Price wars and the destruction of China’s e-consumer confidence
March 22, 2013 Leave a comment
Price wars and the destruction of China’s e-consumer confidence
Staff Reporter 2013-03-22
The constant price-cutting competition between China’s online shopping sites has been the source behind a growing number of consumer complaints, the Chinese-language Economic Information Daily reports.
Some 93,600 complaints regarding online commerce were filed in 2012, with most of them being made against leading shopping sites Taobao, TMall and Dangdang. The number of complaints had not gone down significantly from 2011, according to a report recently published by the China e-Business Research Center. Major players making the list of 10 most complained-about sites in 2012 also include Amazon China, Gome, Tencent’s QQ online shopping service and Jingdong 360Buy, according to other consumer data. Over half of these complaints — 55.40% — involved online shopping, while 21.3% concerned transactions made with group-buying sites, which offer daily deals with heavy discounts. The center noted in its report that at least 10 large-scale price wars occurred in 2012 and the number of complaints often peaked during the half-month period following these cutthroat sales.
Such price wars were blindly aimed at grabbing market share, experts said, often leading to customer disputes when websites fail to stock sufficient merchandise and cancel orders placed by shoppers. The websites can cancel orders under their terms of use, which often stipulate that a contract is not established prior to confirmation of the sale transaction.
Qiu Baochang, head of the legal consulting team at the China Consumers’ Association, said such terms may violate the country’s contract law, since the transaction should be considered valid when an order is placed.
Counterfeit items have also found their way onto e-commerce websites, making it even more impossible to know what will end up inside the box. Shopping site Dangdang was just one of the businesses involved, being accused of selling fake Casio watches in 2012.
Poor after-sales service, the newspaper said, is another source of complaint, especially for transactions involving home appliance and consumer electronics.
Jingdong 360Buy recently received complaints for poor customer service in dealing with faulty products and providing refunds, with the newspaper noting that more complaints are usually made against larger shopping sites.
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