TikTok finally took action.A few days ago, the Douyin e-commerce operations team issued two "Special Management Announcements on Hype Refund Behaviors".It was mentioned that some creators on the platform used refund orders to hype up data, or used abnormal marketing methods to induce users to place orders and pay. However, in reality, they were unable to fully fulfill the contract at the preferential price, resulting in a large number of user refunds, which had a negative impact on the platform's consumer experience and the platform's fair and equitable business environment.
Therefore, Douyin will continue to carry out special management of this type of behavior and increase its efforts to deal with creators who maliciously cheat and violate regulations.
Specific measures include reducing exposure, warnings, deducting credit points, restricting e-commerce permissions, etc. Depending on the severity of the circumstances, if the user experience is seriously affected or platform rules are circumvented, we will alsoDirectly close e-commerce permissions.
It is worth noting that this is the first time Douyin e-commerce has carried out special rectification on "hype refund behavior", which is of great significance to the standardized development of the industry.
In the announcement, Douyin also listed in detail a number of typical violations and violation scenarios. This includes creators using their own accounts or manipulating other accounts to generate refund orders; using cashbacks, gifts, etc. to induce consumers to place orders and pay and then refund and use data; through "snatching photos", "drawing orders for free", "drawing for half price", etc., requiring users to place orders and pay first, and then participate in the lottery; there are fictitious price comparisons, false publicity, illegal gameplay, etc. to brush transaction data, seriously affecting user experience, leading to user refunds and other behaviors.
For example, the e-commerce industry tacitly"Brushing orders"Behaviors, whether merchants place a large number of orders and refund them, or use various methods to guide consumers to place orders and then refund them, are all typical "fake orders and refunds";
There are also false propagandas by anchors,Exaggerating the value of goods and fabricating price comparisonsetc., causing the consumer to realize that the purchase was expensive after placing the order, and choose to refund. This is a "fictitious price comparison and refund";
In addition, common in live broadcast roomsHold orders and pay quicklyWhen promoting benefits (price reductions, coupons), clear information is not clearly conveyed to users, or is explained too quickly, shortening users' decision-making time. As a result, users who make large amounts of refunds after impulsive consumption are also considered refund speculations...
On the whole, including false promotion of product materials and effects, hyping up performances in live broadcast rooms, etc., as long as it affects the user experience and leads to large refunds from users, it may be suspected of speculation and refund behavior - these are now the focus of Douyin's rectification.
The return rate remains high, impulsive consumption is the root cause
When consumers shop online, they will inevitably encounter situations where clothes do not fit well or the material is different from what they imagined. As a basic consumer right, "return" is a normal behavior.
But the problem is that in addition to various objective factors, there are more and more external factors that have greatly increased the return rate - this phenomenon is particularly prominent in the live broadcast e-commerce industry.
The "2020 China Livestreaming E-commerce Industry Research Report" once pointed out that the average return rate of livestreaming e-commerce is 30%-50%, which is higher than the 10%-15% return rate of traditional e-commerce.
In addition to the platform's continuous efforts to reduce consumers' return and exchange costs in order to improve the shopping experience, impulsive consumption caused by merchants or anchors' deliberate hype in the live broadcast room is also a factor that cannot be ignored.
In July last year, there were media reports that the return rate of Douyin jewelers was as high as 90%, and it even became a hot search. Although the relevant person in charge of Douyin e-commerce quickly refuted the rumors, he only said that "the overall return rate of jewelry and jade products on Douyin e-commerce platform, whether in live broadcast scenes or shelf scenes, is at the industry average level."
As for how high the so-called "industry average water level" is, Douyin did not give an exact figure.
As the saying goes: "Don't look at colors under the lamp." Not only jade, but also all kinds of jewelry and antiques, if placed under the light, it is easy for people to misjudge their color and overestimate their value.
Allowing consumers to understand products more intuitively and comprehensively is a major advantage of live streaming e-commerce. However, once the anchor takes advantage of consumers' subconscious mind of "seeing is believing" and only shows consumers what they want to show, and supplements it with various attractive words, it is easy to stimulate consumers to make impulsive orders.
