Taobao Mall Price Adjustment Triggers Protests From Small And Medium-Sized Sellers

In October 13th, due to the announcement of the 2012 annual business renewal and rules adjustment, China's largest B2C e-commerce platform Taobao Mall (micro-blog) was claimed by tens of thousands of people for third consecutive days.

The spread of disputes led to social onlookers. Why did the new rules of Taobao cause such a big controversy?

Is cyber siege appropriate?

The new rules are inconsistent.

Small and medium sellers are hard to bear

On the evening of October 11th, the big sellers of Taobao mall, such as Han Du Yi, Ou Sha, seven grid, UNIQLO, suddenly found hundreds of buyers in their stores.

They quickly snap the goods, pay or choose "cash on delivery".

Before they could enjoy the sales increase, they found that the "pro" who had just paid is already applying for a refund. At the same time, a large number of 0 to 1 cents bad reviews have appeared in the evaluation area, and the credit has been greatly reduced, while the return rate has increased linearly.

Affected by this, these shops were forced to take off shelves for most of the stores.

Some people call this attack an "ant" attack on "elephant", and its fuse is the 2012 annual promotion announcement and regulation adjustment announcement issued by Taobao mall in October 10th.

According to this announcement, from 2012, the annual fee for technical services of Taobao mall will be increased from 6000 yuan to 30 thousand yuan and 60 thousand yuan two grades. When the sales volume reached 360 thousand yuan to 1 million 200 thousand yuan that year, the cost will be returned. The total amount of the default margin has also been raised from 10 thousand yuan to 50 thousand yuan, 100 thousand yuan and 150 thousand yuan respectively (frozen in Alipay (micro-blog), where a certain amount of breach of contract has been achieved, and some of the deposit will be deducted to compensate the consumers ahead of schedule).

The notice shows that the deadline for payment is December 26, 2011. That is to say, all merchants stationed in Taobao mall must pay more than most of them before the end of the year.

It seems quite unbearable to many small sellers.

A seller said that a one-time settlement of about 100000 yuan of funds would greatly affect the flow of funds, and sellers said that raising prices was "sudden behavior". They had no time to prepare funds.

Small sellers, who are suffocating, begin to gather and take action.

Knowing the rules of Taobao, they chose to attack big sellers by rules, trying to force Taobao mall to modify the rules.

Taobao mall quickly responded to the announcement at 4:40 a.m. on the 12 day. It said there was evidence that the attack was a deliberate manipulation by a group of people known as "Taobao shop". Taobao had severely attacked the "brush drill" and "malicious bad evaluation" agencies.

The announcement said it was a "naked hooliganism" and said it had reported it to the police.

According to the introduction of Taobao mall, they have had many communication with sellers before the new regulations come into being, and now there are many communication mechanisms such as customer service, mail and so on.

However, the dispute did not stop, but intensified.

Small sellers gather together.

Taobao is going to cross the river?

Some people believe that the new regulation is intended to "catch up and release the small", while Taobao says it will not give up small and medium-sized sellers.

In many people's view, the move of Taobao mall is intended to "catch up with the big and small" - a small seller who gives up a large quantity but a low income contribution, and focuses on a good seller.

Zhang Yong, President of Taobao mall, said: "the basic starting point of the Taobao store's renewal criteria and rules adjustment is to make use of the hand of the market rule and to leverage the economy as a lever to encourage businessmen to take more seriously the business behavior in the mall and provide consumers with better products and services."

As for the sharp rise in the annual fee of technical services, Zhang Yong said, "whether the annual cost has gone up, and whether the business cost of the business has been raised. According to the return policy we are designing now, we will finally look at the business itself."

He explained that as long as businesses do good service to consumers and operate to a certain scale, the annual fee for technical services can be partially or even returned to businesses, and there will be no increase in the operating costs of businesses.

Take clothing business as an example, the standard of returning all service annual fees to Taobao mall is that the service capacity reaches 4.6 points, with an annual turnover of 1 million 200 thousand yuan - an average of 3000 yuan per day.

Zhang Yong believes that these are the most basic criteria for a business oriented enterprise.

However, some small sellers do not agree with this statement. In their view, the scale of business scale offered by Taobao mall is not easy for them to achieve.

At that time, the annual fee charged for technical services will be directly converted into cost.

A small seller said that this is a kind of act of "breaking the bridges". "When Taobao mall was founded, a large number of small sellers built up popularity and sales. Now we have to raise the threshold of capital to push us out. This behavior can not be tolerated."

"Every time Taobao modifies the rules of the game, it will cause shock," said Chen Shou Shou, an analyst at Analysys International.

The promotion of this cost should be regarded as the beginning of Taobao giving up small and medium-sized sellers and concentrating superior resources to feed large sellers. "

Over the years, Taobao has been tagging the "entrepreneur paradise".

However, in recent years, with the increasing number of practitioners and the increasing number of fees, many entrepreneurs find it increasingly difficult to start business on Taobao.

Against this background, the initiatives of Taobao mall also cause more anger.

However, Taobao does not recognize this.

"We will never give up small and medium-sized sellers."

Yan Qiao, director of public relations of Taobao mall said.

In Zhang Yong's view, there were some confusion about the positioning of the two brands of Taobao mall and Taobao (C2C).

"Taobao has always been a paradise for entrepreneurs, always a paradise for small and medium-sized sellers.

And Taobao mall in the Alibaba (micro-blog) group positioning, from the beginning is a B2C platform, the mall must be a real business operation place.

Disputes lead to social onlookers

Experts said that mutual respect between platform vendors and sellers is the first step to solve the problem.

"The new rules will definitely go on, which is beneficial to consumers."

Yan Joe said.

And some small sellers are still insisting on their protests.

The situation is still continuing to spread, and quickly ferment into a hot topic, causing the social circles of the outlook and hot discussion.

Internet researcher Fang Xingdong (micro-blog) believes that the root of the incident is the confusion of the role of the enterprise: when the government tracks Taobao pactions, the website claims that it is only the operator of the platform and should not be held responsible.

But the new rules show that Taobao is not only a platform operator, but also a unilateral rule maker or a unilateral law enforcement officer of rules.

Insiders pointed out that compared with Taobao, the strength of small sellers is very weak. This asymmetry pattern causes small sellers to voice their interests through violent behavior.

Wei Shilin, a partner of Dacheng Law Firm, seems to have no doubt that the revision of the new rules of Taobao mall is a commercial strategy. But as a dominant position, the platform business should pay attention to and balance the interests of all parties when the regulations are issued.

In his view, although Taobao mall has hints to the small sellers, it has not given sufficient time to adjust. In addition, because of the different location and brand image of Taobao and Taobao mall, C2C will also cause some losses for small sellers.

For the small seller's aggressive behavior, Wei Shilin lawyer said that it was not legal from the legal point of view, and the third party's attack and slander led to its damage, which required civil liability.

In addition, because of its organizational nature, it does not exclude the possibility of violating the criminal law.

Relevant experts said that with the development and continuous adjustment of e-commerce in China, both the platform providers, sellers and relevant government departments should learn from this incident and accumulate experience so as to avoid the recurrence of similar incidents.

The mutual respect between platform vendors, big sellers, small sellers and buyers should be the first step.