“Approaching 3·15 (World Consumer Rights Day), the topic of ‘#Li Jiaqi, Dong Yuhui, and 17 other livestreamers being called out’ surged to the top of Weibo’s trending list (Weibo: one of Chinese leading social platform), attracting attention across the entire internet. The reason behind this is the ‘Consumer Rights and Public Opinion Analysis Report on Live-streaming Sales (2023)’ (referred to as the ‘Report’) released by the Beijing Sunshine Consumer Big Data Research Institute on the morning of March 14. In the report, Li Jiaqi and the other 17 sales livestreamers were specifically named for being involved in consumer rights and public opinion issues during their live-streaming sales.
Among them, the proportion of Li Jiaqi’s involvement in consumer rights and public opinion issues was the highest, at 41%. In terms of the types of issues, false advertising and product quality were the most prominent.”
41%: Li Jiaqi ranks first in terms of consumer rights and public opinion issues
It is reported that in order to comprehensively understand the consumer rights situation of the live-streaming sales model, the Beijing Sunshine Consumer Big Data Research Institute, the New Business Economy Research Institute of Beijing Technology and Business University, and other institutions released the “Report” today. It is understood that the “Report” mainly referred to factors such as sales volume and online influence during the “618” and “Double 11” events in 2023, and selected 17 key sales livestreamers including Fengkuang Xiaoyangge, Li Jiaqi, Luo Yonghao, Dong Yuhui, Xinba, Jia Nailiang, Qier, Mifeng Jingxi Society, and Xianggu Lai Liao for in-depth analysis, presenting the consumer rights and public opinion issues in their live-streaming sales.
Notably, shortly after the release of the “Report,” the topic of ‘#Li Jiaqi, Dong Yuhui, and 17 other livestreamers being called out’ quickly surged to the top of Weibo’s trending list. As of the time of writing, the topic has already reached a reading volume of 200 million.
Chaileedo has noticed that among the consumer rights and public opinion data analyzed in the “Report” for the 17 livestreamers, Li Jiaqi had the highest proportion of involvement, accounting for a staggering 41.00%. The next highest was Fengkuang Xiaoyangge at 31.30%, followed by Xianggu Lai Liao at 8.59%, ranking third. Jia Nailiang and Xinba accounted for 4.86% and 4.64%, respectively, ranking fourth and fifth, while Dong Yuhui accounted for 4.4%, ranking sixth.
Overall, Li Jiaqi and Fengkuang Xiaoyangge, the two livestreamers, accounted for over 70% of the live-streaming sales consumer rights and public opinion issues among the surveyed subjects. Although this proportion is generally consistent with their sales volume and personal influence, it also highlights the reality that top livestreamers are more prone to triggering controversies regarding consumer rights.
In addition, the issues reflected in the consumer rights and public opinion issues of these top 17 livestreamers mainly involve false advertising, product quality, price misleading, delivery issues, returns and exchanges, and uncivilized sales practices. Among them, false advertising is the most frequently mentioned issue, accounting for 38.53% of the cases. The second and third most common issues are product quality (34.22%) and price misleading (15.1%), with the combined proportion of these three types of issues exceeding 80%.
However, compared to the public opinion data of 2022, the proportions of false advertising and product quality issues have both decreased. False advertising decreased from 44.76% to 38.53%, while the proportion of product quality issues decreased from 43.94% to 34.22%. On the other hand, the proportion of price misleading issues increased by 7.75%, reaching 15.10% in 2023.
Multiple cases involve the beauty industry
It is worth noting that the “Report” further points out that the consumer rights and public opinion issues of five livestreamer, namely Li Jiaqi, Fengkuang Xiaoyangge, Xianggu Lai Liao, Jia Nailiang, and Xinba, accounted for over 90% of the collected anchor-related public opinion.
According to the report, the consumer rights and public opinion issues reflected in the live-streaming sales of these five livestreamer mainly involve seven aspects: false advertising, product quality, price misleading, delivery issues, returns and exchanges, sales of prohibited goods, and uncivilized sales practices. Among them, false advertising, product quality, price misleading, delivery issues, and returns and exchanges account for 99.9% of the overall public opinion.
