“Operators use the Internet, television, telephone, mail order, etc. to sell goods. Consumers have the right to return the goods within 7 days from the date of receipt of the goods.” The relevant laws and regulations on consumption have already reached a foregone conclusion. However, this new concept, called the "right of online shopping regret," will bring much regret to e-commerce that is developing vigorously.

Is it necessary to repent?

According to the data released by the China Electronic Commerce Research Center, China’s online shopping market broke 1.3 trillion yuan in 2012, and China’s online shopping users reached 247 million.

Such a large market size has also led to a large number of problems. China Consumers Association statistics show that in 2012, the National Association for Consumers accepted 39,005 complaints for sales services. Among them, there were 20,454 online shopping complaints, accounting for 52.4% of the complaints for sales services. Online shopping has apparently become a "hard-hit area" for sales services. How to regulate emerging consumer spending, including online shopping, has also become a major issue before the new consumerism.

Online shopping mad Xu Fang told the author that online shopping often has an impulsive consumption situation, but because it is not on-site shopping, just looking at the pictures, it often appears after arrival that the goods do not have a sense of regret. How can you regret it before? Return and exchange is a very complicated matter. Can this "right of regret" really change this kind of paralysis? Xu Fang expressed doubt.

According to lawyer Yao Xiaojuan, a special researcher and legal expert of the China Electronic Commerce Research Center, the “right of regret” actually gives the buyer the right to unilaterally cancel the contract within seven days.

However, the issue of whether or not online shopping consumers can return within seven days is reasonable, causing widespread concern among tens of thousands of e-commerce platforms, online shopping sites, and 300 million online shopping users, especially Taobao Tmall, Jingdong Mall, and Suning. Tesco, Amazon China, Yi Xun, Dangdang, Kuba, Gome Online Shop 1, VIP Club, Vanke Eslite, Le Beenet, etc. occupy the absolute market share of the industry's high-pitched tense. “Since the news of the right to regret has been confirmed, the company has a high sense of crisis from top to bottom,” said a middle-level e-commerce business.

In the opinion of policy makers, the seven-day regret will greatly improve the online shopping environment. According to the “2012 China E-Commerce User Experience and Complaint Monitoring Report” monitoring statistics, it is difficult for returned goods to become one of the top ten complaints among online shopping users, and it is difficult for the returned goods to account for 5.9% of all national online shopping complaints in 2012. . Therefore, she believes that online shopping "regret right" has undoubtedly greatly protected the rights of consumers, giving consumers a "cooling-off period" of 7 days, avoiding the waste caused by impulse shopping and constraining business integrity.

The key crux lies in how to implement it. Zhao Occupy lawyer, a well-known Internet legal expert, believes that the right of repentance system must first consider which implementation method to adopt. Encourage companies to voluntarily implement or enforce the implementation? He said that at present, many industries and many businesses have already implemented the return policy of different scopes, applicable conditions and deadlines in order to improve service levels and participate in fierce market competition. Consumers have the right to regret. The advantage of this method is that the company voluntarily implements it, and the implementation is less difficult. The disadvantage is that the consumer's right to regret is attached with many restrictions. However, if it adopts a mandatory method, unless it fully considers the difficulties encountered during the operation, it will try to reduce the impact of the right of regret system on the enterprise. Otherwise, the impetus for the active implementation of the enterprise will be insufficient, and even various ways will be adopted to circumvent it. It will lead to a system of regret right into a dead letter.

How to refinge the power of regret is a problem

For the 7-day regret of online shopping, the vice president of China Association of Consumers Association who participated in the revision of the consumerism, Professor Liu Junhai, director of the Institute of Commercial Law at Renmin University of China, explained as follows: “It is mainly to solve the problem that consumers are not calm. Under the circumstances, affected by the irrational marketing of merchants, made irrational consumer decisions, and regretted that they would not be able to buy things from home, the introduction of this regret is mainly to fully respect consumer choice and fair trading rights. We truly respect the consumer's freedom of contract in a rational state, not the irrational freedom of contract when the mind is warm."

“The second consideration is to further standardize the business behavior of the merchants, make the marketing behavior of the merchants more rational, and then force the company to continuously improve the product quality, continuously improve its advertising strategy, avoid false propaganda that is not bragging in the past, and earnestly To allow consumers to clearly advertise, allowing businesses to do what they do, with a modest commitment, the company’s product competitiveness is raised, public trust is improved, and the probability of consumers’ regrets is also reduced. The thing is that perhaps after the introduction of the right to regret, there are a few people who will regret that the loss of this business will be, but the unlimited business opportunity brought by the right of regret system to the business is a negligible number."

