Recently, Diaoyutai Distillery issued a statement saying that "there are e-commerce platforms that sell 'Diaoyutai' Baijiu without authorization, and there are counterfeit products sold". According to a report by Caixin News Agency on the 28th, executives from Diaoyutai Liquor Industry stated that the e-commerce platforms mentioned above, including Pinduoduo, have "sold counterfeit goods".
Frequent statements
On March 22, Diaoyutai Distillery issued a statement saying that recently, the company received many consumers' inquiries about the authenticity of "Diaoyutai" Baijiu purchased at low prices on the e-commerce platform. After verification, the e-commerce platform selling "Diaoyutai" Baijiu without authorization has sold counterfeit products, which seriously damaged the company's reputation and consumer rights.
At present, the company only authorizes JD, Tmall, Tmall Supermarket, Alipay, Tiktok, WeChat video number and Tencent applet as official channels to sell the "Diaoyutai" Baijiu produced by the company.
The company will continue to check the sales of fake "Diaoyutai" Baijiu in e-commerce platform stores. Once illegal stores are found, the company will take all necessary measures to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers in accordance with the law and e-commerce platforms with violations.
On March 13th, Wuliangye also released a statement on its official website stating that recently, the company received inquiries from multiple consumers about the authenticity of Wuliangye products purchased at low prices from the "Pinduoduo" platform. After verification by Wuliangye, the Wuliangye products sold by multiple stores on the platform are counterfeit, which seriously damages the company's reputation and consumer rights.
According to a report by E Company on March 15th, in response to Wuliangye's statement stating that "multiple (Pinduoduo) stores selling Wuliangye are selling counterfeit products," Pinduoduo's official customer service stated that billions of subsidized products support a penalty of one to ten for counterfeiting. If consumers have doubts about the products after receiving them, they can provide relevant vouchers, and the platform will intervene in serious handling.
Why condemn Pinduoduo
In the case of increasing volume in the Baijiu market, Pinduoduo's 10 billion subsidy diversion has further exacerbated the price inversion of products, which may be one of the reasons why Wuliangye "punches" to Pinduoduo.
According to the report of Dahe Caicube on March 14, under the 10 billion subsidy activity, the sales price of Baijiu on Pinduoduo platform is generally lower than other online platforms, even lower than the purchase price of dealers, which has a direct impact on the dealer channels of liquor enterprises.
Under official subsidies from Pinduoduo, the selling price of Wuliangye's eighth generation Puwu is 1739 yuan/2 bottles, equivalent to a single bottle price of 869.5 yuan, which is lower than the 876 yuan/bottle offered by the Tmall platform's billion yuan subsidy campaign.
In the view of Tian Xiaoming, a national first-class wine taster, whether it is for dealers to reduce inventory or for Pinduoduo to subsidize and attract traffic, lowering the terminal price of Wuliangye's eighth generation Puwu to less than 900 yuan will have a negative impact on Wuliangye's brand influence.
Returning to the incident itself, the main conflict between Wuliangye and Pinduoduo lies in whether they are selling counterfeit goods.
According to the report of Red Star Capital Bureau on March 15, liquor analyst Cai Xuefei believes that the high gross profit rate of Baijiu itself, the low cost of counterfeiting, the low price oriented short-term profit model of online platforms, the lagging product identification system of brewing enterprises, and the weak awareness of consumers to protect their rights together provide convenient conditions for online platforms to manufacture and sell counterfeits. Relatively speaking, liquor companies have stricter scrutiny of offline channels, so their safety is slightly stronger.
At the same time, Cai Xuefei pointed out that alcohol belongs to food and is related to consumer health and safety. Rights protection actions also need to be jointly promoted and implemented by the government, enterprises, and platforms. "But the current problem is that there is actually a certain mismatch between enterprises, platforms, merchants, and consumers, so it cannot be said who is right or wrong in this matter."
This article integrates Red Star Capital Bureau, Dahe Finance Cube, E Company, Caixin Cooperative, etc