It is worth mentioning that there are certain differences in the specific issues raised by different livestreamer. Overall, Fengkuang Xiaoyangge has a relatively high proportion of public opinion issues related to false advertising and uncivilized sales practices, while Li Jiaqi has a higher proportion of public opinion issues related to product quality and price misleading.
Furthermore, looking at the proportions of different types of consumer rights issues, Fengkuang Xiaoyangge and Jia Nailiang have proportions of 39.28% and 51.29% respectively in false advertising public opinion. Regarding product quality and price misleading issues, Li Jiaqi and Xianggu Lai Liao have the highest proportions. Li Jiaqi has a proportion of 37.15% in product quality-related public opinion, while Xianggu Lai Liao has a proportion of 24.67% in public opinion related to price misleading.
At the same time, the “Report” also provides examples of different consumer rights issues. Two of the examples related to the beauty industry are associated with Li Jiaqi. For example, the case of “consumers buying Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Serum in Li Jiaqi’s livestream during last year’s Double 11, only to find an empty bottle upon delivery” is cited as a typical case of product quality issue. Additionally, on September 10th last year, Li Jiaqi’s confrontational response to a netizen during a sales livestream sparked extensive discussions, serving as a typical case of price misleading issue.
Furthermore, in October of last year, an incident involving Fengkuang Xiaoyangge’s female anchor “Honglvdengdehuang” engaging in vulgar sales practices during a livestream caused discomfort among netizens. The case of Dong Yuhui’s misleading advertising in the sale of Ecuadorian white shrimp was also included as a consumer rights case in the report.
“It is incumbent upon the top livestreamers to lead by example”
As we all know, live-streaming sales emerged in 2016 and experienced a boom in 2020. However, behind the rapid development of the industry, there is also an abundance of chaos in live streaming. In recent years, organizations such as the China Consumers Association and local consumer protection committees have repeatedly criticized the problems in live streaming. For example, on December 24, 2021, the topic of “#LiJiaqi named by Zhejiang Consumer Protection Committee” trended on Weibo. Moreover, celebrities such as Wang Han and Li Xueqin have also been directly mentioned by the China Consumers Association. Hosts like Xiaoyangge and Xinba have also faced incidents of failure.
Undoubtedly, the chaos in live-streaming sales, including false marketing and product quality issues, reflects not only the lack of professionalism among live streamers but also the existence of loopholes and blind spots in platform regulation. Therefore, e-commerce platforms and the industry as a whole should not only establish training standards and courses to enhance the professionalism of live streamers but also strengthen the management of live-streaming content in accordance with legal provisions. They should implement penalty measures based on contracts and platform rules. The relevant law enforcement agencies should also enforce regulations strictly.
In fact, in recent years, both national and local authorities have issued relevant laws, regulations, and guidelines to curb the chaos in live streaming, such as the Advertising Law, Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law, E-commerce Law, Interim Measures for the Administration of Internet Advertising, Measures for the Management of Live Marketing on the Internet (Trial), and Code of Conduct for Internet Hosts. It is worth mentioning that in 2021, the National Occupational Skill Standard for Internet Marketing Professionals, released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, included “strict quality control” as part of the professional code of conduct for internet marketing professionals. However, it seems that these top livestreamer have not effectively adhered to this professional code of conduct.
According to data from the E-commerce Research Center of NetEase Research, the scale of China’s live-streaming e-commerce market surpassed 3.4 trillion yuan in 2022, with an annual growth rate of 53%. Furthermore, according to the monitoring results of business big data, China’s live-streaming sales exceeded 2.2 trillion yuan in the first ten months of 2023, a year-on-year increase of 58.9%, accounting for 18.1% of the total online retail sales.
It is not difficult to see that live-streaming sales have become a significant force in the economic market. Therefore, it is crucial to regulate the operating environment of live streaming. In this regard, industry insiders emphasize that “top livestreamer need to lead by example, regulate their own behavior, and set an example for the live streaming industry. Otherwise, if this continues, live-streaming sales will struggle to gain consumer trust and impede the long-term development of the industry.”
