Taobao announced that it will optimize the “refund only” strategy (i.e. users will not return the goods after receiving them, but will only receive a full or partial refund) from 9 August, and will also launch a new version of the experience points system, which is divided into “Shop Experience Points” and “Product Experience Points (PXI)”, completely replacing the previous seller service evaluation system. It is hoped that the rights and interests of consumers and merchants will be balanced to form a healthier e-commerce ecosystem.
Under the new measures, merchants with a comprehensive store experience score of 4.8 or above will not be actively involved by the official platform communication software to support users' refund applications after receiving the goods. Instead, merchants will be encouraged to negotiate with consumers first. As for merchants with other scores, the official platform will give them different levels of autonomy based on the experience score and the nature of the industry. The higher the experience score, the greater the merchant’s autonomy is.
While giving merchants higher autonomy, Taobao will also provide merchants with multiple after-sales service plans to guide merchants to continuously optimize after-sales service and reduce the disputes and losses caused by the “refund only” strategy. Taobao said that all merchants on the Taobao Tmall platform will be able to obtain more business growth opportunities by improving their service experience in future. Merchants with higher experience scores will obtain better search ranking results, which is expected to help heighten the autonomy of merchants in after-sales service and reduce or eliminate after-sales intervention for high-quality stores.
