Pay Attention To The Cases Of Price Fraud And Misleading Of Star Live Broadcast With Goods

There's a star rolling over again.

Recently, director Han Zhao was reported to be suspected of price fraud and misleading by the Beijing Tianjin Hebei consumer rights alliance for selling alcohol in the live room. As Han Zhao once played the role of "tiaozi" in the TV drama "happy life of Yang Guang", some netizens said bluntly: "Pan Zi GA Zi, all of them are from the same road."

Radar finance and economics has noticed that both Pan Changjiang and Xie Mengwei, who were out of business because of the "friendship between pan and GA", or Han Zhao, who was also involved in liquor sales, are just a corner of the chaos of star carrying goods.

Since Taobao launched the "Star Program" in 2019 to invite hundreds of stars to settle in the platform, thousands of stars have flooded into the platforms of major e-commerce live broadcasting platforms, including tremolo and Kuaishou, and many of them have made outstanding sales achievements at the first show. For example, in October, Huang Zitao's first live broadcast with goods in Kuaishou reached 230 million Gmv.

At the same time, the influx of too many stars has also led to a mix of good and bad people in the platform's live broadcast. Many artists have been caught in such disturbances as selling fake products and flooding data in the process of live broadcasting, and even some artists are "late in life" because of bringing goods. After the double 11 in 2020, the China Consumer Association once named Wang Han and Li Xueqin in the report, but in 2021, similar phenomena are still common.

When does star bring goods chaos? Some analysts believe that with the regulatory norms and self purification of the industry, star carrying goods will gradually be specialized, and similar rollover phenomenon will be gradually reduced.

　　 Han Zhao is accused of price fraud

According to the official video released by the Beijing Tianjin Hebei consumer rights alliance, Han Zhao claimed in the live room that a certain type of liquor sold for 1429 yuan in six bottles of "East", equivalent to more than 200 yuan in a bottle of wine, but dropped to 298 yuan in the live room.

Why can live broadcasting room give such a big discount? A reporter contacted the sales manager of the beverage manufacturer Han Zhao sold. The other side said that the cost price he gave here was only more than 40. The reason why the price displayed in the studio was high was that Han Zhao had a store in Jingdong, where he could set his own price. In this way, he wanted to boast to consumers about how good his wine was.

"He put up the price blindly. You can see how many orders he sells. We don't approve of this method, and we will let them change it later." the manufacturer said.

It is worth mentioning that from the perspective of public information, Han Zhao and Pan Changjiang are closely connected and have good personal relations. On the one hand, the two have many cooperative experiences in both sketch stage and TV series. On the other hand, Pan Changjiang often appears in short videos shot by Han Zhao. And Pan Changjiang's experience of selling wine live has become a popular "good story".

In 2020, Xie Mengwei, who once played "Gazi" in "Xiaobing zhangga", entered the bureau to bring goods live and founded his own "gajiajun" in Kuaishou. However, before long, some netizens questioned the sale of fake products in Xie Mengwei's studio. In a live broadcast, Pan Changjiang Lianmai staged a series of textbook level positive energy exhortations.

Unexpectedly, not long after the exhortation, Pan Changjiang himself sold counterfeit wine in the live room. Therefore, "the friendship between pan and GA" once became a popular buzzword all over the network.

Since then, Pan Changjiang has gone further and further on the road of selling fake wine. Recently, he once sold a wine with the original price of more than 90000, which was plated with gold on the shell and a diamond on the cap. Pan Changjiang said that the diamond alone was worth 1 million yuan, but "thanks to Uncle Pan's efforts", the price of the wine in the studio was only 19800 yuan, and the rest of the price difference was made up by himself.

As for the phenomenon of huge price fluctuation in the live broadcast platform of e-commerce, Li Bin, a lawyer from Beijing Zhongwen law firm, told radar finance that this situation may be regarded as price fraud because of the untrue behavior on the price to induce consumers to place an order.

"From the perspective of e-commerce, I raised the price first, and then declared to the public with a false discount price, which in fact constitutes price fraud. If this case is verified to be true, I am afraid that there will be administrative penalties from the development and reform department and the price supervision department."

