Written by AI Finance and Economics Xue Yongwei
Edited / Sun Jing
Recently, a number of consumers complained that a certain mask of L'Oréal purchased in the pre-sale of Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi live broadcast room is far higher than the double 11 spot of L'Oréal's official flagship store.
The storm is getting bigger and bigger. According to the 24-hour deadline proposed by Via and Li Jiaqi, if L'Oréal does not give a solution at 8 p.m. on November 18, the two anchors will have to pay for themselves and compensate consumers who place orders in the live broadcast room but do not enjoy the lowest price.
At 8 p.m. on November 17, the two anchor teams of Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi shouted at L'Oréal: give you 24 hours, come up with a solution, and calm down this storm. Until the matter is properly resolved, the two live broadcast rooms will suspend all cooperation with the official flagship store of L'Oréal Paris.
Six hours later, at 2:00 a.m. on the 18th, L'Oréal Paris officially issued a "note", saying that for Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi's suggestions on this incident, L'Oréal officials would put forward solutions that could target all relevant consumers after considering the different situations of all relevant consumers and protecting the interests of all relevant consumers, but did not immediately give a specific plan.
By noon on November 18, I did not wait for L'Oréal's solution, but waited for the China Consumer Association's roll call for L'Oréal's "false delivery", the typical case was "the balance paid on November 1, ten days later the express delivery is still in Beijing".
AI Finance and Economics learned from the complaint platform that "false publicity" and "false delivery" have become the main reasons for consumer complaints. As for the "false publicity of L'Oréal Paris, the issuance of a large number of preferential rolls after paying the deposit, deceiving consumers, and not treating the difference in price equally", the number of collective complaints has exceeded 30,000 people, calculated according to the refund price difference of 172 yuan per applicant, which will be a figure close to 5.4 million yuan, and this is only the tip of the iceberg, and not every buyer will participate in the complaint.
Some people close to Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi's team revealed that if the difference is refunded by 172 yuan, it will be a "not small amount", and others estimate that this amount may be more than hundreds of millions.
As of 7 p.m. on the 18th, Via said that she was still negotiating with L'Oréal, subject to the content of L'Oréal's statement at a later date.
The cause of the incident was on October 20, that is, the night of the double 11 pre-sale, a certain L'Oréal mask product sold by Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room was officially promoted by L'Oréal Paris as the "biggest offer of the year", and a total of 50 masks were priced at 429 yuan. But between November 1 and 3, in L'Oréal's official Taobao live broadcast room, the same product sold for 257.7 yuan at the lowest price, with a spread of 172 yuan.
The controversy originated from the phrase "maximum strength of the year". AI Finance and Economics noted that L'Oréal officially described the mask offer pre-sold by Li Jiaqi on October 20 in the promotional microblog on October 13 and October 14, and as a result, it was later directly accused of "false publicity". After the incident fermented, L'Oréal deleted the word on November 11. At present, the microblog is no longer visible.
In this regard, L'Oréal's official reply on the evening of November 16 was, "During the Double 11 period, the store activities are diverse, and each consumer participates in different activities and receives different coupons." "This means that how much benefit you can receive depends on the consumer himself."
"Feel like you were deceived by L'Oréal", during the pre-sale period, Yan Jing snapped up the L'Oréal mask in the Via live broadcast room, she had heard of this product for a long time, but it was precisely because she heard that the Via live broadcast room had the biggest offer, so she paid a deposit of 50 yuan, "otherwise I wouldn't have bought it, even if I bought it, it would be impossible to buy so many pieces." And after paying the deposit, you can't return it if you want to."
After learning that the spot on the day of double 11 was lower than the pre-sale, on November 12, Yan Jing began to contact the after-sales customer service of Weiya's live broadcast room, and the other party asked to fill in the Taobao account number, order number, problems encountered, appeal stores and other information, and said that within one to two days, there would be people who would get in touch with her, but there has been no reply since then. Yan Jing then reported to L'Oréal customer service that she had not received a reply.
