On September 12th, Taobao officially launched the Return Treasure service for all Taobao and Tmall merchants today.
According to calculations, "Return Treasure" is expected to reduce the cost of return and exchange shipping fees for merchants by 2 billion yuan throughout the year. Compared to the current return and exchange shipping fees of merchants, ordering Return Treasure will result in a minimum reduction of 10% and a maximum reduction of 30%. At present, merchants can order the Return Treasure service on the Qianniu backend.
It is understood that for this feature, as long as consumers place an order to purchase goods with the "Return Treasure" service logo, apply for a return or exchange (including return, exchange, etc.) within 90 days after the merchant's order is shipped, and the final return or exchange is successful, consumers will receive the first shipping fee for the return or exchange (excluding packaging costs, damage costs, and other expenses, up to a maximum of 26 yuan).
For Taobao and Tmall merchants who join the "Consumer Experience Improvement Plan", all products in the store (excluding virtual categories) will enjoy the Return Treasure service after joining, and the specific details will be subject to the actual order.
In the year of implementing a low price strategy and returning to users, Taobao pixel level imitated the Pinduoduo model, from only refunding to 0 yuan advance purchase. While a series of measures brought traffic to the platform, they also harmed the interests of some merchants. Taobao had to find a balance point between merchants and users, gradually shifting the balance to merchants.
On July 30th, Taobao announced that it will upgrade its refund only recognition model to accurately identify anomalies and only issue refunds.
It is reported that the upgraded recognition model has enhanced the recognition of abnormal behaviors such as high-frequency refunds only, sending back empty packages with few items, and high-frequency counterfeit product refunds. At the same time, it closely monitors unreasonable refund behaviors and protects the rights and interests of merchants.
On August 9th, Taobao only implemented a refund for the new version and returned more processing power to the merchants. Taobao allows merchants with a comprehensive score of 4.8 or above to have more room for independent negotiation regarding "refund only"; For the appeal of merchants in the "refund only" event, Taobao has enabled third-party testing agencies to conduct random inspections on the products. If the inspection passes, the platform will compensate the merchant for the losses. In September, Taobao's wholesale platform 1688 will provide certain subsidies for high scoring merchants who encounter "refund only" issues, and open a green appeal channel.
It is reported that Taobao's refund policy will officially take effect on December 26, 2023, with the aim of optimizing the user experience on the platform. However, this has allowed a group of extreme wool fans and black and gray producers to exploit loopholes.
According to a big data report from Beijing Yinghe Law Firm, as of July 11th, there were a total of 1448 judgment documents related to the keyword "refund only+consumer".
At present, major e-commerce platforms are breaking free from the shackles of low price competition and turning their attention to the growth of omnichannel revenue.
At the end of July, Tiktok E-commerce will adjust its price comparison system and no longer pursue absolute low prices.
After 618, Taotian Group clarified its changes for the second half of the year in a closed door meeting for merchants, including reducing reliance on "five-star pricing power", weakening the strategy of absolute low prices, and returning to the traffic allocation logic of GMV.
The latest financial report shows that the adjusted EBITA of Taotian Group in the second quarter was 48.81 billion yuan, a decrease of 1% compared to the same period in 2023. Although the GMV growth rate of the platform is still acceptable, Taotian's customer management revenue only increased by 1% year-on-year in this quarter.
(Times Finance Xu Xiaoqian Comprehensive Interface News, Finance Magazine, Pengpai News)