“The clothes I bought in winter are approaching summer and haven’t shipped yet. Is the pre-sale test of my loyalty to the store?” “Who says the customer is God? The current seller is!” The topic of sales has caused a lot of discussion, and many netizens said that they have gradually lost patience with the pre-sale that can be seen everywhere.
Is the pre-sale a helpless move by the merchant, or is it a trick to pass the risk? The lawyer said that unilaterally delaying the delivery or even not delivering the goods in the end is a serious breach of contract. In this regard, the industry recommends further strengthening supervision and smooth complaint channels.
The winter sweater has not been received in the spring, how troublesome is the pre-sale of super long?
The term “pre-sale”, as the name suggests, means that consumers need to pay in advance for a product before it goes on sale, and merchants don’t start production until the pre-sale reaches a certain amount and shipped. On the increasingly convenient and fast e-commerce platform, the practice of pre-sale was originally limited to some complicated products, but recently the phenomenon of pre-sale has become more and more intense.
“Post-95s” white-collar Yue Shan admitted that after several super-long pre-sale, she has blocked the word “pre-sale” from her online shopping career.
“I placed an order for a top on the e-commerce platform on March 2, the sales interface did not display the word “pre-sale”, but after payment, it showed ‘April Shipped on the 1st. After waiting for a while, I saw that the merchant did not deliver the goods, so I refunded the money. The spring in Beijing is very short. Bottom of the box.” Yue Shan said that the pre-sale experience she has experienced ranges from one or two weeks to more than two months. “This situation directly caused my enthusiasm for online shopping to be greatly reduced.”
Bao Ma Qianqian encountered many pre-sale situations when buying clothes for her children . “I bought a small skirt through a WeChat applet in January, but it was written that it would be shipped in April.” Qianqian said that due to the long pre-sale time and the rapid changes in children’s sizes, many parents are unsure about pre-ordering The size of the clothes, and some merchants are still marked in the pre-sale, “If there is no inventory, we will not accept any code change requests after delivery due to delays.” “For some handmade works, this is almost a consensus in the circle, and many merchants will put forward many requirements.” one. Some merchants clearly mark the product title, some attach a line of small characters to the product description, and some note the delivery time when adding to the shopping cart.The most difficult thing for consumers to accept is that the delivery date is displayed after payment, and even the delivery time is changed again and again.
“If the pre-sale time is clearly informed in advance, I can still accept it, but if the pre-sale is not informed when purchasing, or the label is not obvious, it will cause a lot of psychology. Gap.” Qianqian said.
On social platforms, the topic of “hate pre-sale” has more than 7.4 million views, and netizens complained about the frequent pre-sale and super-long pre-sale. . “I hate pre-sale! If you don’t have stock, don’t put it on the shelves, okay?” “It has not been shipped, and I urged the customer service to reply that the delivery time is uncertain, but the return is too cheap for them!” “Everything has to be pre-sold, I’m afraid they will be I’m used to it!”
Social media screenshots
According to netizens, the pre-sale period has now changed from 7 days, 10 days to 14 days, 30 days and even 45 days. Ran Gaoming, a debater of “Wonderful Flowers”, also complained on the short video platform: “The merchant doesn’t want to overstock goods, I understand, but the sweater I bought in February shows that it will be shipped before April 10. What does this mean? You are lacking the truth. Wool, or lack of my ‘dumb wool’?”
Merchant: The cost of holding the goods is high, and the data is high before they dare to make it on the shelves.
Not only consumers but also businesses have spoken on this topic. Some merchants bluntly said that they were under a lot of inventory pressure, so they had to adopt the method of pre-sale.
Mr. Li from Chengdu is the manager of an online women’s clothing store. When it comes to pre-sale, he told Sino-Singapore Jingwei that merchants are often more anxious than consumers. The cost of goods, mainly women’s clothing, especially winter clothing, is relatively high, and the cost of warehousing and maintenance is relatively high. “Because the factory has a minimum order quantity limit, we dare not make goods casually. Only when the order data improves after the fan base warms up, will it be put on the shelves and start production.”
At present, there are platforms that supervise and restrict the super-long pre-sale. According to media reports, Pinduoduo will not give priority to products with a pre-sale period of more than seven days.
Mr. Li bluntly said that there was an Internet celebrity merchant who changed factories by himself and delayed delivery, resulting in numerous complaints and finally being punished by the platform. “Consumers can use the description on the product detail page and the commitment of customer service as evidence. If the delivery is not delivered beyond the promised date, they can file a complaint with the platform.”
Industry: Call on the e-commerce platform to improve the early warning mechanism
For some merchants, after setting up pre-sale, they unilaterally postpone the delivery, or even cancel the delivery. In this case, Li Min, senior partner of Shanghai Hansheng Law Firm, told Sino-Singapore Jingwei that according to the “Consumer Rights Protection Law”, if consumers do not violate the shopping principles stipulated by the merchants, the merchants do not communicate with consumers and ask for permission. With its consent, unilaterally modifying the delivery date and unilaterally withdrawing the order are serious breaches of contract, and the merchant shall bear the liability for breach of contract and compensate for losses according to law. Consumers can protect their rights through negotiation and settlement with merchants, feedback to sales platforms, complaints to consumer associations and market supervision departments, and lawsuits to courts.
Fu Yifu, a senior researcher at Xingtu Financial Research Institute, said in an interview with Sino-Singapore Jingwei that the reasons for the repeated extension of the pre-sale time are more complicated. “Some merchants use the pre-sale model as a means of marketing promotion and traffic growth for profit-seeking purposes, and while delaying the delivery of goods enjoys reduced inventory pressure, they do not have to bear losses such as returns and exchanges. Pre-sale pays the bill, which obviously has the suspicion that the business will pass on the risk.”
Fu Yifu said that objectively speaking, the pre-sale method of determining production by sales is reasonable. To a certain extent, it can help stores alleviate the pressure of cost and inventory, but in practice, if the delivery time is delayed again and again, it will inevitably have a negative impact on the shopping experience of consumers, and may even damage their legitimate rights and interests , is not conducive to the healthy development of the industry.
Li Min also believes that the over-long pre-sale is an unreasonable measure. This form simply increases the shopping risk of consumers, but does not give consumers any benefits. bringAny shopping convenience. “Consumers often pay the full amount or the so-called ‘deposit’ during pre-sale. During the pre-sale period, once consumers’ shopping needs change, they often suffer losses.”
In response to some businesses’ blind pre-sale and malicious delay in delivery, Fu Yifu suggested to further strengthen supervision. “Relevant departments should strengthen the supervision of e-commerce platforms and strengthen rigid constraints on platforms and merchants; at the same time, they should unblock the complaint channels and simplify the processing process. In addition, e-commerce platforms should also establish an early warning mechanism to detect the defects of super long pre-sale in time. behavior, using credit rating management, blacklist and other means to urge merchants to rectify as soon as possible, and then help the e-commerce industry to develop with higher quality.”
“The platform should limit the longest pre-registration period. Products that exceed the longest pre-sale period will not be put on the shelves. At the same time, the platform should require merchants to clearly regulate the price, duration, quality, delivery date, return conditions, etc. of pre-sale products on the sales page. And , the platform should establish a convenient complaint channel.” Li Min suggested.
(At the request of the interviewee, Yue Shan and Qianqian in this article are pseudonyms, original title: Super long pre-sale, consumers are fed up! These overlord clauses are suspected of illegal)