Screenshot of the 96 yuan refund bill /provided by the respondents of the "L'Oréal Official Flagship Store" to some consumers
There are not a few consumers who have suffered the same as Yan Jing. They reported on the complaint platform that they paid a deposit at the time of pre-sale, all because they believed that this was the "lowest price on the whole network". On Weibo, many netizens said, "Because of L'Oréal's publicity, I squatted live, and the card point bought the pre-sale, but found that others bought cheaper on the day of double 11." ”
For the situation that consumers find that the price of pre-sale goods is more expensive after paying the deposit, Kong Lei, a lawyer at Beijing TEAG Law Firm, told the media that if the consumer pays the deposit and the merchant issues a coupon, then the coupon should benefit the consumer who has paid the deposit, otherwise it is unfair to these consumers who have paid the deposit.
"If the business operator's behavior constitutes false publicity, the Market Supervision Administration will impose an administrative penalty according to the Advertising Law, and consumers can also make claims in accordance with the relevant laws." Lawyer Kong Lei said.
Another point of intensification of the contradiction is L'Oréal's official after-sales service. According to the screenshots of consumers on the Internet, AI Finance and Economics noted that the mask products sold by L'Oréal in the live broadcast room of Via and Li Jiaqi all enjoy price insurance services, and the price insurance date is from 0:00 on November 1 to 0:00 on November 27. But at present, this mask product, which is disputed by the "price difference", has been removed from L'Oréal's official flagship store in the form of "delivery is not supported in the region".
"If the product is removed, deleted, or the product is in the pre-sale state, the price guarantee service is not supported." Taobao officially wrote in the price guarantee rules.
As for the price insurance service, Taobao officials explain it like this: after consumers purchase physical goods with the designated price insurance service logo on Tmall or marketing platforms (Juhuasuan, 10 billion subsidies and daily sale), during the price insurance period, if the same commodity of the same merchant has a price reduction, the consumer can apply for the difference refund (except for special circumstances), and the system will calculate the difference and make up the difference according to this rule.
AI Finance and Economics then consulted the 88vip customer service on the price guarantee issue, and the other party said that if the product has been removed from the shelves and cannot be price guaranteed, it can apply for a "refund only" to modify the amount, and if the merchant refuses, it can apply for Taobao customer service intervention.
Ms. Yan said that when she applied for price insurance, she could not apply because L'Oréal's official flagship store had removed the goods. On November 13, 88vip customer service gave her a suggestion to apply for a sale and refund difference, in the form of "refund without return", three hours later, Ms. Yan received a refund of 96 yuan from L'Oréal official, "96 yuan is casually said, I did not ask for high, fortunately finally returned." ”
More consumers are not as lucky as Yan Jing. According to AI Finance and Economics, since then, other rights protection consumers have said that whether it is "88vip" or not, this method will not work. In the face of consumer demands, the merchant either directly refuses, or directly changes the "refund non-return" submitted by the buyer to "return refund".
In a complex shopping rule, the platform is the party that has the final interpretation. "Users lack the willingness to trade, such as using the convenience of the refund process and the gap making up process to achieve the improper purpose of obtaining rights or benefits, and if a large number of refunds occur after making up the difference, they will not make up the difference." This rule may explain why after Yan Jing, consumers who applied for compensation were rejected.
According to Tianyancha data, L'Oréal (China) Co., Ltd. was established in September 2000 and is wholly owned by L'Oréal Co., Ltd., and has been administratively punished for publishing false advertisements, false or misleading commercial publicity on many occasions.
Screenshot of the order to purchase L'Oréal mask products in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room / Courtesy of the interviewee
The relationship between big brands and big anchors can be described as love and hate.
On November 17, when consumers asked about the refund price difference, the customer service of L'Oréal's Tmall flagship store retorted: "Li Jiaqi said that low price is low price, Li Jiaqi is also a worker, he said that the discount is also decided by the official event planner." ”
This inadvertent sentence speaks of a key issue in this controversy - who has the right to speak, the big anchor and the big brand?
A few days ago, Li Jiaqi's company, Meijian, responded that the price of the online transmission was lower than that of the live broadcast room because "the platform and the store have issued a limited number of full coupons." This probably means that the voucher has a threshold for use, and not everyone can use it.
But the problem is that because of L'Oréal's publicity, many consumers have no idea that there will be such a "threshold" to cross later when participating in the pre-sale of the live broadcast room.