In this case, the consumer bought 298 liquor, and later found that the cost price was only more than 40, and the more than 1400 displayed had no market basis at all. Li Bin believes that this kind of situation belongs to the fact that the merchants deliberately conceal the facts from the consumers, which causes them to fall into the wrong cognition. Consumers can complain to the price department and the market supervision department, or go to the court to file a lawsuit. According to the first paragraph of Article 55 of the consumer law, consumers claim to refund one and compensate three. If the amount is less than 500 yuan, it will be calculated as 500 yuan.

On this basis, if there is evidence to prove that the business has not made the necessary audit on the license certificate and food safety certificate of the supply channel of goods, resulting in that the liquor sold does not meet the food safety standards, it can also claim a refund of one compensation for ten in accordance with the second paragraph of article 148 of the food safety law.

"Of course, the Consumer Protection Commission is not a judicial department or law enforcement agency, but a social organization dedicated to protecting consumers' rights and interests. Therefore, the price fraud in this case is not a final administrative law enforcement determination. It is only that we analyze it from the legal point of view, which is very likely to constitute such a situation," Li Bin added.

　　 Part of the stars, filter broken in the studio

The cases of Han Zhao and Pan Changjiang are just a microcosm of the current "rollover" of many stars with goods. However, even if the rollover incidents occur repeatedly, there are still stars and artists who spare no effort to rush into the live broadcasting room, which also reflects the popularity of the live broadcasting industry.

In fact, if the time is set back to two years ago, the attitude of the stars towards the live delivery is quite different from that of the present.

In July 2019, Taobao launched the "Star Program" to invite stars from outside the station to live on Taobao. At that time, Taobao live broadcast was not out of the circle. According to Xinchuan, the head of Taobao's MCN agency, an important reason for inviting stars is that the overall volume of Taobao live broadcast is not as strong as that of its friends. We hope that the stars can expand the external volume of the platform together. In addition, Taobao can also reduce the threshold of cooperation between brand merchants and stars, which is conducive to businesses, especially small and medium-sized brands, to attract new customers and expand their influence.

In this context, well-known host Li Xiang, Wang Zulan, actor Yi Nengjing and others have entered the game. However, netizens obviously haven't adapted to the scene of stars shouting in front of the camera: "if it's not the lowest price, you return the goods, I'll pay the bill.". Even if Li Xiang's cumulative sales volume has exceeded 10 million yuan, he will still be vilified by the barrage of "dirt", "self degradation" and "self indulgence".

The outbreak of the epidemic further stimulated the growth of live e-commerce. In a short period of time, stars such as Liu Tao, Wang Han, Zhang Yuqi, Chen he and other stars have flocked in, and have achieved considerable sales results. According to Taobao data, during 618 in 2020, 300 stars will successively land on the live broadcasting platform, and more than 100 stars of Jingdong will also live broadcast during the same period.

But as the industry becomes more noisy and even crowded, problems arise.

In March 2020, when Li Xiang sold Morchella in the live broadcasting room, Qiu Baochang, vice president of the 10th Beijing Lawyers Association, pointed out that he had violated three laws, namely, the advertising law, the consumer protection law, and the food safety law. He not only frequently used the word "most", but also misled consumers into saying that Morchella can cure diseases.

Not long after, some media reported that the person in charge of an enterprise in Beijing cooperated with Xiao Shenyang in a live Baijiu broadcast. They placed more than 20 orders that night, and 16 orders were returned the next day; A famous brand company in Shanghai invited Ye Yixi to promote it in Taobao live broadcast. With nearly 900000 viewers, the turnover was less than 2000 yuan; Some companies paid Wu Xiaobo 600000 yuan for pit space, but the actual deal was less than 50000 yuan.

In 2020, the Chinese Consumer Association named Wang Han and Li Xueqin in the public opinion analysis report on consumer rights protection. The refund rate of the former is as high as 76.4%, while the latter's 3.11 million onlookers in the live room are exposed to be less than 110000 as real people, and the rest are all paid for.

