The discount rules are complex and difficult to understand. During this year's Double 11 shopping festival, consumers have become "actuaries" with frequent fluctuations in the original price and the final price. "With a single operation as fierce as a tiger, the price remains unchanged" - this is a common feeling among many consumers. A recent investigation by reporters has found that from the price "dress up show" of "raising prices first and then lowering prices", to the implicit discrimination of "different people have different prices", and to the rule trap of "the more you gather, the more expensive it becomes", the once "consumer welfare" is being dissolved by layers of tricks. The original intention of this shopping festival is to benefit consumers, why is there a price dilemma? The reporter interviewed multiple consumers to reconstruct their real experiences in the "Double 11" price dilemma. The price is upside down, and the promotion price is more expensive than usual. "Every day the price is different, and just before the order is placed, the price rises". "What's more annoying is that the merchants temporarily increase the price before the event, which seems to be full of discounts and a lot of coupons, but actually it is more expensive than usual." "Now the" Double 11 ", which seems to be behind the discount, is full of routines"... Li Xia (alias) from Hubei came to this conclusion after a series of roast. In order to catch up with this year's "Double 11" promotion, Li Xia added the required products to her shopping cart as early as early October. "Unexpectedly, the price did not decrease but instead increased. On the evening of October 20th at 8 o'clock, a certain e-commerce platform launched its "Double 11" promotion activity. Li Xia opened her shopping cart to purchase an electric car windshield protector, but found that the price had increased by 20 yuan compared to before the event. I asked the merchant, but they didn't explain and just recommended another product. A similar situation also occurred with the baby thermos she planned to purchase. Before the event, the price of this thermos cup was over 180 yuan. After the event started, the price increased directly to over 200 yuan before using the coupon. Li Xia contacted both the merchant and the platform customer service, but the merchant only replied with "no price increase," while the platform customer service stated that "the timing of activities and coupon distribution is not fixed. Sun Ke (pseudonym) from Shanghai experienced even more severe price fluctuations. On October 27th, he added a razor head to his shopping cart to see if the price continued to decline. Four days later, the price of the same product with the same link and specifications skyrocketed from over 260 yuan to over 590 yuan, more than doubling. What puzzled him even more was that after refreshing the page two minutes later, the purchase price dropped to over 280 yuan. And the original price of the product also experienced a roller coaster ride under the same link: from 317 yuan to 670 yuan, and then to 523 yuan. I can understand that the purchase price may change due to promotional activities, but how can the original price of the product also change arbitrarily? ”Sun Ke contacted the store customer service, who insisted that the original price remained at 523 yuan and provided screenshots of the price unchanged for the past three months. However, the screenshot of the payment page that Sun Ke showed to the reporter showed that the original price did fluctuate. The platform customer service responded to this by saying, "The prices of the products are determined by the merchants themselves and cannot be modified by the platform." The reporter searched for "Double 11 Price Protection" on a third-party complaint platform and found that there have been tens of thousands of related complaints. Multiple consumers have complained that the products purchased during the "Double 11" period did not meet the "lowest price" promised by the merchants. After applying for price protection, the merchants refused on the grounds of "platform coupons and gifts do not participate in price protection" or "early purchase, early enjoyment". Moreover, some even evade price protection responsibilities by removing products or changing links. Feng Ke (pseudonym) from Jiangsu experienced a roller coaster ride of prices in one day for different users and the same product at different prices. At around 7am on October 31st, a certain brand of enamel pot displayed a received price of over 420 yuan on the settlement page of a certain platform; By noon, the price had risen to nearly 530 yuan. Feng Ke asked customer service, and they replied that the event will start at 8 pm tonight, but did not disclose specific discounts. At 8 o'clock that evening, he found that the "activity price" was exactly the same as the morning price. Isn't it a word game to raise prices before the event and then lower them during the event? ”Feng Ke asked the customer service again, and the other party only stated that "the price is affected by promotional factors" without