"No Questions Asked, Done in Seconds"… Refund Heaven in China [Beijing Diary]

Recently, Chinese e-commerce platforms have been globally welcomed. AliExpress and Temu, which have landed in Korea, are thriving despite the cooled Korea-China relations, and this trend is no different in the United States. Their biggest advantage is price competitiveness. Consumers, whose wallets have thinned due to soaring prices, have started focusing on cost-effectiveness rather than the nationality of the products.

However, the greatest advantage of Chinese e-commerce platforms experienced locally is not the 'low price.' It is the most consumer-friendly 'refund and exchange' policy compared to those of any other country. Here is a shared experience.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

Alibaba’s fresh supermarket chain 'Hema Xiansheng' and Meituan’s fresh food delivery service 'Meituan Maichai,' which I use every two or three days to purchase food in China, are representative examples. Recently, I ordered beef for soup, opened it, and placed it on the cutting board to slice, but the cut surface of the meat was dark and did not look fresh at all. At that time, a Chinese woman in her 50s was with me at home and advised me to request a refund. When I said it was troublesome and I would just eat it, she said, "It only takes a few seconds, just a few seconds."

I opened the app and pressed 'refund' in the order details. A field to write the reason and a photo upload section appeared. I briefly wrote 'not fresh' and attached a photo of the cut surface of the meat. Less than three seconds after uploading, the full amount for the meat was deposited. There was no confirmation from a representative or internal review?just speed. The refunded item was not collected. This is likely because sending a delivery person to retrieve the item and processing it would cost more.

One day, I ordered children's pants worth 68 yuan (about 12,300 won) through Alibaba’s Taobao. I chose black, which is resistant to stains, and paid, but the pants that arrived a few days later were light gray. Because I opened the package late, I only noticed the wrong delivery four days after arrival. I sent a message with photos of the pants and the order details to the Taobao seller asking what happened. The seller immediately replied, "We sent the wrong item. We will resend it," and asked me to apply for a pickup. It was bothersome, and after looking again, I thought the wrong pants were not bad, so I decided to just wear them. The response was unexpected. The seller said, "We will compensate you 10 yuan (about 1,800 won)" and promptly refunded the amount partially through the Taobao app. Recently, due to cold weather, a rice sack burst inside the packaging box and leaked slightly, and I received a 10% refund of the rice price.

Besides these, there were various small and large complaints in shopping life. Sizes didn’t fit, colors were different from what I expected, or counterfeit products arrived. Each time, regardless of the reason including simple change of mind, refunds or exchanges were possible without exception. I never had to pay fees or shipping costs.

According to recent reports, Chinese e-commerce platforms are working to further improve refund convenience. If the seller does not respond within 48 hours after a refund request, the refund is automatically processed, or if there is a problem, the principle is to receive a refund without returning the item. Some media have expressed concerns about abuse of purchases and sellers’ profitability, but the system is closely aligned with the buyer’s side. What Korea should fear is not the onslaught of cheap prices. The scale economy of the '1.4 billion domestic market' will create a different level of service, which will trigger another crisis.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.