Double 11 refunds are difficult, consumers are angry

This article introduces the wave of consumer refunds caused by price issues and platform failures during Tmall's "Double 11" pre-sale period, and analyzes the reasons why discount traps, price increases followed by price cuts, etc. have caused widespread complaints.

On the evening of the 21st, which was supposed to be the day for Tmall’s “Double 11” pre-sale final payment, it was overshadowed by the “Double 11 refund”.

According to media reports, related topics continued to dominate the Weibo hot searches that night.

The main reasons for refunds are that pre-sales are not as cheap as spot prices and consumers encounter "discount traps".

Some consumers told the media that returning products was actually a helpless act. They felt that they had enjoyed the lowest price when they placed the order, but after receiving the goods, they found that they could save more money by stacking coupons in a more clever way.

“A price difference of a few dollars is still acceptable, but sometimes the difference is dozens or even hundreds of dollars, and you can only get a refund first and then decide whether to buy it or not.” Consumers’ helplessness makes Double 11 a bit boring.

In addition to the "discount trap" brought about by complex algorithms, raising prices first and then lowering them is also one of the main reasons for consumers to request refunds.

Almost every year on “Double 11”, there are consumers questioning that many commodities are first increased in price, and then discounted with various coupons, which makes them more expensive than usual.

Some netizens said that the price of the same bath towel from the same store on "Double 11" was 7 yuan more expensive than in September.

In the past two days, many Taobao 88VIP users have complained on social media. After paying the deposit, they found that it was not cheaper than other platforms, and the threshold for 88VIP coupons was too high. Only 240 yuan off for purchases over 3,000 yuan, 560 yuan off for purchases over 7,000 yuan, and they cannot even get coupons for ordinary members.

Some users even joked that now to determine whether a person is a high-end person, one has to see whether he can reach the Taobao 88vip discount threshold this year.

In addition, a large number of users also reported on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu that they encountered refund issues on the evening of October 21.

For some users, their orders are automatically refunded after payment, and the money has been credited to their bank cards, but the order status on Alipay and Taobao still shows normal.

There are even some refunded orders that have already been shown as shipped, which has left many users confused and worried about how much money they have actually been deducted from their payment.

It is worth noting that during this year's "618" period, both Tmall and JD.com cancelled the "pre-sale" link that had been criticized and started selling products directly.

But this year's "Double 11", Tmall resumed "pre-sales".

What’s interesting is that not long after the “Double 11” pre-sale began, the live broadcast room of Li Jiaqi, a well-known live-streaming anchor, had a “crash”.

A user revealed that the pre-sale Alpha Egg dictionary pen he bought in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room was 40 yuan more expensive than the spot price on the online platform.

There were so many bugs on the platform during Double Eleven. What impact did it have on consumers?

In this regard, Luo Ning and Shu Le of Sina Technology had a discussion. I think:

The lack of care and the event being purely in response to the situation resulted in a failure right from the start of Double 11.

The result of treating consumers perfunctorily may be that Double 11 will be flourishing but not bearing fruit.

Logically, after years of hard work on Double 11, Taobao and Tmall should have perfected their backend mechanisms and hardware preparations.

However, a bug occurred during this Double 11.

In a sense, this also shows that Double 11, the shopping festival originated from Taobao Tmall, is no longer the real focus of the platform, but just a routine matter.

At the same time, it also exposed that both the platform and the merchants were unprepared and rushed into this longest Double 11.

However, for consumers, failures that should not happen occur at critical moments, which will cause consumers to lose stickiness to the platform and further aggravate their desire to move away from the increasingly useless Double 11 shopping festival.

This year’s Double 11 started like this, will there be one next time?