"Praise returns to 5 yuan", the interest chain behind the small card.

Author | Zou Shuai

Editor | Tang Yahua

At one time, consumer Yingying thought that the small card with favorable comments in take-away and express parcels was equal to cash, and this wool was not rich. If you buy something for a few dollars, you will get 2 yuan back from praise, 2 yuan back from a single takeaway, and a free lunch together. A small card, the business is happy, and consumers also see the "back money."

however, this kind of small card may not last long. Not long ago, three restaurants in Yangzhou were fined 12, yuan for putting small cash back cards in take-away bags. On November 3rd, the Consumer Council of Guangdong Province also formally reminded consumers that this behavior of merchants is illegal.

Although there have been cases of punishment, many consumers found that the first wave of Double Eleven was delivered by courier, and this little red card was still lying in the parcel, making you "scan the code quickly and evaluate quickly, but I have a red envelope for you", and even businesses that didn't plug the card before began to plug it.

Reputation cashback is just like whack-a-mole. On the one hand, some merchants are beaten up, and on the other hand, some merchants dare to stir up their heads. A thin little card has been repeatedly banned. How important is this small card, so that it is necessary to cancel the business against the wind?

In fact, this small card is not only printed with three dollars and five dollars, but also as simple as a favorable comment it brings. For merchants, it represents the ranking and exposure of their products on the platform, and it is the lowest-cost traffic "bait", which strings up the interests of the platform, merchants and consumers.

after the gradual tightening of supervision, will this little card disappear completely? After disappearing, who is trembling?

"After the Double Eleven, my financial situation was in a hurry, and I relied on the praise to return my blood." After the first wave of the Double Eleven carnival this year, many netizens took out the praise they had saved before and returned the little red card, intending to collect a "return money" in a concentrated way.

users who often buy from buy buy are no strangers to this small card. The Consumer Council of Guangdong Province found through online shopping survey that among the 6 samples, 85 samples were attached with "favorable cash back cards".

The words on the cards are also very uniform, mostly "If you are not satisfied with the order, please don't comment directly" and "5 stars, 1 characters and 2 pictures are returned to 2 yuan", and most of them are returned to cash-filled red envelopes, and occasionally "Add WeChat to give mysterious prizes".

According to Ying Ying, a consumer who often participates in favorable cashback, this kind of card is often stuffed in stores with high take-away sales, Pinduoduo and Taobao stores, especially those that sell mobile phone cases, socks, food, etc. with low unit price, rely on repeat customers and need to walk more. Every time she unpacks the package, she takes out a small card and finds the core sentence from the big story: five-star praise returns to 2 yuan.

"Takeaway stores will let you add WeChat and turn it into a WeChat red envelope, and Taobao stores mostly put a QR code to let you add WeChat and lead it to their own group. Pinduoduo made a red envelope directly in the chat window. " Yingying said that merchants' favorable cash back varies from 1 yuan money to 5 yuan money, and she always takes photos, videos and comments patiently. "Especially those things in Pinduoduo that have low prices, such as pumpkins for more than ten dollars, are returned to 2 yuan with favorable comments, which means a discount."

however, it's not that simple to get cash back smoothly.

First of all, the evaluation process is very complicated. Yingying tells us that some merchants only require five stars, while others also need three beautiful photos or videos and comments of more than 15 words. She found that the comments in these stores are very beautiful, and the shops selling mobile phone cases have beautiful girls taking selfies with their mobile phones. "It's really tempting to decorate (comment) like this."

Secondly, some merchants are very active when they ask for praise, but after the comments are finished, they delay sending out red envelopes or send out coupons. "I have taken the initiative to ask several times. It feels like someone is staring at it when I want to praise it. No one is responsible for giving the red envelope." Yingying complained.

Many consumers have encountered similar situations, and some people learned that this red envelope was distributed randomly after commenting on private customer service, not just giving money after commenting.