Previously, some insiders speculated that this kind of "rollover" may be caused by the lack of communication between different teams, such as self-operated live broadcast teams, Tmall operations, and channel investment teams.
In fact, in traditional online retail, how distributors at all levels negotiate with brands has always been opaque. For consumers, big anchors have solved this information asymmetry. Consumers who have heard the legend of the big anchors' price taking are naturally more willing to believe that Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi bring the "lowest price on the whole network".
"I want to hit X money a piece", "No, Jiaqi, then I will give up directly", this is Li Jiaqi's dialogue with a mask brand in one of his documentary variety shows. The assistant on the side has been reminding the brand owner that he is about to lose money, can't drop anymore, can't give giveaways anymore. However, Li Jiaqi said that "but the first place is ushered in by the freeze-dried mask", which made the person in charge on the opposite side "burn" again, "Jiaqi, then let's just go crazy together!" ”
Luo Yonghao, who flipped over the car because of the "lowest price", has also frequently created such a persona, claiming to strive for the lowest price of the whole network for fans in the live broadcast room, "Brother Xinlong (Luo claims to be) must always have the lowest price!" ”
In addition to the price after being cut by the big anchors, the pit fee and the commission are a lot of expenses. According to the "IT Times" quoted a person in the marketing department of an international beauty brand, in the live broadcast room of Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, the brand side had to give 100,000 to 500,000 yuan of pit fees and about 20% commission. Similar to international beauty brands such as L'Oréal and Helena, the product cost accounts for about 30%, plus 4% of the Tmall channel fee, 1% of the logistics cost, about 10% of the labor cost, "when the (goods) are 6.5% off, the brand has basically no profit to earn." ”
In the Colosseum of e-commerce, which competes for the "lowest price", the big brands that see their profits being eroded have turned to supporting the store to broadcast themselves, trying to take the channel into their own hands.
As early as last year, when the cooperation between the domestic brand Yuze and Li Jiaqi was unhappy, the outside world speculated that the price of Yuze sold in the store was lower than the price of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room.
On Double 11 this year, some data show that among the 41 well-known beauty brands, 16 of the "lowest prices" came from duty-free shops and official flagship stores on the brand's e-commerce platform. According to Xiaohulu data, on October 20, a total of 19 live broadcasts exceeded 100 million yuan in sales, including Estée Lauder's brand self-broadcast, which was viewed by 11.12 million people.
"The cost of cooperation with the head anchor is very large, such as high pit fee, giving the lowest price of the product, but not bringing a high repurchase rate, which is not of much help to brand building, and the brand cannot be all in the anchor." Wang Zhuo, a global partner at BeautyStreams beauty think tank, told the media that once the launch of head anchors is stopped, the company's business will slow down significantly. In addition, the quick success of some brand parties has created an unequal status with the head anchor, making the head anchor a strange commodity and enjoying too many offers.
However, big brands want to support brand self-broadcasting, and big anchors seem to be actively seeking to unbind.
Compared with international brands, the emerging domestic products that lack popularity and distribution channels have become the key choices of anchors, and some insiders have previously revealed that the price of domestic brands can be as low as 3.5% off, so the anchor's commission will be increased to about 30%. In recent years, the head anchors have single-handedly pushed domestic beauty brands such as Huaxizi, Winona, and Colorkey onto the road of popularity.
In this Colosseum, Double 11 is also becoming more and more complicated. Staring at pre-sales, waiting to return, paying deposits, paying the balance, busy grabbing coupons, in this brain-burning game, some consumers have felt tired.
"In the future, if you buy something online, do you have to go around shopping?" Yan Jing, who "chopped" a few thousand yuan for the live broadcast room, wondered why shopping began to become so tortuous, "I don't want to participate in Double 11 anymore, it's too much effort." ”
As of press time, L'Oréal has released the latest solution for the "mask incident", providing two different consumption coupons for consumers with cumulative orders of 999 yuan and consumers under 999 yuan, and the specific collection and use rules will be announced within 5 days.
(At the request of the interviewee, Yan Jing is a pseudonym in the text)
This article is originally produced by AI Finance and Economics, an account of Caijing Tianxia Weekly, without permission, please do not reprint it on any channel or platform. Violators will be prosecuted.