How much of the "welfare" in the live broadcast room is reliable? [The "original price" of more than 3,000 yuan of liquor can be won for less than 600 yuan]
□ reporters Chen Lei and Zhang Shoukun
The original price of 1980 yuan "Wuliangye" is only sold for 298 yuan in the live broadcast room; 798 yuan for two bottles of Guizhou sauce Gongmi sauce, the exclusive welfare price is 299 yuan, and a set of zodiac wine utensils is also given; Dahongpao tea is sold for 1388 yuan on the market, and the order is placed in the live broadcast room, and it is only 4 yuan to get 268 boxes of tea gifts and a complete set of high-end tea sets...
Recently, the reporter of "Rule of Law Daily" observed the live broadcast room and found that some anchors compared the original price of all goods with the exclusive price of the live broadcast more and more exaggerated, and under the stimulation of the anchor's rendering and price comparison, many viewers will place orders passionately, and many products also have a good sales.
Did the "family" in the anchor's mouth really get benefits? On the third-party complaint platform, the reporter found that there are a large number of problems under the price comparison publicity: the goods in hand are not right, the price is not as cheap as advertised, and the product quality is difficult to explain...
Super high price super low discount
Chang Jie (pseudonym), a Shanghai citizen who often shops online, told reporters that she found that many live broadcasts are very unreliable: "What is the meaning of the original price of the goods marked in the live broadcast room now?" Anyway, no matter how expensive it is, you will be given ultra-low prices in the end, and some of them will not even be discounted. I suspect that these prices are just random targets, in order to make consumers feel that they are taking advantage of them and then buy them. ”
But some people don't agree with this: as long as the anchor can ensure that the product is real and the price is indeed favorable, why not take advantage of it?
Compared with the original price given by the anchor, are the exclusive prices in the live broadcast room and the anchor welfare price really discounted?
"The price of a single bottle is 598 yuan a bottle, you can go to any offline store to identify it after you get it, and it is guaranteed to be true, now the exclusive price of our live broadcast room, a box of 6 bottles, only 597 yuan! Yes, you heard it right, the official guide price is 3588 yuan a box, and now 597 yuan free shipping also sends a set of exquisite wine utensils. ”
In November 2023, Zhang Liu (pseudonym), who lives in Hedong District, Tianjin, immediately placed an order after seeing this live broadcast. "This is a brand-name wine, and the merchant promises to ship from the source factory, there must be no fake, this time it is really cheap." Zhang Liu said.
What Zhang Liu didn't expect was that after receiving the wine, he found a problem: "I drank a small glass at noon, I felt that the taste was wrong, and the packaging was different from the brand-name wine packaging I saw before, the product type was plant-based liqueur, which was made with liquor with water, mung beans, bamboo sunflowers, lotus leaves, etc., which was not the same thing as liquor, to put it bluntly, it was blended wine, and it was not worth anything at all." ”
Zhang Liu said that the anchor has always said that this is a big brand, and it was taken by the original factory in the original box, but in fact, it is a blatant deception of consumers, and the so-called famous brand is just an authorized company under the big brand winery, which has repeatedly played a side game and bound it to the brand-name wine, making consumers mistakenly think that they have bought a brand-name wine. "Later, I brushed up on another brand of liquor, the original price was 3528,299 yuan a box, and the price was <> yuan a box, but I didn't dare to be cheap anymore." Zhang Liu said.
In the 2023th "Double 15" in 11, price comparison has become the highlight of promotion, and price comparison with e-commerce platforms, flagship stores, and counters has also become an important means of drainage in various live broadcast rooms and group buying groups.
Some consumers saw in the live broadcast room of an Internet celebrity anchor that when the anchor sold a certain brand of shampoo, the screenshot of the page of an e-commerce platform selling the same product was 49 yuan, but the top half of this picture was folded back. Out of curiosity, she went to the e-commerce platform to search for the product, and found that the full screenshot showed the product's promotional information "Shoot 2 minus 50, take away 1KG" and "¥2 after the second coupon".
