【People's Livelihood Investigation Bureau】

　　Editor's note:

　　This is the People's Livelihood Investigation Bureau, which investigates changes in people's livelihood by seeing what no one else has seen.

Pay attention to what you want to pay attention to and what you don't pay attention to, investigate what you want to see and what you haven't seen.

　　Chinanews.com, March 15th (Chinanews Finance and Economics reporter Wu Tao) The shopping cart on the e-commerce platform was originally convenient for consumers, but now it has become a marketing tool for some merchants, resulting in situations such as low bids and high knots.

Some consumers even reported that they were ridiculed by the customer service for putting products in the shopping cart for a long time.

Are Merchants Peeping at Customers' Shopping Carts?

The price of the item added to the shopping cart changes frequently

　　The 2022 Consumer Complaints and Reports Presenting Ten Features Report released by the State Administration for Market Regulation on March 14 points out that technologies such as big data algorithms of the platform economy have improved transaction efficiency and are likely to induce new types of price fraud.

In 2022, there will be 106,700 online shopping price appeals, a year-on-year increase of 99.03%.

These include low bids and high settlements, and real-time changes in trading conditions.

　　Recently, some users have reported that the prices of products added to shopping carts in online shopping are frequently adjusted.

After many days of observation, the reporter of Zhongxin Finance and Economics also noticed that some products were added to the shopping cart and soon after they were added, they were prompted to "decrease ** yuan compared with when they were added".

However, the price of some products has been raised, and the system does not prompt. If you do not compare carefully when placing an order, and directly clear the shopping cart, it may be "expensive".

　　Netizens ridiculed that the trading conditions of e-commerce platforms are changing faster than the national essence. "Don't ask, if you ask, there is an event. If the price rises, the event price is over. If the price decreases, there will be another event."

　　The reporter also noticed that the e-commerce customer service has a set of "panacea"-like responses to this, no matter how the price changes, it is said that it is now an active price.

Buying expensive and buying cheap is almost entirely based on luck whether you can catch up with their "activity".

　　Some consumers may want to say that there is a price guarantee, and it is enough to apply for a refund of the price difference when buying an expensive product.

In fact, not all commodities have price protection, and there is also a time limit for price protection, which can be as long as one month or as short as a few days. After the time limit, you will not enjoy price protection.

　　The customer service of an e-commerce platform confirmed to the reporter, "Price guarantee and refund of the price difference requires consumers to discover the price difference and submit an application. Even if there is a price difference, the platform will not take the initiative to make up the price difference if the consumer does not actively apply."

"Member price is higher than non-member price" happens from time to time

　　In addition to making a fuss about "events", some e-commerce platforms are also playing tricks on members.

It is understood that almost all mainstream e-commerce platforms currently have membership services. Members who spend hundreds of yuan a year in name will save you money when shopping, but some consumers don't think so.

　　The above-mentioned report of the State Administration for Market Regulation also pointed out that among the price complaints, there are mainly issues such as big data familiarization, concealment of preferential threshold conditions, and non-member discounts greater than members.

　　Recently, a consumer told a reporter from Chinanews Finance and Economics that he bought a mobile hard disk casing at a self-operated store on an e-commerce platform. Because he is a member, he finally enjoys the membership benefits at an actual price of 99.9 yuan.

But it didn’t take long before the membership expired. Looking at the same product again, the original price was 109 yuan, and the discounted price was 99 yuan. “There are members and no members. The final actual price is about the same. It’s about 99 yuan. Even non-members are cheaper than the membership status at that time. 9 cents."

　　What's more interesting is that there is a line of small words marked under this product, "Enroll as a member, and it is estimated that this order will save an additional 20.54 yuan".

　　The consumer complained, "I didn't enjoy the preferential price of more than 20 yuan when I was a member. When the membership expired, I was told that I would save an additional 20 yuan when I became a member. The system also often reminded me how much money I saved because of members. Or it didn’t save so much, and the non-stop members really couldn’t find it.”

　　In this regard, the customer service of the merchant told Zhongxin Finance and Economics that the activities are different in different periods, and the actual auction price shall prevail. "The estimated savings of 20.54 yuan may not be really cheap. It is just an estimate. In addition, membership activities are platform behaviors. Merchants don't know."

　　The customer service of the e-commerce platform has three reasons for this: "This product has no member price", "You didn't use the discount at that time", "This product has no member price now".

In the end, it said "there is no member price for this product, and now it is an active price".

　　The consumer said, "From the results, I placed an order while I was a member, but it was more expensive. Although it was only 90 cents more expensive, I felt uncomfortable. In the end, the merchant agreed to refund the 90 cents difference."

Is there a peek at the user's shopping cart?

　　In February this year, some consumers reported that they were ridiculed by customer service for being ridiculed by the customer service for a long time in the shopping cart, and the platform customer service responded at that time: Under any circumstances, the merchant will definitely not be able to see the shopping cart information, please rest assured.

　　In fact, there are different opinions on whether e-commerce platforms are peeping at users' shopping cart information.

Some netizens said, "I have seen many merchants describe that the collection and purchase will be delivered first." Some netizens said that they often see the system reminding how many consumers have added the product to the shopping cart. How do you know this information?

　　However, some store customer service told reporters that they can’t see consumers’ shopping carts, and it’s not clear whether the specific e-commerce platform can see them. “Only when consumers submit their orders and wait for payment can we see the user’s detailed orders.” information."

　　The reporter checked that some e-commerce platforms have added the "sharing shopping cart" function, which means that if consumers actively choose to share shopping cart information, the outside world can see the user's shopping cart information.

There is also a system reminder that "**** VIP purchased it additionally", to which the e-commerce platform replied, "These are all desensitized information, not scanning shopping cart information."

　　What do you think about this?

(over)