In addition to consumers who are as keen on praise as Yingying, some people said that they really praised it "without conscience". "Because (takeaway) will not return it after eating it, just give it a good review, bonus hunter."

under the seemingly win-win praise, some consumers are forced to participate because they can't bear harassment. A number of consumers said that they had encountered situations in which customer service frantically sent Want Want messages, sent text messages and called for praise.

after a netizen posted a screenshot in Weibo and signed for the goods, the customer service sent four messages on October 24th, 3th, 2nd and 5th respectively.

every paragraph of customer service is not the same. First, "the small shop needs your support to organize activities", then "I'm not a boy who can talk very well", the third time is "Don't be bored, it's not easy for us to work", and the fourth one is even more humble, "Help me, just this one, ok?" Every message will be followed by a sentence that can't be shaken by thunder: Full-star screenshots make up for 1 yuan, with pictures and 1 yuan. The netizen said that it was because the customer service was too persistent and tossed for two weeks. Finally, she gave good comments.

some people may think that if the consumer receives something really good, it is understandable to give a favorable comment and the seller sends a red envelope to thank him. But in fact, putting cards in the package in advance to induce and urge consumers to evaluate is likely to lead to false praise without soul driven by money. In the long run, it will not only mislead other consumers, but also make it more and more difficult for businesses that don't put cards.

In order to get favorable comments, merchants will continue from inducements to selling badly, even at the risk of being punished. What does a favorable comment mean to the merchants?

"Because the platform will refer to the data of favorable rate." Zhu Li, who runs a snack bar in Beijing, explained the reason for plugging the small card to Deep Burn. He said that the favorable data of the merchants are directly linked to the exposure. When the exposure and ranking of the merchants are in the hands of the algorithm, there is nothing "the wine is not afraid of the deep alley".

Zhu Li told Shen Burning that it is still difficult to get enough exposure for the newly opened new store. The most basic operation is to find competing products within 3 kilometers according to the location of your store, and record each other's products, prices, activities and monthly sales, in which monthly sales should be observed and recorded every day, and then analyze your own advantages and characteristics through competing products. "At least refer to 1 shops, that is, the top 1 exposures, to chase their data."

how to start from scratch and catch up with the data of old shops? "At the beginning, you can find more friends nearby to place orders, rush sales and praise, add some customer WeChat, and build a group." Zhu Li emphasized that sales volume is the key point. "As long as sales volume comes up, it will be easier to improve the favorable rate in the later period."

There are many ways to increase praise, such as finding someone to brush a bill, finding friends to comment, finding a team to operate, and so on. However, in practice, merchants found that the process of swiping the bill was not only complicated and costly, but also brought false evaluation in the end. After all, the number of comments from friends was limited, and small businesses simply could not afford to find a professional team to run the store.

"The push team is too expensive, just throwing money into it." He said that although it does have an effect, the price of this promotion will far exceed the total income of merchants if it is placed on self-employed individuals who operate on a small scale. "You can't play with them unless you want to engage in a chain."

excluding it, the favorable cashback card is the method with the lowest cost and the highest cost performance, and it is also the evaluation of real customers.

Liu Long once ran a restaurant in 216 -217, and at that time, he also cooperated with Meituan and Hungry Platform to launch take-out. He said that in the era when he was doing take-out, some merchants would use the brush list to falsify sales and praise, but now few people will make a big deal, and more are quietly stuffing small cards.

He explained to Deep Burning that although both brushing and returning favorable comments can play the role of window dressing, from the point of view of merchants, there is still a big difference. "The most fundamental reason is that the take-away merchants have to divide the commission on the platform every time they take a single order. The brush order is a forged order, whether it is to find a friend to brush or hire someone to brush, this order is a commission for the platform in vain. Praise cashback is actually selling a single order. Although it is also necessary to divide the commission, the merchant also earned money and got a real evaluation. Returning one or two dollars, the cost is well controlled. "

Zhu Li said that it is also feasible to call customers to add WeChat and give red envelopes with favorable comments if they have free time when they just opened the store, and the favorable rate is also relatively high. However, this method requires high time and money, and it is not as convenient as a small card.

on the e-commerce platform, customizing small cards has even become a business.

A takeaway merchant revealed to Shenzhan that the cash back cards are basically templates, and there are many online, so just buy them at will. Deep burning observed in Taobao that cash back cards, after-sales cards, scratch cards and other small cards commonly found in express delivery and take-out are all sold with templates, each of which costs about 1 cent, and 5 to 1, pieces are ordered, while the customized ones are more expensive, each of which costs about 3 cents.

It's worth noting that all these merchants skillfully define the trade name as "Good Evaluation Cash Back" or directly write "Cash Back Card", and direct search for the common word "Good Evaluation Cash Back" shows that there are no related products. A merchant told Deep Burning, "Just don't write the relevant information on the details page."

some merchants have also introduced "support for new regulations", and the customer service explained that sensitive words such as cashback will not appear on the cards. According to the observation of Deep Burning, the similarities of these "supporting new regulations" cards are printed with words such as "Don't mention red envelopes, cash back" and "Don't take this card".