Also in the live broadcast room of the Internet celebrity, the price is 669 yuan of Saturday Fu Wufu Long Pure Gold Bracelet, the anchor said that the price in the live broadcast room of other anchors on the same platform is 1039 yuan, and showed a screenshot of the sales page, but some consumers later found that the price was 759 yuan in the official flagship store of Saturday Fu on the same platform.
Recently, the down jacket price controversy in a celebrity's live broadcast room has aroused widespread concern in the society. A consumer bought a duck duck down jacket with an original price of 2899,449 yuan in the star's live broadcast room, and actually paid 11 yuan. However, this down jacket only costs 228 yuan during the "Double <>" period.
The reporter's investigation found that similar price comparison behaviors are often based on screenshots of the pages of products sold in other channels, but the authenticity of the screenshots needs to be verified. All kinds of welfare products in the live broadcast can be purchased at similar prices on other platforms or offline, and some products are not sold in offline supermarkets, and it is difficult to determine the regular price of the goods.
Some netizens ridiculed: "Sell at one discount or three discounts at the original price, I'm afraid the purchase price will not be so cheap, if the benefits are really so big, I will not get rich early if I buy from the live broadcast room and then sell it?" ”
Inflated prices are suspected of violating the law
In May 2022, law enforcement officers from the Chengxi Institute of the Market Supervision Bureau of Fuyang District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, found during their daily online inspections that the sales price advertised by an e-commerce company in the live broadcast and short video of the e-commerce platform was significantly lower than the original price, and no sales record of the original price was found.
"Loving yourself is the beginning of a lifelong romance, I used to sell a haute couture skirt for 199 yuan, and now the price is changed to 49 yuan." In the face of the live broadcast content displayed by law enforcement officers, the merchant could not provide a sales record of the product at the original price of 199 yuan.
After an on-site inspection, law enforcement officers found that the e-commerce company had secretly modified the original price of the store on a short video platform in an attempt to get by, but the company could not deny it in the face of the electronic solid evidence materials admitted in accordance with the law. According to the law enforcement officers, the e-commerce company had not traded the goods involved in the live broadcast on the short video platform at the crossed price, and the merchant platform store could not provide sales records of the original price for a variety of products during the inspection, which constituted price fraud, and the illegal income exceeded 5000,<> yuan.
The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Market Regulation found that during the "Double 2023" period in 11, the anchor of Beijing Fuqi Lianlian Culture Media Co., Ltd. used the displayed price of the same product on the page of Beijing Eater's Home E-commerce Co., Ltd. on a platform as the price to be compared during the live broadcast. In addition, the two companies agreed to put the same product on different platforms and marked the very different prices for live streaming to compare prices. This behavior constitutes price gouging, and the two companies are jointly violating the law. The Beijing Municipal Bureau for Market Regulation ordered the parties to correct the illegal acts, gave warnings, and imposed a fine of 30,<> yuan.
In life, consumers often encounter the situation of selling goods at a discount, where is the boundary between price reduction promotion and price gouging?
Rao Wei, senior partner of Beijing Tiantai Law Firm and deputy director of the Consumer Rights and Interests Professional Committee of the Beijing Lawyers Association, introduced that the price reduction promotion is based on the consistency between the price and the value of the commodity, in order to stimulate consumption and then make the behavior of reducing prices and expanding sales. Price gouging is the act of not following the principle of fairness when defining the value of goods, and the price is obviously inflated, and consumers are misled through discounts. The fundamental difference between the two is whether the price of the commodity corresponds to the value of the commodity and whether the act of selling infringes on the consumer's right to know the value of the commodity.
Rao Wei said: "Online trading platform operators shall cooperate with the market supervision and management departments to carry out price supervision and management work in accordance with the law, and if it is found that the operators in the venue and the platform have violated these provisions, they shall take necessary measures in accordance with the law, keep relevant information records, and bear the corresponding obligations and responsibilities in accordance with the law." If a platform operator clearly knows or should know that a seller or service provider is using its platform to infringe upon the lawful rights and interests of consumers, but fails to take necessary measures, it shall bear joint and several liability with the seller or service provider in accordance with law, and shall also be responsible for price fraud. ”
It is worth noting that compared with the original price, it cannot be considered that the discount is too large to indicate that there must be a problem with the merchant.
