Suppliers Are Not Optimistic About The Rectification Of Illegal Charges In The Stores: Hidden Rules Are Hard To Change

"It's sad to say that after a busy year, the overall profit margin is only 5% - 10%, and most of the profits are sold in various ways charge It's scraped off. " It's time for the market to prepare goods before the Spring Festival. Mr. Yu, a very busy food supplier in recent days, has complained bitterly to reporters.

With the approval of the State Council, the "hidden rules" of retailers' ingenious naming and charging a large amount of fees from suppliers have been approved by the State Council, Ministry of Commerce From December 2011 to June 2012, the national development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of public security, the State Administration of Taxation, and the State Administration of industry and Commerce have carried out a large-scale clean-up and rectification in China from December 2011 to June 2012 retail Enterprises charge suppliers illegal fees.

On December 26, 2011, the above five ministries and commissions issued relevant work plans. On January 10, the five ministries and commissions jointly held a teleconference to deploy specific work.

"This punishment may be quite severe. If it is serious, or if the amount is too large, it may face criminal punishment." The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Commerce told this newspaper.

"We have also seen the news that the five ministries and commissions have started to rectify retailers' arbitrary charges, but in fact it is still difficult to solve the fundamental problem." According to Mr. Yu.

Those who are serious will be punished

Why choose to carry out such a severe rectification at the present time? The source told reporters that this was due to a long period of reports from suppliers and consumers last year.

The government departments have been deliberating on rectification. Since there are many departments involved and coordination takes time, the action plan is only announced now. According to the source, there are many factors, including taking action against the dissatisfaction of suppliers and consumers; regulating the market order; and making efforts to achieve the goal of "expanding consumption" in macroeconomic policy this year.

The focus of the event is to attract large retailers who have a dominant position in the market and have a voice and appeal to both consumers and suppliers. On the one hand, these large retailers can use more preferential discounts to attract consumers; on the other hand, because of the large demand, they are attractive to suppliers.

According to the news released on the website of the Ministry of Commerce, the rectification is mainly aimed at supermarkets, department stores, specialized electrical appliances stores and other large retail enterprises and their subordinate stores that take advantage of their dominant position in the market to charge suppliers illegally, including enterprises (groups) that meet three conditions at the same time: 1. The business area of the largest single store exceeds 6000 square meters (including); 2. The number of stores exceeds 20 (inclusive); 3、 In 2010, the sales volume exceeded 2 billion yuan (including).

Retailers who do not meet the above conditions but whose suppliers report that they have illegal charges may be included in the scope of rectification and rectification by the provincial departments of Commerce, development and Reform (price), public security, taxation, industry and commerce, etc., and report to the relevant departments of the State Council.

"The specific list of enterprises is determined by each place according to these standards." The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Commerce said.

According to the preliminary research, the name of "illegal charges" was clarified, including the contract fee, handling fee, distribution fee, festival fee, store celebration fee, new store opening fee, sales or settlement information inquiry fee, card fee, barcode fee (new product entry fee), account opening fee (new supplier's entry fee), and unconditional rebate Etc.

As a kind of investigation standard and possible long-term standard in the future, the relevant work plan also requires retailers to implement "clearly marked price" for charges.

If there is no clearly marked price, or the charging items, standards and amount are inconsistent with the marked price, they shall be cleaned up and rectified.

The rectification includes standardizing the collection of sales promotion service fees that do not conform to the regulations, ordering to return the fees collected in violation of regulations, supervising the implementation of those without clearly marked prices, urging enterprises to rectify within a time limit and establishing and improving relevant systems, and transferring cases suspected of crimes to judicial organs.

From the perspective of punishment on enterprises, the most serious possibility is that according to the anti monopoly law, in addition to confiscating the illegal income, a fine of more than 1% and less than 10% of the sales volume of the previous year can be imposed; according to the provisions on administrative penalties for price violations, a fine of more than 100000 yuan but less than 1 million yuan can be imposed; If the circumstances are serious, it shall be ordered to suspend business for rectification, or the administrative department for Industry and Commerce shall revoke its business license.

The pain of homogeneous competition

After interviewing a number of retailers and suppliers, we learned that many retailers have reduced their charges for some items. However, according to the supplier's report, after reducing the charging items, other existing charging items and deduction fees have been increased, and the overall charges have not been reduced. So far, the suppliers have not received any notice to cancel all charges.

Carrefour, Wal Mart, Tesco Tesco and other large retail enterprises have reduced part of the charging items. For example, Wal Mart said it did not charge entrance fees, Carrefour canceled some festival fees, etc. at the same time, these enterprises all said that they would support the rectification of the five ministries and commissions to standardize the industry.

So far, the number of major vendors has not received any notice of cancellation.

"It is true that some of the stores have cancelled some fees, but this can not solve the fundamental problem. For example, we will increase the total fees of seven items, or we will reduce the total fees of other items by 10 points Mr. Yu told the newspaper.

"You can not pay, but the result of not paying is to be expelled from the store, or the goods are placed in a poor position, and there is no sales at all. Once the new year's day and the Spring Festival, you dare not pay promotion fees or festival fees, then DM promotion list will not have your goods, and your intention will be lost to competitors of the same kind." Mr. Chen, a supplier of drinks and snacks for a long time, said.

Due to the rise of various costs, the overall charge has not been reduced, so suppliers can only guarantee profits by increasing prices. According to Mr. Chen's estimation, 50 yuan is used to offset all kinds of charges and commissions for a commodity with a price of 100 yuan. In addition to the cost of the commodity itself and the external transportation cost and loss, the final gross profit margin is only 5% - 10%.

"The real source of profit for retailers should be the price difference obtained by selling goods, rather than channel charges. This mode is only available in the Chinese market, and it is a normal price difference mode in overseas markets." Ding Liguo, founder of the first retail network, analyzes that in overseas markets, because the price system is transparent and sound, and there is no nonstandard pricing and charging, no retailer dares to operate in violation of the rules. If it is found that there are arbitrary charges, the punishment is very strong, which is enough to shut down a small and medium-sized enterprise.

As for Japan and other markets, due to the segmentation of retail formats, specific commodities are designated to be supplied to specific formats. For example, some commodities can only be sold in drugstores, and some commodities can only be sold in professional stores. This makes the relationship between retail and supply stable, even some designated suppliers occupy a strong position, there is no retailer charging problem at all.

"However, China's supermarkets have the same products in their stores, and their business forms are not subdivided, which leads to fierce competition among suppliers, which makes retailers occupy a strong position and charge at will. As the retail industry is a low profit industry, the gross profit margin of supermarkets is usually no more than 20%, and even less than 10%. In order to obtain more profits, retailers are keen on charging. " Ding Liguo believes that "after a long time of practice, it may be a fatal blow to some enterprises if retailers stop all charges immediately. Therefore, it will take time to put an end to arbitrary charges."