A piece of news confirmed the fact that Dongfang Selection was not strict in selecting products.On February 26, the official website of the General Administration of Customs announced that JERRY & SONSPHARMACEUTICALINC, an American beverage manufacturer with a Chinese registration number of CUSA24092203180057, provided false materials when applying for registration and has revoked the company's registration qualification in China. The General Administration of Customs reminds consumers not to purchase its beverage products, including TiQ Prune Juice. If you have obtained beverage products from this company, please stop eating them and contact the original acquisition channel for return matters.
On January 18, Wang Hai posted on Weibo that a product called "TiQ Tianqi Prune Juice" carried by Oriental Selection was found to contain the laxative ingredients sennoside A and sennoside B. The promotion of this prune juice on the official website and multiple social platforms is that it does not contain any laxative ingredients.
In response to Wang Hai’s doubts about anti-counterfeiting, Oriental Selection’s customer service responded at the time, “You need to consult the merchant for detailed information that is too specific. If there is a problem, the user will be given a solution.” Now, the tone set by the General Administration of Customs has undoubtedly put a question mark on Oriental Selection’s quality control.
In addition to prune juice, Wang Hai has also cracked down on counterfeit products from Oriental Selection many times during the year. He has successively reported that Oriental Selection sells fake Wuchang rice, selenium-enriched corn that does not meet food safety standards, and self-operated Ecuadorian vannamei shrimp that is concealed and contains excessive amounts of shrimp medicine.
Regarding the above-mentioned reports, Wang Hai told Alphabet List (ID: wujicaijing), “They have all been reported to the regulatory authorities with jurisdiction, and there is no latest progress yet.”
Since exposing Simba’s “sugar-watered bird’s nest” scam, Wang Hai’s anti-counterfeiting scope in the live broadcasting industry has gradually expanded, and leading anchors such as Luo Yonghao, Wei Ya, Li Jiaqi, and Xiao Yang Ge are all included in his anti-counterfeiting scope list. Brother Yang has become Wang Hai’s top anchor who has cracked down on counterfeiting the most in the past two years.
As Douyin's first amateur anchor with over 100 million fans, since the second half of 2022, Xiao Yang has been exposed by Wang Hai that the wall breaker and meat grinder he carries have falsely marked power, the face towels use chemical fibers as plant fibers, the children's shoes have excessive amounts of "substances that induce premature puberty in children", and soybean fiber quilts "do not contain any soybean fiber", etc.According to incomplete statistics, more than ten products in Xiao Yang’s live broadcast room have been cracked down by Wang Hai.
The trust between big anchors and consumers who are caught in the hunt of professional anti-counterfeiters is being eroded by repeated anti-counterfeiting actions.
A
Tianqi prune juice became the first product of Oriental Selection to be cracked down on counterfeiting by Wang Hai.
According to Wang Haifa's video explanation, this prune juice not only detected the illegally added drugs tomatin A and tomatin B, but also concealed the addition of the preservative sorbic acid. These two drugs are the most commonly used laxatives in clinical practice. Adding sennoside to food can also easily cause consumers to become drug dependent.
In the past year, 160,000-340,000 pieces of this prune juice were sold in the Oriental Selection live broadcast room. "Southern Metropolis Daily" reported that Cicada Mama's data showed that Oriental Selection began to carry Tianqi prune juice as early as January 2023.In one year, total sales are between 20 million and 50 million yuan.
After the notification from the General Administration of Customs, Alphabet found that as of press time, several related flagship stores of TiQ Tianqi Prune Juice have been canceled on Douyin. The companies behind these flagship stores are Shangqiu Maggie Trading Co., Ltd. and Shangqiu Wuyuan Biotechnology Co., Ltd.. These two companies were established in September 2022, and their actual controller and legal person are both Huang Yaoqun.
According to Nanduwan Financial News, the product distributor of Tianqi prune juice is Zhengzhou Maihui Trading Co., Ltd. Qichacha shows that this company was established in April 2022 with a registered capital of 1 million yuan, and its actual controller and legal representative is also Huang Yaoqun. Annual report information shows that the company’s number of insured persons in 2022 will be 0.This means that the products of a company that was established less than a year ago have been featured in Oriental Selection’s live broadcast room.
After prune juice, Wuchang rice and corn in the Oriental Selection live broadcast room were also successively cracked down by Wang Hai. Wang Hai said that the self-operated brand "Wuchang Rice Daohuaxiang No. 2" sold by Dongfang Zhen with nearly 1.5 million orders was not found to be Daohuaxiang No. 2 after DNA identification. Oriental Selection’s customer service stated that DNA testing cannot be provided to consumers. In addition, Wang Hai discovered that there was no traceability code on the packaging bags of Wuchang rice.
