TapTechNews July 14th news, with the continuous development of the e-commerce industry, some platforms have successively launched the refund only mode, and consumers can also apply for a refund only after receiving the goods. This move has sparked heated discussions among netizens, and the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission also issued a document to participate in the discussion on July 11th.
The Jiangsu Consumer Protection Commission believes that the refund only is an innovation and improvement to the traditional after-sales model, requiring joint efforts of the platform, merchants and consumers to maintain. Under normal circumstances, when a merchant and a consumer establish a sales contract, if the consumer applies for a refund, they have the obligation to return the goods. However, some platforms stipulate in the dispute resolution clause that if the system makes a refund decision and the seller needs to recover the goods, the platform can not accept the dispute and require both the buyer and the seller to seek legal solutions on their own.
Article 32 and Article 35 of the E-commerce Law stipulate that the operator of an e-commerce platform should follow the principles of openness, fairness and impartiality, formulate platform service agreements and trading rules, and not use service agreements, trading rules and technologies to unreasonably restrict or attach unreasonable conditions to the transactions of platform operators within the platform, the transaction prices and transactions with other operators.
The Jiangsu Consumer Protection Commission said that this move undoubtedly completely shifts the responsibility and cost of the refund only to consumers and merchants. If the refund only after-sales mode is initiated without the confirmation of the merchant, when the merchant thinks it is necessary to recover the goods, it can only track thousands of miles after the consumer, and the consumer will also feel that their consumption safety is not guaranteed, but rather reduces the consumption experience.
The Jiangsu Consumer Protection Commission suggests that the platform should take on the governance responsibility. On the one hand, it can allow merchants to confirm whether to enable the refund only mode when listing products or handling after-sales in advance; on the other hand, establish a merchant appeal handling mechanism, fully absorb the opinions of merchants and consumers, and balance the interests of both parties. In addition, when the platform uses technical means to judge whether to use the refund only mode, it should also comprehensively consider the credit of merchants and consumers to avoid misjudgment. According to Article 4 of the Consumer Rights Protection Law, when an operator conducts a transaction with a consumer, it should follow the principles of voluntariness, equality, fairness and good faith. The provincial consumer protection commission also calls on the vast number of consumers to reasonably use the refund only rule, consume in good faith, and jointly promote the progress of the online consumption after-sales rules to achieve a win-win situation for consumers, merchants and the platform.