Xu Lei, Ph.D., Institute of food safety risk management, Jiangnan University (Business School)
In recent years, novel coronavirus pneumonia industry has developed rapidly, and has made important contributions to the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic and maintaining overall economic and social stability. Due to the suspension of services in most of the country's agricultural markets during the critical period of prevention and control, as a new force to ensure the supply of "food basket" and "rice bag" for the public, the sales of e-commerce platforms have grown rapidly year on year, and many entity supermarkets, such as Wal Mart, Yonghui, century Hualian and so on, are waiting for the opportunity to carry out relevant businesses, which will promote the production of agricultural products, promote the circulation and consumption of agricultural products It has a huge impact and brought more opportunities for the development of the industry. These opportunities are:
One is the change of consumers' cognition. After this period of online shopping experience, a considerable number of consumers have accepted the way of shopping through the fresh e-commerce platform, especially the middle-aged and elderly people, as the main group of farmers' market in the past, because they have to stay at home during the epidemic, with the help of their families, they can also learn to use the platform app for shopping, and experience the convenience and quickness of fresh e-commerce, which will have Help to increase the possibility of using fresh e-commerce in future shopping. At the same time, the social responsibility performance of major e-commerce platform enterprises will also enhance the public's recognition of the industry. For example, meituan's take away kid brother's appearance on the cover of time magazine is a typical example.
Second, the development of logistics distribution. Contactless distribution is one of the key words in the logistics and distribution industry this year. This kind of distribution mode enables people to see the advantages of fresh e-commerce distribution. The efficiency and convenience it brings will help fresh e-commerce occupy a place in people's lives. At the same time, the service level and quality of logistics industry have also been greatly improved under the promotion and traction of demand. The cross regional distribution of agricultural products in most regions of the country has been able to achieve the distribution speed of 1-2 days, while the local fresh instant distribution has now recovered to the speed of 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Third, the broad product links. The fresh e-commerce platform also played a very important role in the aspect of anti epidemic and agricultural insurance supply. E-commerce platforms have taken advantage of their own advantages to help the supply of agricultural products, such as Alibaba's building of "caring for agriculture" platform, Jingdong's opening of "national green channel for fresh products", pinduoduo's opening of "anti epidemic agricultural products" area, etc., which has built an effective bridge between the production of agricultural products at both ends of supply and demand and urban residents, helped farmers reduce losses in special periods and solved agricultural production The problem of unsalable products.
However, the existing problems of fresh e-commerce industry are also fully exposed in the context of prevention and control of the epidemic. These problems are mainly reflected in:
First, there are many product quality problems. According to the complaint data of various platforms, the complaint and return rate of fresh agricultural products are higher than that of ordinary consumer goods. For fresh products such as fruits and vegetables, consumers' complaints are mainly focused on the difference between the picture description and reality of the merchants after receiving the goods, including rotten fruits, secondary fruits and bruised fruits; for fresh products such as seafood, consumers' complaints are mainly focused on the ice bag has turned into water, the meat quality of seafood has become soft or even permeated, with peculiar smell, etc.
Secondly, there are a lot of false information. Mainly reflected in the fake brand information, such as Gannan navel orange, Xinjiang Hotan dates and Wuchang rice, etc.; the exaggeration of product characteristics, such as most of the products are described with pictures and words beautified, and false marketing. As the differentiation of fresh products on each platform is not obvious, price has become an important factor for e-commerce promotion to stimulate consumption. In the process of platform operation, we will pay special attention to the development of marketing activities. Some platforms or businesses use the name of price promotion to carry out false fraud, and most consumers can't distinguish it.
Third, in the after-sales service, it is difficult to safeguard the rights and over safeguard the rights at the same time. When consumers buy fresh products on the fresh platform, they all pay attention to the factors such as the origin, appearance, taste and price of the products. When consumers receive the products, if the products do not meet the expectations, the situation of return will occur. On the one hand, due to the rapid development of the platform and the attribute characteristics of fresh products, the lack of product quality control and after-sales service, the phenomenon that the merchants' feedback is not timely or the platform does not reply for a long time when consumers maintain their rights after sales, the rights and interests of consumers are seriously lost, and the shopping experience is greatly reduced. On the other hand, because the reference object for consumers to evaluate the product quality is mainly pictures and words, when the products actually received do not meet the expectations, some consumers have higher requirements for rights protection. For example, even if the products are complete, the taste is not good, they will receive complaints, even when the customer service says to refund in full and compensate for the coupons, they will still not accept the situation.