“In addition, there is a third consideration for the right to regret system, which is to boost consumer confidence, allow consumers to feel comfortable shopping, boldly shopping, happy shopping, happy shopping, realizing the Chinese dream of our consumers, and also pulling the stability of the national economy. Sustained and healthy growth, but when I first proposed the concept of regret in 2009, I first wanted to use the consumer's regret period system, cooling-off period system, or the right to cancel the unilateral contract, but ordinary people did not understand it, and I later Using the concept of a right of regret is easier to understand."

The desire is very good, but it is not difficult to achieve. Therefore, the plan to refine the right of regret has become an urgent task.

In April, the second session of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People's Congress scrutinized "Amendments to the Consumer Protection Law (Draft)" (hereinafter referred to as the "draft"). Xu Weigang believed that, within seven days, he would not talk about reasons. If you want to return it, you can return it. This is not appropriate. Although the protection of consumer rights is fully reflected, the operators and consumers stipulated in the Consumer Protection Law are trading activities on the basis of voluntariness, equality, and honesty, which are in conflict.

Committee member Wu Xiaoling even thought: “Many of those who are engaged in online sales are small businesses. If they are all returned unconditionally, they may cause damage to some small and micro enterprises. If a business wants to maintain its reputation, it should be stipulated for his products. The right to return the goods, the two parties agreed in advance, under what conditions can be returned, what conditions can be exchanged, what conditions can not, both parties have the right to choose, if the business says no return, no change, so that consumers can Do not choose this merchant's product."

Some participants believe that the draft should also stipulate the responsibilities of third-party trading platforms in online shopping.

Large e-commerce platform said no pressure

What differed from the discussion of the committee members was that the performance of the domestic large-scale e-commerce platform on the right to regret this time quickly changed from an initial shock to a stress-free performance.

Xu Fang said that he started online shopping at the beginning, such as excellence, Dangdang and Vanke B2C sites, already have a convenient return channel. It is understood that, at present, the home appliance companies have introduced free return service, but in additional conditions, category restrictions and other aspects are different: such as mobile phones, digital cameras, food, baby products and a protective makeup and other goods without quality problems do not accept the return The original packaging is open, the packaging is damaged and does not accept returns; diamonds, gold, watches, jewelry and personal accessories products are not accepted for return; personal products such as underwear, bras, underwear suits, swimwear, socks, etc. will not be accepted after the sign of non-quality problems. Returns, etc.

The introduction of the right to regret will further simplify the additional conditions for the convenience of consumers and also help the industry become more regulated.

The real impact is huge on the small and medium-sized e-commerce on Taobao, after all, one return, equivalent to let the goods run between manufacturers and consumers back and forth, the distribution distance is three times the original, and logistics costs are also the original 3 times, let the original profit of the business disappeared. "In the event of a large-scale return, the hard-earned capital will disappear." Taobao owner Li Leyun told the author: "Originally, it is very difficult to survive on Taobao. Now that this is happening, I really don't know if it will continue to stay." It's up."

It is worth noting that the "right of online shopping regret" is not clear who will bear the costs incurred in the logistics process, it will also cause disputes between consumers and businesses.

There are even merchants who have discovered business opportunities. Relevant information shows that return shipping insurance officially landed on Taobao in 2010, and consumers spend 0.5-1 yuan to insure when they place an order, and can insure 5-10 yuan in logistics costs when they return.

However, this is ultimately a method of pursuing a temporary solution. Therefore, once the right of regret arises, in the face of an impact, there must be certain reshuffling and mode changes in the electricity business. The most immediate change will be that e-commerce companies will further simplify the product chain. "Only taking the goods from the manufacturer's hands will make it possible to save the money and solve the middle part of the return and exchange, so that the loss will be smaller." Li Leyun said: "And The price is cheaper, and the losses can be subsidized from the difference in sales, but small and medium-sized electricity suppliers can hardly do it."

As Li Leyun is concerned, the right of regret seems to be only a perfect after-sales link for e-commerce, but it is very likely that resources will be concentrated on large-scale e-commerce platforms. After all, they have more huge capital accumulation and abundant vendor resources. This is small and medium-sized. E-commerce does not have, unless it is a completely owned brand.

Obviously, the right to regret not only benefits consumers, but it may be more conducive to large e-commerce platforms, but entrepreneurs will face even greater challenges.