The 2021 Chinese Double 11 shopping festival ended much more quietly than in previous years. The festive atmosphere in which merchants and platforms scramble to release their turnover “results” is less, and related topics are rarely seen on hot searches. It was only five days after the end of the Double 11 that hot searches about brands’ fake offers brought renewed attention to the annual sale.
A group of Chinese consumers complained that “L’Oreal Paris falsely advertised, issued a large number of coupons after paying a deposit, cheated consumers and did not refund the price difference without discrimination.” The number of collective complaints reached 911.
The same product’s pre-sale price is even more expensive
On November 15, the news broke that the Double 11 Li Jiaqi live pre-sale L’Oreal ampoule mask price is far more expensive than the brand’s official online store spot. The price between live broadcast is 429 yuan 50 pieces. However, on November 1 a Chinese consumer found that the arrival price of 50 face masks in the shopcast live room was only 257.5 yuan. It is reported that L’Oreal Paris on October 13, 14 in the official microblogging that Li Jiaqi live broadcast room will be the biggest offer of the year. But on November 11, the above-mentioned microblogging content has deleted the words “the year’s biggest cut”.
The key to this controversy is that the highest amount of coupons released by the brand during the first wave of pre-sale was “RMB 799 minus RMB 100”, and after the pre-sale, a coupon of “RMB 999 minus RMB 200” was released. This means that consumers who buy a variety of L’Oreal products may enjoy more discounts at the spot stage.
Li Jiaqi’s company MONE responded by saying that the rumored lower-than-live-room price was due to “limited-time coupons issued by the platform and the store”.
According to MONE, the coupon has a threshold for use, and can only be used after successful receipt and a single valid order to meet 999 yuan out-of-pocket, not a single purchase of a single product in the live room can be achieved. And, the coupon is mainly for all products in the store, not only for the products in the live room, and only a small number of threshold coupons are issued as store activities.
L’Oreal China also responded that the reason some consumers shot the products at a lower price than the live-streaming price was because of the stacked use of multiple platform and store offers. And to enjoy these offers, it is required to put together a single to reach a certain total price threshold, while the platform system will automatically spread the eligible offers to the active goods to achieve.
Refund rules are a mystery
In this regard, the official flagship store customer service response: due to the occasional launch of promotional activities, the price of different activities will change. In response to some consumers hoping to refund the price difference, the customer service said consumers need to provide a coupon recording screen for verification.
The main demand of Chinese consumers is to be able to refund the price difference, one of the consumers posted that they have successfully obtained a refund of the price difference, in the screenshot provided by the consumer to refund the price difference, the reporter saw that the consumer description of the refund: “The price of 429 but only 799-100 coupons, equivalent to 8.7% off, November 1-3, the seller and continue to put out tens of thousands of 999-200 coupons, equivalent to 7.99% off, need to L’Oreal customer service refund the difference of 85 yuan, the seller false propaganda information, misleading consumers to buy, customer service also refused to deal with the problem, and the seller admitted that the 1st-2nd put out a large number of coupons, and returns need to bear their own shipping costs, and order again, and today has passed the activity period, the full reduction activities have ended, damaging consumers interests.”
But the road to refund is not all so smooth, and there are even consumers to defend the rights of the results are very different. The same is to buy expensive consumers Xiaoli provided a dialogue with the official L’Oreal Tmall flagship store customer service, for Xiaoli hopes to refund the difference in price, L’Oreal Tmall flagship store customer service directly replied “no refund”.
Pre-sale goods not shipped in more than half a month
In addition to the problem of false propaganda, in the black cat complaints platform, there are a large number of Chinese consumers complained that L’Oreal still does not ship. November 1 on the final payment, originally promised to send before the 3rd but no movement. The company’s main goal is to provide a solution to the problem of the problem.
If the consumer applies for a refund, consumer expert @ChenYinJiang suggests that when applying for a refund, you can ask the merchant for the difference between the double 11 discount price and the daily price. If consumers do not want to apply for a refund, 88vip customer service responded that sellers need to pay 30% of the actual transaction amount of goods as liquidated damages.
The Tianyancha App shows that L’Oreal (China) Co., Ltd. was established in September 2000, the legal representative is Fabrice MEGARBANE (Fabrice), registered capital of about $58.95 million, wholly owned by L’Oreal Co.
Estee Lauder also accused of fraudulent offers
It is no coincidence that Estee Lauder has also been complained about by consumers. Chinese consumers reported different offers for Estee Lauder’s Little Brown Bottle purchased during the pre-sale period in Li Jiaqi’s live room: two bottles of 30 ml essence priced at 1,320 yuan during the pre-sale period, with an equivalent amount of 60 ml essence and another five repair gifts; and a single bottle of 75 ml essence priced at 1,150 yuan during the final payment period, with an equivalent amount of 75 ml essence.
Double 11 has become increasingly sophisticated in its play, which is the biggest impression Chinese consumers have had of the mega promotion in recent years.
Starting in 2020, Double 11, with its “pre-sale period” and “tailgate period” to lengthen the battle line, began to come online with more complex rules of the game – “buy one, get N free”, “top-ups with shopping money”, “cross-store reductions” and other promotions involving multiple interests.
This means that the coordination between brands, e-commerce anchors, platforms and other parties on the offer will inevitably deviate. And to a certain extent, this also brings trouble to consumers, “can’t count the discount”, “stay up late to pay” and so on for Double 11 dissatisfaction is also the voice heard every year.
And from the perspective of this year’s calmer Double 11, Chinese consumers are already tired of looking for the “lowest price on the net”. Both the platform and merchants need to think about how to improve the value for money that consumers always care about to build the long-term value of the brand, rather than for short-term performance data to rush sales. Source