Reporter Guo Haoyi, Ge Aifeng, reported in Shenzhen
Following the interview with the Ministry of Transport, Lalala was fined another 400,000 yuan.
Recently, Shenzhen Yishi Lala Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Lala" was fined 400,000 yuan by the Futian Supervision Bureau of Shenzhen Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau for revising the service agreement and trading rules and not soliciting opinions in accordance with the law.
For the news, the reporter of China Times contacted the relevant person in charge of lala, and the other party said that the company had not responded.
It is worth noting that in January this year, the Office of the Inter-ministerial Joint Conference on the Coordinated Supervision of New Transportation Formats interviewed online freight platforms such as Lala, pointing out that they arbitrarily adjusted the pricing rules and increased membership fees and other suspected infringements on the legitimate rights and interests of employees.
The rapid development of online freight platforms, in addition to bringing convenience to the transportation of goods by the masses, its regulatory issues have increasingly become the focus of attention from the outside world. Xu Yong, vice president of the Express Branch of the China Transport Association, pointed out to the "China Times" reporter that the current supervision of the freight industry is facing two important problems: first, the laws and regulations are not perfect, although there is currently a legal basis, but in specific practice, there are still many particularities to be considered in the new format; second, the standard is not clear enough, and the cross-intercity unified standards such as freight vehicles and driver access thresholds need to be further improved.
The "freight leader" is constantly in turmoil
As an early player in the field of same-city freight transport, Lalala has already occupied a dominant position in the market. As of September 30, 2021, the total transaction volume of Lalala reached 20.5 billion yuan, with a market share of 49.6%, ranking first in market share.
According to the official website, as of October 2021, the business scope of Lalala has covered 352 Chinese mainland cities, with 660,000 monthly active drivers and 8.4 million monthly active users.
While becoming the "industry boss", Lalala has also been rumored to be listed many times. As early as June 2021, there were media reports that Lalala had secretly submitted IPO application documents in the United States to raise $1 billion. However, the news was immediately denied by Lalala, saying that the company had no plans for the time being. In October of the same year, it was also reported that Lalala had decided to hire CCB International and Bank of America as its sponsors for listing in Hong Kong, or that it would submit a listing application in Hong Kong. In this regard, Lalala also denied it.
At present, Lalala has completed 8 rounds of financing, and the valuation of the post-investment company has reached 10 billion US dollars. In February 2021, a "cargo lala female passenger crashed to death" incident pushed the cargo lala to the cusp of the storm, and after this incident, the cargo lala has not raised funds.
Also being concerned are the loopholes and problems that have gradually emerged. Since last year, online freight platforms such as Lalala have been interviewed by regulators many times.
On April 30, 2021, due to outstanding problems such as unreasonable pricing and unfair operation, the Office of the Inter-ministerial Joint Conference on the Coordinated Supervision of New Transportation Formats conducted interviews with platforms such as Lalala. On May 14, in response to the problems of high percentage of platform companies, maliciously lowering freight rates, and arbitrarily increasing membership fees, 8 member units of the Inter-ministerial Joint Conference on Coordinated Supervision of New Transportation Formats such as the Ministry of Transport conducted joint interviews with 10 new transportation format platform companies, including Lalala. On January 20, 2022, in response to the arbitrary adjustment of pricing rules, increase in membership fees, and other suspected infringement of the legitimate rights and interests of practitioners. The Office of the Inter-ministerial Joint Conference on the Coordinated Supervision of New Transportation Formats interviewed platforms such as Lala.
On the other hand, Lalala has repeatedly made mistakes on the same issue. On February 24, 2022, due to the revision of the service agreement and trading rules and the failure to solicit public comments in accordance with the law, Lalala was fined 400,000 yuan by the Shenzhen Municipal Supervision Bureau. In June 2020, Lalala was fined 400,000 yuan by the Shenzhen Municipal Supervision Bureau for "suspected of modifying the trading rules without public comments".
