monthly VIP price will be adjusted from 20 yuan to 25 yuan, the continuous seasonal package price will be adjusted from 58 yuan to 68 yuan, and the continuous annual package price will be adjusted from 218 yuan to 238 yuan.
Season cards and annual cards have also increased in price to varying degrees.
Tencent Video VIP member price increase.
screenshot
Subsequently, the price of the annual membership card of JD PLUS+ Tencent Video increased, and some people close to JD told Zhongxin Finance that this was because of the increase in the price of Tencent Video VIP.
In fact, in recent years, membership price increases have entered the fast lane. This time Tencent Video VIP price increase is only one year after the last time; iQIYI also raised the VIP price last year; Prices have risen once a year.
"For this Tencent Video VIP price increase, if it starts from the continuous monthly subscription of 15 yuan before April last year, to 25 yuan per month this time, the price increase will be as high as 66.6%." Some netizens calculated.
Some analysts pointed out that selling members has basically become an important profit model for all e-commerce platforms, and there is even a joke in the Internet industry that "if you don't have a profit model, either sell coffee or sell members".
Really saving money or the cost of silence?
It is difficult to judge the value of online video VIP membership, after all, some video content cannot be watched without membership.
As for e-commerce members, is it "required" and is it worth it?
Screenshot of Tmall APP.
According to the introduction of members of many e-commerce platforms, members who spend tens or hundreds of yuan can save more than 1,000 yuan on average (estimated).
For example, Ali 88VIP is expected to save 1,839 yuan per year; JD PLUS can save an average of 1,847 yuan.
The reporter learned in the interview that when it comes to saving money for e-commerce members, the respondents' perceptions vary greatly. Some feel that they can save thousands of dollars a year, but some feel that it is difficult to cover membership fees.
"More than 200 yuan bought an e-commerce platform membership, which will expire in one year. Now the system shows that I saved more than 180 yuan. In March, I saved 12 yuan." Some consumers said to Zhongxin Finance.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee.
There is also a money-saving bill for JD PLUS members provided by consumers to Zhongxin Finance, showing that they have served 846 days and saved 1222.12 yuan.
But it is worth noting that the consumer said, "The PLUS exclusive price is only 365.37 yuan, and there are some other benefits, such as 100 yuan coupon package (100 yuan minus 5 yuan, etc.) Coupon conflicts cannot be used in combination; and I have never used services such as JD.com, JD.com, and JD.com.”
The reporter's investigation found that in a sense, e-commerce members may not save as much money as publicity.
For example, some e-commerce members have shopping rebates, but there are also rebates for non-members, but not so much; usually e-commerce also has full discounts and other activities. In many cases, this discount cannot be used in combination with the full discount of members. Therefore, the full discount for members cannot be reflected at all.
After becoming a member, it may even lead to "misunderstandings" sometimes.
In December 2021, a consumer used two mobile phones on Meituan to use a member account and a non-member account to test simultaneously, and it was found that the delivery fee for a member account was 6 yuan, while the delivery fee for a non-member account was only 2 yuan.
Meituan's official response at the time said, "It is because the software has a location cache, which mistakenly used the user's last historical location, which deviates from the user's actual location, resulting in an inaccurate estimate of the delivery fee, which has nothing to do with membership status."
"You can save ** yuan a year", or it may involve false propaganda
As mentioned above, many e-commerce members declared to the public: "It is estimated that the annual saving is 1839 yuan", "the average annual saving is 421 yuan" and the "average saving 1847 yuan".
Is this suspected of false propaganda?
Screenshot of iQIYI APP.
Interestingly, for the same member, the amount of money saved by different platforms varies greatly.
For example, the Jingdong APP shows that PLUS “can save an average of 1,847 yuan”; but the iQIYI APP shows that when you become a member of iQIYI VIP + JD PLUS, JD PLUS “can save an average of 421 yuan a year”. Which one is accurate? of?
Zhao Zhan, deputy director of Beijing Yunjia Law Firm and a special researcher of the Intellectual Property Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, told Zhongxin Finance, "How much money can be saved on average, this should be for the consumption of users when they are not members, and it is a The average value, as long as the e-commerce platform can provide relevant calculation basis, it will be fine.”
Photo courtesy of the interviewee.
The reporter noticed that there is another kind of website that clearly states that "one year can save ** yuan".
For example, an e-commerce platform shows that "super membership can save 3,122 yuan a year".
Zhao Zhan said, "This statement may be problematic, because it is difficult to guarantee how much a user can actually save after applying for membership, and it has a lot to do with the user's own consumption amount." (End)