Double 11 has just ended recently, and it is inevitable that there have been more discussions about e-commerce disputes on social media. Originally, we didn’t really care about this. Although the torrent of consumerism has wrinkled everyone in this era, whether it is the cries of merchants or the struggles of consumers, it is inevitable that it is heartbreaking. People in Lezi are “kind-hearted” and cannot bear to see this.
But I have to say that the Internet era is full of black humor. Every day there are new things that you can’t think of, ready to hit your humor cells. In the past two days, I casually glanced at the waterfall and found this news - "In order to prevent malicious returns, the owner of a men's clothing store in Jiangsu has launched various styles of 'hangtags' such as mouse pads, underwear, ashtrays, etc."
To be honest, just by looking at the content and thinking about the image of a large mouse pad hanging on a jacket, this news is already quite entertaining and will test your proficiency in the word "stretch" in the "Six Arts of the Internet Gentleman".
Especially when I synchronized with a video from "Moyu Office".
But you have to look more forward and backward on this matter, as there will be more difficulties.
The e-commerce industry has been fighting against returns and refunds for a long time, and the reason is not difficult to guess: when you have the two mechanisms of "returns without reason within seven days" and "refund only", "free prostitution" is the devil's whisper ringing in every customer's ear. In order to win this war, the prostitutes have gone all over the sea to show their magical powers. Everyone has actually seen a lot of related fun. Taking unboxing videos of goods arriving has become a basic skill. The curse of "I am a student, making money" has also become the corporate culture of Xianyu - you may not have used this platform, but you have probably seen the fish in the meme.
In the clothing industry, the work done by prostitutes is equally heavyweight - wearing clothes without tags to attend weddings, celebrations, performances, and even travel, and then follow the "seven days without reason" deadline to return the clothes and return them with the original clothes. Smells, unknown stains, and random damage are common.
Some people even found advanced ways to play, and directly "buy new and return old", catching one style every year, and playing the "old for new" style in the clothing industry.
It is difficult to estimate the exact amount of losses suffered by these merchants who have been deeply affected by this case. However, based on different data sources and the performance of different stores, we can roughly judge that this number fluctuates between 40% and 80%, which is almost a range from "killing people with pain" to "killing them all". Of course, this process of harm is mutual. A businessman who "sells rat meat over sheep's heads" is also a "respectable opponent."
In the first half of this year, many e-commerce platforms began to significantly shrink their "refund only" policies. To a certain extent, I think it can be regarded as a phased summary of a silent war between consumers and merchants. Before everyone's moral integrity gradually developed into crumbs, the platform came out and hugged me.
But just like the classic line in "Fallout 4" -
The means of war will only continue to evolve, but I didn't expect the direction to be so darkly humorous.
There is a convention in the clothing industry that if consumers want to return clothing, the tags cannot be cut off. Therefore, a common method for malicious refunds is to wear the clothes without cutting the tags and return the original clothes after wearing them. Anyway, many tags exist in positions that do not affect the wear. They are only used to mark brand information, clothing materials, or remind some washing precautions. They are more of a sign.
In response to this phenomenon, many clothing e-commerce merchants have begun to use "giant hang tags" a while ago, which means the hang tags are stretched to the size of A4 paper, made of hard materials, using enlarged and bold fonts, and written on the hang tags such as "Remove and refuse returns" and "If there are stains, you will be responsible for cleaning costs." The large size affects the look and feel, and the hard material affects the wear. If you have to wear it out, it will be uncomfortable and socially awkward. All-round "user experience" for malicious refunders.
Merchants only need to pay a few cents of extra cost to effectively avoid dozens of dollars of malicious return losses. According to a report by the Yangcheng Evening News, after using "giant hang tags", the malicious return rate of some stores dropped from 42% to 18%, which is "outstanding".
The low-investment and high-return solution was quickly adopted by many businesses, and related terms were also trending on Weibo.
Interestingly, this also directly led to the development of a related industry chain: the sales of a "giant hang tag" manufacturer soared more than ten times from October to November, from about 70,000 to about 1 million, taking advantage of the "Double Eleven" east wind to become a new "wealth code."
This method of getting rich by hanging tags has appeared before. At the beginning of this year, there was a trend of recycling and selling "Archa'teryx tags", which also spawned "Archa'teryx tag identification" and other related industry chains, which are quite wild. No matter what you are wearing is real or fake, putting a tag on it is a status symbol and the forefront of fashion.
However, these two sets of gameplay are fundamentally different.
The "Archaeopteryx hangtag" is similar to the social media display used to sell iPhones in the early years. It is marketing the brand premium of luxury goods and selling the milk and honey of little bourgeoisie.
The "giant hangtag" sells a set of "all-round three-dimensional defense devices" for stores, and markets the most cost-effective "war plan." Basically, you can think of it as the e-commerce version of the "arms race."
But the plot is still going on at this point, and there are even some twists and turns - but they are twists and turns in the full sense of the word.
As the saying goes, "You have a good plan, I have a ladder." Now that stores are adopting "giant hangtags" on a large scale, "white prostitution" players have begun to evolve a new generation of offensive methods. They held high the banner of "rejecting the shame of hanging tags", and through further self-hypnosis, they carried out the "free prostitution" New Year to the end, and gradually incorporated "giant hanging tags" into their "evil dressing system", advocating that changing "aesthetic concepts starts with me" and "a beautiful life is not defined by giant hanging tags"...