The "China Times" reporter noted that there have been more than 12,000 complaints about lala on the black cat complaint. Among them, the driver's end is mostly in the complaint platform to restrict the acceptance of orders, deduct the deposit, malicious price reduction on the platform, and maliciously deduct the driver's behavior points. At the end of the cargo owner, most of them do not act on the complaint platform, the driver charges privately, the loss of goods, and the lack of after-sales service.
Recently, many cargo drivers have added new troubles. Master Chen (pseudonym), a driver of the goods Lala, revealed to this reporter that the recent futures Lala launched a mini-van model. In the case of rising platform membership fees and declining freight prices, most users now choose micro-noodles with lower prices when placing orders, but in fact, they are basically small vans or medium vans. As a result, drivers pay a higher cost and get a lower pay for their labor.
Grab the single page (courtesy of Master Chen)
Under the trend of strict supervision, where is the road to the network freight industry?
In recent years, the development of the network freight platform is like a bamboo, the industry players such as Lala, Fast Dog Taxi and so on have been entrenched in the market, and giants such as Didi and SF have also launched a charge to the freight track in the same city, and the market smoke is everywhere for a time.
In order to seize market share, many platforms have started price wars, but the fierce market competition has brought anti-erosion to the platform itself. Taking the fast dog taxi that is about to sprint to the "first share of the same city freight" as an example, according to the prospectus, the marketing expenses of the fast dog taxi account for most of its input costs, while its research and development expenses have shown a downward trend year after year. In this case, Fast Dog Taxi lost 2.3 billion yuan in four years, and its performance was worrying.
At the same time, the same-city freight platform is also encroaching on the legitimate interests of freight drivers. According to the "2021 Truck Driver Employment Survey Report", among the 6,000 truck drivers surveyed, more than half of the drivers looked for the source of goods through the online freight platform, and 78.8% of the drivers believed that some online freight platforms had unfair competition phenomena in which shippers deliberately lowered freight rates and drivers bid below cost.
In this regard, the Ministry of Transport has previously clearly required that the operation of new freight formats be regulated in an orderly manner. Urge freight platform companies to reasonably determine service fees, membership fees and other standards, strictly prohibit inducing truck drivers to compete at low prices, and ensure that the dispatch is fair and just. Cooperate with market supervision departments to strengthen anti-monopoly supervision and avoid platform companies from using their monopoly position to harm the rights and interests of truck drivers.
In addition, the process of network freight compliance is also gradually advancing. On December 30, 2021, the China Transport Association issued the group standard of "Internet Freight Platform Safety Operation Code", which will be officially implemented from March 1, 2022. The specification clarifies the safety operation and management standards of Internet freight platform enterprises from 10 aspects and 58 articles, strengthens the audit mechanism to improve the access conditions for freight drivers, implements the driver labor safety guarantee system and risk investigation system, and greatly improves the safety factor of the freight environment.
With the introduction of relevant policies, the network freight industry is improving the standardized model. For the network freight platform, there is still a long way to go in terms of service, supervision, safety and so on. Xu Yong pointed out that the current supervision of the freight industry is facing two important problems: first, the laws and regulations are not perfect, although there is a legal basis at present, but in specific practice, there are still many particularities to consider in the new format; second, the standard is not clear enough, and the cross-city unified standards such as freight vehicles and driver access thresholds need to be further improved.
Xu Yong believes that the threshold for online freight is low, and "having a car and a driver's license" has the basic qualifications; at the same time, the freight platform will take the initiative to lower the threshold to occupy a larger market share due to the need for expansion, which plays a decisive role in the investment, financing and even listing that they can win. However, if blindly expanding, the negative impact is difficult to avoid, and it is particularly important to "establish rules" in advance to clarify the joint and several responsibilities of the platform.
Responsible Editor: Xu Yunqian Editor-in-Chief: Gong Peijia