Abstract:
It is currently the peak season for hairy crab consumption, and crab cards are also ushering in a centralized redemption period. Recently, Sino-Singapore Jingwei noticed that many well-known brands of crab cards are circulating on second-hand trading platforms at 20% off, "buy one, get one free" and other methods. Merchants sell crab cards worth a thousand yuan, but you can buy them here for only three to four hundred yuan, causing many consumers to say they “can’t understand.” Is the price of the Crab Card exaggeratedly high, or is there another hidden reason?
Multiple brands of crab cards are heavily discounted on second-hand platforms
"The Crab-Zhuangyuan Hairy Crab is 20% off, and the new card has a special offer of 'buy one, get one free'." On the 10th, Sino-Singapore Jingwei saw on a second-hand trading platform that a merchant was selling the Crab-Zhuangyuan Hairy Crab Card at a low price.
Sino-Singapore Jingwei consulted the merchant as a consumer, and the merchant said that the Crab Number One Hairy Crab Card it sold ranged from 20% to 27% off the original price. Different models have different prices.
Among them, type 2088 (male crabs 4.5 taels, female crabs 3.2 taels, 8 crabs in total), the discounted price is 430 yuan, the original price is 2088 yuan.
Type 2088 hairy crab card sold at Crab Zhuangyuan Food Tmall flagship store
On the same day, Sino-Singapore Jingwei saw in the Crab Zhuangyuan Food Tmall flagship store that the 2088-type hairy crab card with the same specifications was priced at 938 yuan after the discount, and the price before the discount was marked by the merchant as 2088 yuan. Even based on the preferential price of 938 yuan, the price on the second-hand trading platform is about 54% cheaper.
Also circulating at low prices on second-hand trading platforms are hairy crab cards from brands such as Mrs. Crab and Su Zhuangyuan.
On the aforementioned second-hand trading platform, a merchant listed the Mrs. Crab 2218 type (5 taels of male crabs, 4 taels of female crabs, a total of 8 pieces) hairy crab card, priced at 350 yuan. The merchant told Sino-Singapore Jingwei that crab cards of the same brand and model are sold at different prices on different platforms. It generally does not say how much the discount is, but the actual selling price shall prevail. "If we must talk about discounts, based on the original price of 2,218 yuan, the 2218 crab card has a 16% discount."
Sino-Singapore Jingwei noticed that in Mrs. Crab’s Tmall flagship store, the 2218 crab card of the same specifications is discounted to 458 yuan, which is 916 yuan before the discount.
On a second-hand trading platform, a merchant listed a Yangcheng Lake brand type 468 (3 taels of male crabs, 2.5 taels of female crabs, a total of 6) hairy crab cards for 225 yuan. At the Yangcheng Lake Food Tmall flagship store, crab cards of the same specification and model are at a discounted price of about 374 yuan. The price list provided by the customer service of the flagship store shows that the original price of this model of crab card is 468 yuan.
There are also many merchants selling different models of Su Zhuangyuan hairy crab cards on second-hand trading platforms, with prices ranging from 150 yuan to 600 yuan. Among them, a merchant sells type 6688 crab cards (4.5 taels for male crabs, 3.5 taels for female crabs, 8 pieces in total), priced at 248 yuan.
Crab cards for sale on second-hand trading platforms
Sino-Singapore Jingwei saw that in the Su Zhuangyuan Fresh Food Tmall flagship store, crab cards of the same size (4.5 taels of male crabs, 3.5 taels of female crabs, 8 pieces in total) are at a discounted price of 328 yuan, 600 yuan before the discount.
However, the customer service of the Su Zhuangyuan Fresh Tmall flagship store said that the crab card model of this specification is type 6866, not type 6688, and there are no type 6688 crab cards for sale in the store.
When asked why the crab card models on the second-hand trading platform were different from those sold in the store, the customer service said that he did not know the situation on other platforms. There were no different models of the same specifications in the store, and each specification represented a model.
The price is artificially high or is there another hidden reason?
Why are crab cards on second-hand trading platforms so much cheaper than official channels?
First of all, the original price of the Crab Card is inflated. During the interview, Sino-Singapore Jingwei found that the original price and model value of some brands of crab cards are the same.