providing a specific explanation. Feng Ke further asked, "There is a certain discount in the morning, there is no discount at noon, and there is another discount in the evening, so the price is high at noon?" Faced with this question, the customer service no longer responded. Feng Ke, who thought the store was "unreliable", turned to another authorized store of the brand and found that the same enamel pot was sold for 355 yuan. After verifying the store's qualifications with the brand, he consulted about two product issues, but when he was about to place an order, he found that the settlement price suddenly increased to 372 yuan. But when he sent the link to his friend, the price displayed on his friend's phone was still 355 yuan - in the end, he had to ask his friend to place the order on his behalf, and he canceled the order himself. This is clearly a big data kill off, starting prices on the ground. ”Feng Ke roast. Li Xia also discovered a similar issue. She has two accounts on a certain e-commerce platform, one with members and one without. According to common sense, members should enjoy better prices, but in reality, it has been found that the prices of products in non member accounts are often lower. There is no obvious difference in discounts or coupons, but the prices displayed on the page are different. The more covert "kill to kill" also occurs in "dynamic pricing". Some consumers have reported that a water heater cost less than 2000 yuan before the "Double 11" event, but during the event, the "original price" increased to over 5000 yuan, and then decreased to over 3000 yuan through "full reduction" and "subsidy". Although it may seem like a discount, it is actually more expensive than usual. The platform judges that you 'want to buy' based on your browsing history, and then raises the original price and discounts it, which people who are not sensitive to price will not even notice. The rules are complex, and consumers are tired of calculating. He Jing (pseudonym) from Beijing is' confused 'by various coupons. In early October, she added a certain brand of hair dryer to her shopping cart on multiple e-commerce platforms, intending to compare and choose the most favorable platform to place an order. But compared to before, the price is higher than what netizens share on social media platforms, "said He Jing. Later on, she discovered that repeatedly browsing pages on a certain platform would pop up coupons, which could be redeemed for several tens of yuan; If you swipe back and forth on another platform, a "discounted gift package egg" may pop up, and you can also receive coupons after smashing the egg. In the end, she purchased a hair dryer on a certain platform for 385 yuan with a complimentary stand; The price on another platform is 392 yuan, with no free gifts. The whole process is very complicated and energy consuming, "sighed He Jing." It's really tiring. "Several consumers admitted to reporters that although the mechanism of previous activities was complex, the core was" the more you buy, the cheaper it is; And this year's Singles' Day, 'buying more won't be cheaper', and even the price when paying the final payment is higher than the estimated price. Wang Lin (pseudonym) from Beijing paid more than ten deposits at the beginning of the event, thinking he had picked up a bargain. When the final payment was made on October 20th, it was found that the actual payment price for multiple items was higher than the estimated price. For example, a certain vacuum cleaner displayed on the pre-sale page as "received price not exceeding 899 yuan", but actually required 1099 yuan for payment. Customer service explained that the price of 899 yuan needs to meet conditions such as "payment within 1 hour" and "platform coupon stacking". Wang Lin's experience is not an isolated case. Many consumers have reported that as the final payment begins, the actual prices of some pre-sale products are much higher than the estimated prices. Spending time watching live streams and calculating discounts, the result is still expensive. ”On a social platform, many netizens roast. The "deposit+final payment" is the core mechanism of the "Double 11" pre-sale, aimed at helping merchants estimate sales and arrange inventory. However, many interviewed consumers now believe that the deposit mechanism is meaningless and the red envelope rules are too complex. A netizen bluntly said, "If the pre-sale cannot guarantee the lowest price, what's the point of the deposit? It's better to cancel it directly." In addition, the reporter noticed that the coupons issued by the platform are difficult to grab and have limited applicability. For example, some consumers have reported that the clothing coupons for "3000-400" and "2000-200" cannot be used for the same product. Some only support the former, while others only support the latter, further increasing the difficulty of making up the order. I have to go through one level after another when buying something. After participating in 'Double 11' for so many years, I feel tired for the first time. ”The interviewed consumers said so. (New Society)