The same is true for clothing categories. This category has a high return rate in the e-commerce industry. Like jewelry and jade, due to the large number of SKUs and strong personalization, consumers need to actually experience it before they can make a final decision. If the promotion in the live broadcast room is far from the actual product, consumers will naturally choose to return it.
Just recently, a topic has attracted great attention in the e-commerce industry: the return rate of "new Chinese-style" clothing that has been popular in the past year in the live broadcast room is as high as 80%.
According to Tech Planet, a new Chinese clothing entrepreneur said that when she and her team recently reviewed the operation data, they found that the return rate was as high as 80%, which is double the return rate of 30% to 40% for normal search and browsing orders. Moreover, merchants must meet the minimum inventory required by the live broadcast room to expand inventory. What often happens is that the inventory that was just cleared yesterday is filled with returned goods this year.
Obviously, such a high return rate is also a burden for merchants. Merchants spent a lot of money on investment, only to be overwhelmed by the high return rate. Such stories are no longer new in live broadcast rooms.
In August last year, at the "Douyin E-commerce Open Day-Consumer Experience Special" event held by Douyin E-commerce, Wen Wei, head of consumer experience at Douyin E-commerce, once said that from an industry perspective, the return rate of live broadcast scenes is indeed higher than that of shelf scenes, mainly because the shopping goals of users in shelf scenes are more clear. However, Douyin’s global interest e-commerce includes two scenarios. Judging from the platform situation, the overall return rate is at the industry average.
"Secondly, of course we hope that consumers can buy products they are satisfied with right away, but this is really unrealistic in some scenarios." Wen Wei gave examples, such as jewelry, jade, clothing and other categories. In view of the strong personalization of the products themselves, consumers need to receive the goods and experience them before they know whether they are suitable. This is where the demand for returns and exchanges arises.
From this point of view, standardizing the daily business behaviors of anchors and merchants may be able to fundamentally alleviate the current difficulties faced by live broadcast e-commerce.
Say goodbye to false prosperity, live broadcast e-commerce begins to squeeze out the water
Huang Zheng, the founder of Pinduoduo, once said: "Our core is not to be cheap, but to satisfy users' desire to take advantage."
Today’s success of Pinduoduo has verified the validity of this underlying logic.Looking at the live broadcast e-commerce industry, "satisfying users' desire to take advantage" is also an important driving force behind improving conversion rates in live broadcast rooms.
This is why even if the platform continues to crack down on violations, many anchors are still trying to take action and use marketing methods such as holding back orders and false price comparisons to stimulate viewers in the live broadcast room to place orders.
However, as platforms pay more and more attention to users' shopping experience and freight insurance gradually becomes more popular, consumers' return and exchange costs continue to decrease, and the high return rate has become a "boomerang" thrown by these merchants, which eventually fell back on their own heads.
Therefore, if the live broadcast e-commerce platform wants to further reduce the return rate, it is actually very simple, that is, to increase the cost of merchants being returned.For example, the special management launched by Douyin this time has unprecedented intensity in dealing with malicious cheating and illegal creators, which can play a certain warning role in the live broadcast promotion process.
In addition, using the return rate as an assessment indicator of product quality can also have good results.
For example, Kuaishou e-commerce will assess the "quality return rate" indicator of goods, specifically the number of orders with the first refund reason for product quality problems within 14 days from the payment date among orders signed within 14 days from the payment date / the number of orders signed within 14 days from the payment date, and will conduct special rectifications for goods delivery experts and merchants with high product return rates.
After the new regulations came into effect on March 15 this year, the statistical caliber of "product return rate" excludes product return orders under certain conditions that are allergic, rotten/deteriorated, less effective than expected, and short of goods. This is mainly due to the particularity of the "use now, pay later" and the newly launched "Fruits and Vegetables Buy with Confidence" service scenarios.
It is foreseeable that under the consensus of the industry seeking long-term development, it is urgent for live broadcast e-commerce to reduce the return rate, and various platforms are trying their best to squeeze out the water in GMV.
However, it is also worth noting that some anchors get commissions based on the sales of the goods they carry. As for how much they get back after selling, they do not consider it.
Therefore, in order to bring about a "qualitative change" in the return rate of live broadcast e-commerce, a deeper change may be needed in the form of cooperation between merchants and experts.