The above problems not only seriously hinder the development of fresh e-commerce industry, but also lay a hidden danger to food safety. In order to better protect the rights and interests of consumers, effectively prevent the food safety risks of fresh e-commerce, promote the healthy development of the industry, and improve the regulatory mechanism is urgent. Due to the virtual, hidden and cross regional nature of online shopping and the perishable and hard to store characteristics of fresh agricultural products, it is more difficult to control each link. We must give full play to the power of the government, industry and the public to achieve effective comprehensive governance. Specifically, it can be carried out from three aspects:
First, clearly define the rights and responsibilities of relevant subjects. The government departments should provide sufficient legal and policy basis for ensuring the quality and safety of food safety in the aspect of online food safety supervision, clarify the quality standards and relevant rules of online food purchase, and clearly define the rights and responsibilities of each relevant subject. As the first "threshold" for the quality and safety control of fresh agricultural products online shopping, e-commerce platform plays a direct role in ensuring the quality and safety of online food shopping. It should fulfill many management and control responsibilities such as data review and regular troubleshooting before selling food on online shopping trading platform. At the same time, in view of the large number of businesses settled on the platform and the high difficulty of management and control, the government regulatory authorities can also consider to provide appropriate incentives and support for online shopping trading platform in terms of food safety management and control through the formulation of policies and other measures to ensure the legitimacy and rationality of online shopping trading platform qualification and behavior.
Second, comprehensively improve the service quality of fresh e-commerce. The first is to control the source quality. At present, the problem of product quality is often due to the quality of the source of goods. If the platform is to build a warehouse, strict inspection shall be carried out when entering and leaving the warehouse; if the settled businesses supply directly, the self inspection management of the businesses shall be strengthened, and the possible problems in the process of logistics and distribution shall be fully considered on the basis of ensuring the product quality when leaving the warehouse. Secondly, objective display of product attributes. Because consumers are totally dependent on the description of product information and lack of practical experience, excessive rights protection mostly results from the gap between expectation and reality. Therefore, fresh e-commerce must not exaggerate product characteristics when describing products, and should truthfully express various situations of products, so that consumers can make better purchase decisions and avoid unnecessary disputes in the future. Finally, improve the customer service system. The service quality of customer service is related to consumers' feedback on platform product experience. It should be recognized that a good customer service system is not only a cost "burden", but also a valuable asset. Therefore, we should not reduce the cost of customer service for the sake of revenue, but increase the investment in after-sales service and improve customer service system. According to the information disclosed by the current third-party institutions, complaints mainly occur when consumers fail to communicate with businesses or platform parties. Therefore, platform enterprises or enterprises engaged in transactions on the platform should cooperate with third-party platforms such as China Consumer Association, 12315, e-commerce consumer dispute mediation platform, to help users solve consumer disputes, effectively protect consumer rights and interests, and promote the healthy development of the industry.
Third, accelerate logistics and technological progress. Logistics is the key link related to the quality of fresh agricultural products. At present, the distribution of a considerable number of fresh products does not rely on the cold chain, but through improving the packaging level, to assist in the express delivery function of Shunfeng and other air transportation capabilities. Parts such as apples which are relatively resistant to storage usually will be transported directly after the foam and other materials are wrapped. The more perishable products such as cherries are placed in foam boxes when they are delivered, then put in ice bags for sealing and heat preservation, and then sent to express by express air to the city where the consumers are located. Generally, the product quality can be guaranteed within 36 hours from the time of delivery to the time when the customer receives the goods. However, if the logistics is delayed or the customer cannot receive the goods on the day of delivery, the quality problem will become a big probability. Therefore, improving the logistics distribution, especially the real cold chain logistics distribution will greatly improve the product quality. At the same time, the development and improvement of traceability system, blockchain and other technologies can trace the origin of fresh agricultural products from the beginning of planting production, and can more clearly position the responsibility once quality problems occur. For example, when consumers receive rotten fruit, they can effectively determine whether the responsibility lies in sales sorting or logistics, and there is a basis for how much responsibility each entity should bear. Under the clear supervision and responsibility tracing system, the cost of violation of regulations will be higher, which will promote the good performance of all parties in improving product quality.
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