Recently, many consumers have reported frequent issues such as store closures and customer service loss after shopping through private channels such as WeChat groups and mini programs. This has raised questions about the compliance of private domain transactions, and there is an urgent need to strengthen the supervision and regulation of private domain consumption. The core characteristic of private domain consumption is trust transactions established within a "limited scope". Unlike public domain platforms that are open and transparent, private domain platforms have strong concealment - merchants send mini programs or H5 links through WeChat groups, private chats, etc., only displaying products and transaction information to specific groups of people. Nowadays, online live streaming to attract traffic, offline promotion to attract new customers, and guiding consumers to enter closed private channels such as WeChat groups and Kuaituan to complete transactions have become the sales models of many merchants. However, this highly covert trading model is also prone to creating regulatory blind spots, leading to frequent chaos. Price ambiguity and information opacity are the first "pitfalls" of private consumption. Merchants often attract consumers to place orders through slogans such as "joining groups to enjoy group buying prices", but avoid discussing the reasons for low prices - whether it is bulk purchasing to reduce costs, or whether the products are on time and have quality defects, consumers have no way of knowing. The core information of a merchant's production and operation hygiene status, compliance of raw material procurement channels, and product safety testing reports are usually difficult for consumers to query and verify, which poses hidden dangers to product safety. There are blind spots in regulation and insufficient after-sales support, which exacerbates the dilemma of consumer rights protection. The entry threshold for private domain platforms is extremely low, and the quality of goods mainly relies on merchants' "self-examination", lacking external supervision mechanisms. Once there is a problem with the product, after-sales service may be "disconnected". Especially for food products, it is difficult to verify qualifications such as food business licenses and production licenses, which increases the risk of food safety. If the merchant closes the transaction link and refuses to reply to the message, consumers will be trapped in a deadlock with no way to file complaints, and their legitimate rights and interests will be difficult to protect. The transaction characteristic of "leaving no trace" further hinders consumer rights protection. Whether it is filing a complaint with regulatory authorities or seeking legal recourse, a complete chain of evidence is required to support it. In private domain transactions, there is a common situation of "one link at a time" and "exclusive customer service docking and placing orders", which easily leads to the disappearance of transaction records; Chat records may be arbitrarily deleted, live broadcasts cannot be replayed, and the payee and shipper are not the same, making it more difficult to obtain evidence and pursue accountability, and consumers often have to suffer losses in silence. Standardizing private domain consumption transactions requires collaborative efforts from multiple parties. Regulatory authorities need to accelerate the inclusion of private consumption transactions in daily supervision, establish and improve a full process traceability mechanism, and fill the regulatory vacuum. Private domain platforms should strengthen their main responsibilities and improve mechanisms such as merchant entry review, product quality inspection, and after-sales dispute resolution. Merchants need to abandon short-term profit seeking thinking, actively disclose product information and qualifications, and uphold the bottom line of honest operation. Consumers should also be vigilant, retain transaction evidence, and promptly report disputes to regulatory authorities. Only by working together can we eliminate the chaos of private consumption, protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, and create a standardized and benign market environment for operators, so that private consumption can truly achieve "trust transactions". (New Society)
Edit:Luoyu Responsible editor:Zhoushu
Source:ECONOMIC DAILY
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