I just never thought that I have to pay for clothes.
"I'm so in love"
Being able to implement this kind of abstract aesthetic that is almost self-hypnotic, to a certain extent, people on earth should no longer be able to stop them. I originally thought that this was probably just a new trend in the Internet, but I didn't expect that someone actually did this - on the street, in the crowd, wearing yourself and showing confidence.
Admirable.
And if you pay a little attention to social media these days, you will find that this war between malicious refunders and stores has started in every corner. You can see new developments on the hot search list in two or three days, and you will sing and I will appear. Today's hot search is "Giant hangtags are only refundable", and tomorrow's hot search is "Giant hangtags have been cracked". There is no fuss in the whole process, and both parties have new things to do.
Later on, this situation has become a situation where "the devil is as high as the road" - after experiencing the magic attack of "rejecting the shame of the tag", everyone gradually discovered that the social death attack value brought by the "giant tag" was still a little behind the version.
As a result, some stores soon discovered that the "anti-refund weapon" has huge strategic space to explore.
Since a large piece of A4 paper can no longer prevent the clothes from being incorporated into the "evil cultivator's outfit", then simply use "special-shaped tags" to continue to reduce the "possibility of being worn" by the clothes. Under this idea, various forms of "special-shaped hangtags" such as "password locks" and "ashtrays" were rapidly developed and used. Hangtags of different shapes have even gradually formed the "brand characteristics" of some stores.
The store owner at the beginning of the article is a "pioneer" who discovered the "splendid point" in this confrontation and found a new way.
According to interviews with him in the media, he actually planned to use the "giant hang tag" solution at the beginning, but after seeing the size of the hang tag in customer reviews, he realized that it was not the size of a mouse pad, so he turned directly to making a mouse pad.
Compared with the original plan, the cost of this approach has increased, but because the merchants have not raised prices due to the increase in costs, customer feedback has been quite good. After the mouse pad, he also added underwear, socks and other options.
By achieving this, the merchant has, to some extent, successfully transformed the "giant hang tag", a prop positioned as a defensive measure, into an offensive measure called "gifts." In his store, hang tags are not only a preventive measure to prevent you from wearing clothes, but also a simple welfare measure of "buying clothes and getting underwear for free".
After putting it into practice, his store began to "explode".
The very unique innovation of hang tags gives many customers an extra sense of "collecting" in their shopping behavior in this store. There are even customers who place repeated orders in this store and want to collect all types of "hang tags". And when his customers learned that the store owner was planning to launch more different types of "hang tags" in the future, the comments section of the relevant video began to "dream in place" and treat the store as a "dragon ball" to make wishes.
Just like people who like to play "Call Back" or "Mille Crepe Design" when designing comedy points, this SHOW of buying clothes and giving away underwear is a very fun activity alone. Add it to the mix of relevant news during this period, and it can also give you a complete set of plays, including the continuation and transition, and silently acting out the climax passage, from enduring to counterattacking to finding a new "getting rich", the concentration of fun increases dramatically——
Who says art comes from life? Life is fucking art.
A few months ago, we wrote an article. After the AI tool was gradually advanced and popularized, some "white prostitutes" gradually began to use it to generate fake pictures of damaged goods to deceive merchants into passing the "refund only" review.
This trend is the ultimate evolution of the early years of using PS to defraud refunds. Originally, "free prostitutes" had to learn PS technology and understand the specific applications of various tools, which was more or less a "technical job." But after the emergence of AI, as long as you have hands and can type, you can effectively promote the progress of this process, greatly reduce the cost of counterfeiting, and use the information gap to reap the dividends of the next wave of technological development.
However, the price is to further increase the communication costs between consumers and merchants, put the trust relationship between the two parties on the fire, and force both parties to further invest their energy in iterative upgrades of new technologies, staging a new era of "war of genius business minds".
E-commerce platforms and relevant departments have been trying to suppress this phenomenon since the emergence of this trend. From Taobao's updated AI fake image management policy in March this year to the "Measures for Labeling of Synthetic Content Generated by Artificial Intelligence" introduced in September this year, this phenomenon has been suppressed to a certain extent.
However, the convenience and concealment of online transactions ultimately give both parties too much room for maneuver. AI has been pushed down a bit, but other methods still exist. Now it seems that the "giant hangtag" is not just an afterthought of the previous "AI only refund", it is another battlefield in the trust war between consumers and merchants.
E-commerce is originally a product of the progress of the times. Through the online transaction model, consumers can save a lot of time and energy, and merchants can significantly reduce the costs of many intermediate sales links.
The business model that transcends the times has led many people to say that e-commerce is killing the real economy. However, judging from the current situation, "AI only refunds" allows the communication between consumers and merchants to move from text to photo to video, and then further develop to offline BATTLE.
"Giant hang tag" once again shows the thousand-layer game between consumers and merchants.
It's hard to tell whether it's progress or regression.
But one thing is unlikely to change. This "arms race" will continue to develop in various unexpected directions.