Ensuring fairness for consumers a must for economic stability

In an annual survey conducted by the China Consumers Association on Tuesday, 60 percent of respondents said they had a good sense of fairness in their daily consumption. However, more than 60 percent of respondents said they had been treated unfairly, and most respondents said they trust online operators less than offline operators.

With the COVID-19 pandemic affecting offline consumption, it is the new online consumption model that is driving consumption. However, online consumption has its own share of problems. While offline consumption offers consumers on-site experience, online consumers have to contend with tampered images of products or refer to other consumers' comments before deciding what to buy.

Many online shoppers said they had at least once been disappointed on receiving the goods they had ordered. So, if the after-sales process is not smooth, consumers may feel cheated. Online consumers are also likely to consume products more often, lured as they are by the many online shopping festivals, and the dazzling marketing strategies employed by various online platforms as well as the marketing frenzy driven by online celebrity anchors.

Such marketing raises consumers' expectations, later making them suspect the whole process if the product does not satisfy their expectations.

To iron out these problems brought about by the new consumption pattern, the country needs to first upgrade the online consumption and platform business model. Excessive marketing and data-based price discriminations should be done away with. Instead, rational marketing, quality and benign competition should be pursued to promote the high-quality development of digital economy.

Heavy fines should be imposed on livestreamers who evade paying taxes, to return the platform economy from the savage growth stage to benign competition.

For the new online consumption pattern, regulators should not only carry out centralized rectification, but also form a normal supervision mechanism.

Whether online or offline, the operator should not deviate from the basic principle of providing honest services. The new consumption mode led by new technology should not reduce technology to being merely a tool for making profit.

Given that consumption is the force behind economic stability, the country desperately needs to energize consumption. This requires a new consumption model that must resolve consumer anxiety, make the supply side abide by the rule of law and make consumers fairly treated.