According to a report by the Workers' Daily on June 6, in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, the market supervision department found in a joint law enforcement operation that a "authentic Chaoshan raw pickled first-choice" store with a score of 5.4 on a takeaway platform was found to have "no on-site inspection" at the address published on the takeaway platform, and its takeaway orders were actually received in another place. The shop operator opened a total of 8 stores on the takeaway platform, holding 12 business licenses, 12 of which were verified to be false. At present, the takeaway platform has removed these 10 stores.
Food safety first, takeaway food safety is already a common issue. Compared with dine-in, consumers can only learn about product information and business qualifications through pictures or videos uploaded by takeaway merchants, and cannot verify their authenticity. At the same time, people do not have a visual understanding of the hygiene of the business. As a result, in reality, there are many cases of goods that are not on the right board and cut corners, and even more so, like the merchants in the above report, they are "shadow stores" and "toilet takeaways".
Some "shadow stores" often fail to meet the basic business license requirements, or even do not have the qualifications to operate and sell food, but can prosper, which has a lot to do with the management attitude and practice of "turning a blind eye" on takeaway platforms. Merchants who do not match the name can successfully pass the qualification review, and some can also package themselves as Internet celebrity stores - the uploaded business site pictures may be stolen, the business license may be bought, and many five-star praise is more likely to be brushed...
Takeaway platforms "release water" on the entry threshold of merchants, often have their own "small calculations" - for each transaction, the platform will take a cut from merchants, consumers, and riders, among which the commission of merchants has become an important source of platform income, and some platforms have a percentage of 30% for takeaway merchants. Driven by interests, the platform not only rushes to review the settled merchants, but may also allow some unqualified merchants to buy advertising space and promote in order to rank higher in search results. This kind of intentional or unintentional connivance of the "shadow store" is to a certain extent "backstabping" consumers.
After the "shadow store" in the above report was investigated, the local market supervision bureau said that it would interview and investigate the performance of the third-party platform's audit obligations, and urge the third-party platform to strictly review. Some lawyers have suggested that relevant government departments and takeaway platforms set up incentive mechanisms to encourage riders and consumers to participate in the governance of "shadow stores".
In the existing regulatory system and model, it is not impossible to often let takeaway businesses come out to "take a sun". For example, under the reality that "bright kitchen bright stoves" have become the standard for offline catering merchants, some places have further clarified through local regulations that operators providing online catering services should disclose the food processing and production site in real time in the form of video in a conspicuous position on the operator's information page; Some places choose to cooperate with takeaway platforms and communication operators to achieve "direct" mobile phones to the back kitchen of the catering - regulatory authorities and consumers can not only watch the kitchen environment and meal preparation dynamics of the catering unit in real time, but also the monitoring system can conduct real-time AI analysis of the captured footage, accurately identify whether the chef is wearing a mask, whether there is an irregular operation, etc., and permanently retain illegal information.
There are also some ways to refer to the review of merchants' business qualifications. Many cities are already piloting or implementing newly established enterprises to obtain and use electronic business licenses. Because the electronic business license relies on the authoritative platform certification of the regulatory authority in terms of information collection and verification methods, it can effectively achieve accurate identification, anti-counterfeiting, anti-tampering, and anti-fraudulent use. If the takeaway platform can introduce and realize the online comparison of electronic business licenses when conducting qualification reviews, it should be able to reduce the fraudulent use of business licenses and the proliferation of false certificates to a greater extent, and then reduce the possibility of "shadow stores".
There should be more ways than difficulties to get out and drive out the "shadow stores", and the relevant regulatory authorities and platforms should do more. (Workers' Daily Oracle)