The organic selenium-rich corn in the Oriental Selection live broadcast room was questioned by Wang Hai that there was a problem with the organic certification label and that the selenium content was insufficient.
The self-operated Ecuadorian vannamei shrimp sold by Oriental Selection has become the latest product to be cracked down on counterfeiting by Wang Hai.
On February 18, the first day of rework during the Spring Festival, Wang Hai broke the news on Weibo that the self-operated Ecuadorian vannamei shrimp sold by Oriental Selection concealed the addition and excessive use of the shrimp drug (preservative, bleach) sodium metabisulfite. In response to the media, Oriental Selection stated that the inspection results met the national standard requirements. Another media quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that Oriental Selection had reported the incident to the police. Regarding the above news, Alphabet asked Oriental Selection for verification. As of press time, Oriental Selection had not responded.
However, Wang Hai is still pressing harder. In addition to saying that "Oriental Selection knows about fakes and selling fakes," he also accuses Oriental Selection of reporting false cases and "trying to cover up the scandal by falsely accusing and framing the whistleblower."
Currently, this self-operated shrimp has sold 7.12 million orders on Douyin. Wang Hai said that whether it is concealed or excessive, it does not meet food safety standards. If calculated based on a refund of one and a compensation of ten, Oriental Selection would have to bear a compensation cost of 6.9 billion yuan.
The matter has not been finalized yet. Regarding whether Oriental Selection's self-operated South American white shrimp violates the rules, the biggest controversy is whether the sulfur dioxide detected in Oriental Selection's self-operated shrimp is naturally formed or added later. This is related to whether Oriental Selection's ingredient list should indicate the use of sodium metabisulfite.
Regarding the view of natural formation, Huxiu quoted Yun Wuxin, a well-known popular science writer and doctor of food engineering, as saying that there should be no such possibility.
In response to the alphabet list, Oriental Selection recommended referring to a master's degree thesis "Monitoring and Safety Assessment of Sulfur Dioxide Residues in Aquatic Products", which pointed out that the background value of sulfur dioxide naturally contained in fresh fish, bivalve shellfish, and cephalopods is 3.15-23.03 mg/kg. "21st Century Business Herald" quoted a food safety expert as saying that sulfur dioxide does have a natural background value, but if it exceeds 100 mg per kilogram, it cannot be the background value.
Regarding the above-mentioned debate of "natural formation or use of shrimp medicine", no authoritative organization has yet intervened. However, Wang Hai said it could not be a natural formation. After consulting with industry insiders, Wang Hai said that adding sodium metabisulfite is a common sense issue in the industry. Ecuadorian vannamei shrimp are all farmed shrimp, and the breeding environment is an artificial shrimp pond. Any farmed shrimp will add sodium metabisulfite to prevent the shrimp hair from turning black. The difference is that domestically farmed shrimp must label sodium metabisulfite.
B
The Tianqi prune juice notified by the customs is not only sold in the Oriental Selection live broadcast room. "Southern Metropolis Daily" stated that anchors such as Crazy Little Yang Ge's series accounts "Three Sheep Network" and "Crazy Three Sheep", Duduo, Maomaojie, Gaotu Jiapin, and Jia Nailiang have all brought goods for it. Data shows that the total sales volume of Tianqi prune juice is at least 1.5 million pieces, and among the top-selling products, consumers purchase up to 98% during the live broadcast.
It was the hot-selling nature of its high sales volume that made Wang Hai focus on Tianqi prune juice."Generally, our laboratory will do some tracking and monitoring of the top 10 sales in various industries and fields.Some were discovered by our laboratory ourselves, and some were discovered by whistleblowers. At present, it mainly targets food, medicine and cosmetics. "Wang Hai said.
Oriental Selection is not the top anchor that Wang Hai has cracked down the most. Since 2022, Crazy Little Yang has been cracked down on counterfeiting no less than ten times. Wang Hai, who has 2.07 million followers on Weibo, currently has a Weibo post that reported crazy little Yang Ge for selling "poisonous children's shoes" at the top of his Weibo account.
On January 19, before Wang Hai reported Dongfang Selection for selling fake Wuchang rice, he also reported the crazy little Yang brother for the same reason for bringing 900,000 pieces of fake Wuchang rice. Xiao Yang denied it at first, but later it was proved that it was sold through the window of his authorized account, which also revealed the hidden management problems in the live broadcast slicing business of the leading anchor with an annual income of over 100 million.
Recently, Wang Hai posted on Weibo and revealed that the Guoding wine sold by "Crazy Little Yang" in the live broadcast room was passed off as wine from Wuliangye General Factory, and was suspected of deceiving consumers. It is understood that this wine has sold more than 120,000 orders in the "Crazy Little Yang Brother" live broadcast room store.