With more business, merchants who customize cards understand the "knowledge". A Taobao merchant selling favorable cashback cards told Shenzhan that most customers buy 1, cards and buy them back once every 2-3 months. "Generally, most people return to 2-3 yuan, and those in 5 yuan are all high-priced customers or eager to print pictures and praise, and 1 yuan will return to 5 yuan."

merchants need data, and users want bonus hunter. As a kind of "contract", the favorable cashback card makes the false prosperity induced by interests worse and worse. However, under the prosperity, the possible quality problems of businesses are not supervised and solved, and more consumers will step on the pit because they are misled. The whole e-commerce and takeaway ecology may enter a vicious circle.

long before the news that three restaurants in Yangzhou were fined came out, Zhu Li had stopped canceling the cash card. He revealed that some merchants have been targeted by "professional counterfeiters", which is one of the reasons why he no longer plugs cards.

Zhuli's shop is located in a food city. "The shop next to me has been ruined by (professional counterfeiters)." He explained to Shen Burning that professional counterfeiters are a group of people who make money by checking the favorable cash back cards. The process is to order take-out first, get the card evidence, then complain to the Food and Drug Administration, industry and commerce departments on the grounds of unfair competition, and then call the store to ask for a hush fee ranging from 2, to 2,. After giving the money, the complaint will be withdrawn. "Generally, it is staring at the big stores with high sales volume, and the newly opened stores are relatively safe." Zhu Li said.

In the future, there may be fewer and fewer favorable cashback cards from e-commerce and take-away platforms, because supervision is exerting strength.

Lawyer Li Sheng, director of Beijing Zhipu Law Firm, explained that at present, the law does not clearly stipulate the situation of returning favorable comments, mainly because the market is self-regulated. However, according to the Rules and Implementation Rules for Spamming Other Information issued by Taobao platform, it is illegal to return favorable comments to Taobao, and platforms such as Hungry and Pinduoduo have similar regulations.

A take-away merchant wrote on the card that he would return the red envelopes in 1 yuan, 2 yuan and 3 yuan according to the evaluated quality. The other party told Deep Burning that because the amount is not large, it is considered a small welfare, so "under normal circumstances, it will not be (sentenced to brush the bill), and those who are sentenced to brush the bill are generally, for example, actually paying 2 yuan and returning to 2 yuan for praise, which is vicious competition."

in other words, it is unfair competition or even a commercial cheating to generate false word-of-mouth evaluation data by cash back and red envelopes. If the cash back amount is larger, it is even more irregular to sell below the cost to occupy the market.

it is also a "dangerous" behavior for consumers to return favorable comments. Li Sheng explained that if consumers take the cash back of praise as their business and deliberately help operators to make false or misleading praise, according to the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, the so-called "consumers" also need to bear certain responsibilities. However, if it is a consumer who consumes normally and praises truthfully, there is no law prohibiting it.

a small card affects the interests of the three roles of platform, merchants and consumers, and the appearance of favorable cash back is also the result of "collusion" among the three parties.

firstly, e-commerce and take-away platforms have set up an evaluation system and recommendation mechanism, the original intention of which is to let consumers feedback their questions in time and provide reference for latecomers to make decisions. However, in order to be selected and stand forward, merchants can only dig their brains to crack the traffic password. After weighing the pros and cons, they find that plugging small cards is the most cost-effective operation, so they take risks. A boss who has opened a Taobao shop for 1 years told Deep Burning that Taobao's traffic distribution rules have never been exposed, so they are also taking it one step at a time.

the last link is consumers, who uphold the psychology of "don't be white, don't be white", or make sincere or false comments, which help businesses to increase their exposure on the platform, and at the same time make a new wave of businesses anxious and start to plug small cards. The strange circle of favorable cash back is thus formed.

for merchants, it is precisely because the evaluation obtained through the favorable cashback card is very important that this kind of card will be repeatedly banned. Moreover, after the tightening of supervision, Deep Burning found that at present, there are still card templates for sale on Taobao and some e-commerce platforms. There are still small cards in the express delivery that Yingying received recently.

if you don't need to cash back the favorable comments, is there any way for the merchants to ensure the favorable rate? Zhu Li said: "If you really can't do it, you can make a king's meal." He is going to use his long-useless WeChat group to invite customers to the store for experience at a low price or free of charge, so as to increase some sales and praise.

when it comes to how new stores make a lot of noise on the platform, Zhu Li said that going back to the root still depends on taste. He recalled that after two shops were targeted by professional counterfeiters in succession, the managers reminded everyone in the business group of the food city: "I