JD.com Says Alibaba Pressuring Merchants Before Singles’ Day
JD said it has submitted a formal complaint to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), the same regulator that issued the report earlier this year that was particularly critical of the big volume of pirated goods it found being sold on Alibaba’s Taobao.
An Alibaba spokesman, however, denied pressuring merchants regarding other platforms.
According to the Reuters report, JD.com has asked SAIC to investigation Alibaba’s activities in the light of a new regulation which forbids e-commerce platforms from limiting or barring their merchants from participating in promotions on other platforms.
This year, the story looks somewhat similar, with JD accusing BABA of forbidding merchants that participate in its own promotional activities from participating in promotions by other site operators (English article; Chinese article). JD.com was panicking because Alibaba wins with merchants and consumers by offering them a “superior experience”.
JD.com complained that this behavior hurt the interests of consumers and merchants. Alibaba said that sales of more than US$9bil (RM38.3bil) were achieved at last year’s event.
The move, disclosed Tuesday, underscores the rising stakes behind Singles Day, the world’s largest e-commerce sales event, which takes place on November 11 in China. The regulation came into effect on October 1.
In a survey of more than 1,000 internet users in China this month, 56 percent said that they would spend more on Singles Day this year compared to 2014. But in 2009 Alibaba turned it into the shopping bonanza it is now, promoting it as a shopping day for single people to buy things to pamper themselves.
The committee urged tightened management on online trade while the report also suggested to having an accelerated legislation in e-commerce, improved supervision and clarification of consumers’ rights and sellers’ responsibilities.
JD.com said it received over 14 million orders on the day past year, more than double the level in 2013, but it did not divulge its sales revenue for the festival.