Exaggeration of publicity, no one to pay for the bill, swipe orders, data flooding... When these chaos occur frequently, the platform's enthusiasm for stars has gradually faded.

A person in charge of MCN said frankly that some big brands value not the transformation of stars' sales volume, but the marketing effect brought about by their traffic. However, when the number of people in the live broadcasting room is revealed, it is a fraud, and brand companies will gradually find that this kind of investment is not cost-effective.

In addition, the pit fee for inviting stars to bring goods is also a big expense. If the total sales volume is lower than the pit fee, it is not worth the loss to the brand side. In contrast, head anchors such as Li Jiaqi have begun to come up with a scheme that does not charge pit fees for lower preferential prices, which is undoubtedly more attractive to brands.

Luo Yonghao once said frankly that many institutions and platforms do not want to cooperate with stars, but they can't take it. In this regard, the person in charge of xiaohulu big data once said in an interview that professionalism and supply chain are generally lack of star artists.

"Now many brands are starting to broadcast themselves, and the anchor they choose is no longer a star. They especially value the professionalism of the anchor in product introduction and how the anchor can sell things."

In addition to the platform, consumers' attitude towards stars is also changing.

During 618 this year, Zhang Chenguang, a 60 year old actor in his 60s, was attacked by netizens in the comment area for questioning the blending of liquor with goods, and once shed tears on the spot; Shuchang and Li Jinming have been labeled "fake" and "overturned" when they were carrying goods; After Liu Tao deeply participated in the live broadcast with goods in 2020, none of his works broadcast in 2020 and 2021 scored more than 6 points.

"Star filter, broken in the live with goods." industry commentators said.

　　 Later comers are still pouring in

Will frequent rollovers make artists get away from live delivery? Analysts believe that the answer should be No.

On the one hand, live with goods can really create a lot of income for the stars. Based on their own performing arts career, stars themselves have a huge fan base. According to the big data of xiaohulu, Shuchang conducted 15 live broadcasts in October. The lowest number of viewers was 2.91 million, and the highest was 9.43 million; Lou Yixiao's live broadcast on November 1 saw more than 14.44 million people. Although the gap between this and Li Jiaqi Weiya is obvious, it has been able to create as many as 10 million sales.

According to the data of prospective industry research institute, the proportion of anchor in Taobao, shuoyin and kuaihou platforms is about 15% - 30%. If calculated by 20%, the sales of Shuchang and Lou Yixiao in the past 30 days reached 68.815 million and 81.872 million respectively, and the income from commission could exceed 13.6 million and 16.3 million respectively.

On the other hand, it is not without successful experience and cases. On October 18-24, Jia Nailiang ranked fifth with sales of more than 110 million, followed by Zhu Zixiao, with sales of 876.12 billion. In addition to Luo Yonghao, there were four successful stars in the top 10.

At present, an effective way to make up for the lack of professionalism and supply chain of stars is to cooperate with MCN agencies. For example, Lin Yilun and Li Jing belong to Qianxun company behind Weiya; behind Qi Wei is Luo Yonghao's friend; behind Jia Nailiang and Lou Yixiao is Yuanwang network.

MCN organization can not only provide more professional and procedural service support for stars in planning live broadcast, product selection and goods grouping, price negotiation and trading in live broadcasting room, so as to create low-cost advantage, but also apply more mature supply chain and do a good job in product quality management.

On the other hand, stars entering MCN institutions can not only bring traffic to them, but also give them access to the capital market. In recent months, Qian Xun behind Wei Ya and one Mei behind Li Jiaqi have expressed their interest in IPO; On Saturday, the listed companies directly shifted their original main business of women's shoes to the fields of short video and e-commerce live broadcasting, and signed up with stars such as Wang Zulan and Zhang Baizhi, becoming MCN concept stocks. Today, Saturday's share price is more than five times what it was before 2020.

In addition, "for those who want to seriously do with the goods of the stars, even if the wind blows away, the strength of the hard can still stay safely." the head of a MCN agency said.