Su Haopeng, a professor at the Law School of the University of International Business and Economics, told reporters that discount sales are more common in daily life, and the most exaggerated is the jewelry industry, which is priced at hundreds of thousands of yuan, tens of thousands of yuan, and may be sold for tens of thousands of yuan. But from a legal point of view, such an act is not illegal.
"In the field of price, we mainly look at two legal documents - the "Provisions on Clearly Marking Prices and Prohibiting Price Fraud" and the Price Law, the price law mainly stipulates the formation mechanism of prices: government pricing, government guidance prices and market regulated prices, and the vast majority of prices belong to market regulated prices. Most of the prices of commodities in the live broadcast room are set by the operators themselves according to market conditions, which belongs to the market-regulated price, no matter how he sets and how much the price is set, as long as it does not violate the price formation mechanism determined by the Price Law, it should be respected. In the specific sales behavior, whether a price should be discounted, how much discount, is also determined by the operator himself, if the price is very high, the discount is very strong, the actual selling price is very low, this kind of market behavior law does not interfere, and the regulatory authorities should not carry out compulsory intervention. Su Haopeng said.
Xu Guangjian, vice president of the China Price Association and professor at the School of Public Administration of Chinese University, believes that although this behavior is not illegal, compared with pricing, consumers are highly sensitive to price changes, and merchants attract consumers through high discounts, which is actually a marketing behavior and excessive marketing.
"At present, the price of some goods is too high, and the discount is very large, which will make consumers uncomfortable and affect consumers' perception and judgment of commodity prices. Merchants should correctly understand the clearly marked price system, fully convey price information, and respect consumers' right to know. Consumers have the right to know the actual price information of the goods, and the merchant should reduce the information asymmetry in the pricing of the product as much as possible, and present the complete price information of the product and the price-related information to the consumer within the expected range, so that the consumer can choose. Xu Guangjian said.
Supervision needs to be strengthened
In June 2022, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism jointly issued the Code of Conduct for Online Anchors, which clearly stipulates that online anchors shall not "mislead consumers with exaggerated propaganda and deceive consumers through false promises" in the process of providing online performance and audio-visual program services.
Some short video platforms have also regulated the price promotion behavior of anchors, clearly requiring that live broadcasts must not make up price comparisons. To this end, some platforms have carried out special actions to crack down on price fraud many times, and in 2023 alone, more than 5000,<> e-commerce companies will be punished for fraudulent commodity prices. However, judging from the reporter's investigation, the problem of false prices is still serious, and it is mainly concentrated in wine, tea, jade, etc.
Some platforms have issued relevant regulations to strictly restrict the price comparison of goods in the live broadcast room, and the proof of the price being compared in the live broadcast room or video display, and the platform only supports the tag price of the product, the retail price of the official website, the pricing of the product, and the manufacturer's suggested retail price. The reference price is released through the "Product Reference Price" function, and the merchant needs to upload the corresponding price voucher in advance, which will be reviewed by the platform. Creators may not use unfounded or incomparable prices as the basis for calculating or comparing discounts.
Su Haopeng believes that for the price chaos in online transactions, it is still necessary to return to the relevant requirements of the price law, implement the principle of fairness, and protect consumers' right to fair trade. Platforms have legal obligations to govern the platform ecosystem, and shall control all kinds of price fraud behaviors of merchants, promptly investigate and punish, such as deducting credit scores and prohibiting the sale of goods on the platform, to fully protect the rights and interests of consumers.
In Rao Wei's view, the long-term existence of price fraud and other behaviors is also related to the fact that the cost of violations of laws and regulations is too low and cannot have a deterrent effect on some Internet celebrity anchors.
"The market supervision department should increase the supervision of rectifying the indiscriminate price marking in the market, and punish the illegal acts of illegal merchants in a timely manner. Consumers should consume rationally, do not place orders easily when they see the so-called low prices in the live broadcast room, and can consider them after comparing multiple platforms, and should also enhance their awareness of rights protection, have a zero-tolerance attitude towards price fraud, report to the Consumer Rights Protection Association in a timely manner, and protect their legitimate rights and interests through judicial channels when necessary. Rao Wei said.
(Source: Rule of Law Daily)