In addition to Brother Yang, Luo Yonghao and Li Jiaqi are also within Wang Hai's sniper range. When Li Jiaqi's Huaxizi eyebrow pencil caused controversy last year, Wang Hai said on Weibo that "Huaxizi Li Jiaqi made false propaganda", saying that the ingredients of Luozi Dai did not exist. Subsequently, Hua Xizi modified the copy on the promotional page, changing "This product is a copy of Luo Zi Dai" to "This product is inspired by Luo Zi Dai".
Regarding the reasons for the crazy crackdown on counterfeiting anchors, Wang Hai told Alphabet that anchors now occupy the middle stage of product sales, making the most money and shouldering the least responsibility. The common reason for these anchors' overturning is that their leads are separated and their profit margins are too high. In his view, the live broadcast room and the anchor are the core of the live broadcast business. They are the party with pricing power, the party that earns the most profits, and the party that plays a decisive role in consumer purchases. The anchor should first bear the corresponding responsibilities, and should bear the greatest responsibility.
According to Zhan Junhao, a public relations partner of Fuzhou Gongsunce, the frequent overturning of goods delivery anchors is affected by multiple factors: In order to pursue sales and profits, some anchors ignore strict control of product quality and authenticity, leading them to ignore potential risks and problems with product quality. problem; the supervision mechanism of the live streaming industry is not yet perfect, and there are certain legal loopholes and regulatory gaps; some anchors and their teams may become accomplices of unscrupulous merchants due to insufficient understanding of laws and regulations or negligence during the product selection and promotion process, and then fall into the anti-counterfeiting storm.
Regarding professional anti-counterfeiters like Wang Hai, Luo Yonghao once expressed his opinion, "Everyone will think that professional anti-counterfeiters are just like short-selling institutions, and many of them are hooligans. I don't think so. I think they are all as useful as woodpeckers, even if they are rogue woodpeckers." However, "Once substantial losses are caused, we will prosecute them with goodwill crimes." Luo Yonghao added.
C
After being cracked down on counterfeiting, how to re-establish trust with consumers has undoubtedly become the primary problem that anchors need to solve.
When Luo Yonghao sold a Pierre Cardin sweater in a live broadcast room that was questioned by consumers as a non-wool product, after making a friend and getting feedback, he quickly confirmed that the product was fake through a third-party quality inspection agency.
At that time, Huang He, the founder of Make a Friend, said in an interview: "The problem mainly appeared on the seal of an authorization letter. He dared to falsify the document, which we did not expect." While making a friend reported the case to the public security agency, it paid three times the compensation to the purchaser.
Afterwards, Make a Friend also proposed five rectification measures: establish a quality control laboratory; cooperate more closely with internationally renowned third-party professional testing institutions; conduct self-examination actions; participate in the industry standards and specifications related to the quality testing and control of live broadcast e-commerce products led by authoritative institutions; invite industry leaders and quality control experts to become the quality control consultants of Make a Friend.
Compared with the timely follow-up of Make a Friend, other anchors rarely give the outside world a clear attitude or make corresponding corrective measures after encountering anti-counterfeiting.
In April last year, after being repeatedly targeted by Wang Hai for counterfeiting, Xiao Yang came to Wang Hai's live broadcast room. Faced with Wang Hai's request to "refund one and compensate three when it's time to refund one and compensate three", Brother Yang said, "I must be serving consumers. If I did something improper today, I would be dead a long time ago. I just started a business. The company was only established in 2021 and started operations in 2022. The company is only one year old, so there is a lot to improve."
Brother Yang said to Wang Hai, "I will come and ask you (quality control) whenever I have nothing to do, or you can guide me." Brother Yang also invited Wang Hai to visit his company. But according to Wang Hai, the final invitation did not take place. "This kind of polite talk is the same as sitting together when we have time."
After being cracked down on for many times, Dongfang Selection has not released strong countermeasures to the outside world. The action that can really be called a statement of attitude to the outside world was when it was exposed on March 15 last year that "cultured shrimps were sold as wild shrimps."
At that time, Oriental Selection's official Weibo stated, "As a company, we will actively solve problems. Thank you for everyone's criticism and tolerance... and continue to move forward." Yu Minhong also admitted that Oriental Selection made this mistake due to lack of experience. "In the future, Oriental Selection will strengthen its system capabilities and try to prevent such mistakes from happening."
This year, it has been cracked down on counterfeiting four times in a row. One of them was confirmed by the General Administration of Customs that the product selection was not strict, which also caused the outside world to question Oriental Selection’s product selection system and product strategy.
The anti-counterfeiting campaign against Oriental Selection is not over yet. Wang Hai revealed to Alphabet that one of Dongfang Selection’s self-operated beef products has also been complained by consumers about problems, and it is still in the verification stage.
Wang Hai’s anti-counterfeiting campaign continues, and the challenges that big anchors need to face will not stop either. Only more stringent product selection and after-sales can win back the trust of consumers.