Take Xizhuangyuan as an example. On the 10th, Sino-Singapore Jingwei saw in the Tmall flagship store of Xizhuangyuan Food that the pre-discount price of the 2088 crab card was 2088 yuan, and the pre-discount price of the 1398 crab card was 1398 yuan. This is also true for most other crab cards.
The price list provided by the customer service of the Yangcheng Lake Food Tmall flagship store also shows that the model number is the original price of the crab card.
Price list provided by customer service of Yangcheng Lake Food Tmall flagship store
“The model number is used to distinguish coupons of different specifications, and it can also be understood as the original price. The original price and selling price will be a little different.” Customer service of Yangcheng Lake Food Tmall flagship store said. Sino-Singapore Jingwei saw in the flagship store that the actual price of the 698 crab card was 563.92 yuan, and the actual price of the 998 crab card was 813.92 yuan.
"In the early years, the model of the crab card was the price. For example, the 2088 crab card was directly marked at 2,088 yuan. Merchants first raised the price and then sold it at a discount. The original price was all false. Later, in order to regulate the market, the regulatory authorities did not allow such marking. This is how we now use model numbers to distinguish crab card specifications, but there are still merchants who associate the model number with the original price of the crab card. Usually, the larger the model number, the higher the price," Zhou Hao (pseudonym), who has been engaged in hairy crab farming and sales for a long time, told Zhongxin Jingwei.
Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, also mentioned that
the pricing model of crab cards is never based on the cost of crabs, but based on the value space of social gifts.
The brand first sets a price on the card that is much higher than the actual value of the crab products, and then leaves enough distribution commissions for the channels. Finally, it relies on the unmanned pickup rate and the cash flow from over-delivery to make profits.“The specifications of the cards on the market ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand are often not as big as the price tags. The essence is that the premium of ‘human favor and face’ is directly incorporated into the pricing system, rather than following the industrial logic of food ingredients.” Jiang Han told Sino-Singapore Jingwei.
In addition, the price of hairy crabs has dropped and the demand for gifts has shrunk, which is also the reason why the price of crab cards has been greatly discounted on second-hand trading platforms.
“This year’s hairy crab production has been bumper overall, and the purchasing price at Tangkou has gone down. The price of physical crabs has returned to be more affordable, which in turn has squeezed the premium space of crab cards. In addition, in the past two years, consumers have consumed the trust of crab cards due to the difficulty in picking up crab cards and shortages. The demand for gifts itself is shrinking, and the second-hand market is naturally the first to respond, directly squeezing out the previous falsely high face value bubble.” Jiang Han said.
Zhou Hao also said that the output of hairy crabs this year is high and the price is lower than the same period last year. "The issuance of crab cards is often earlier than the launch time of hairy crabs. Merchants are actually betting on the market price of live crabs. The price of hairy crabs has dropped, so that the final transaction price of crab cards has also dropped again and again."
Zhou Hao introduced that currently on the market, crab cards with a total of 8 sizes, including 3 taels of female crabs and 4 taels of male crabs, are mostly sold on e-commerce for about 250 yuan, and some are even less than 200 yuan.
China-Singapore Jingwei noticed that in September this year, the Suzhou Consumer Rights Protection Committee and the Suzhou Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Industry Association jointly issued a consumption tip for Yangcheng Lake hairy crab cards (coupons), saying that some crab cards are only marked with numerical models such as "Type 666" and "Type 1888". This model is not equal to the actual selling price. Do not be misled by publicity stunts.
The above-mentioned consumer tips also say that you should be wary of ultra-low-price crab cards sold on social platforms, informal live broadcast rooms, and private communities. Such products are prone to problems such as falsely labeled models, unknown supply sources, and insufficient contract performance capabilities; do not buy "three-no crab cards" with no brand name, no business entity, and no after-sales contact information, to avoid having no way to protect your rights after a dispute.
On September 28, Yangcheng Lake hairy crab fishing officially started. According to data released by the Suzhou Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on September 28, recent sampling measurements show that the total annual hairy crab production in Yangcheng Lake is expected to be about 10,100 tons, of which the fence breeding area covers an area of 15,300 acres and the output is about 1,600 tons; the high-standard ponds around the lake cover an area of 65,400 acres and the output is about 8,500 tons. The overall production situation is relatively stable, and the quality is stable and improving.
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