In response to the increase in after-sales service costs across the industry this year, Taobao will comprehensively optimize the current shipping insurance strategy in the near future. Insiders said that Taobao and Tmall have had multiple consultations with partners on the shipping insurance issue, and some policies are expected to be trialed in September this year.
The source said that although the details of the strategy are not yet fully finalized, it can be confirmed that after this round of policy adjustments, Taobao/Tmall merchants are expected to receive more shipping insurance-related subsidies and further reduce operating costs.
Since this year, shipping insurance has become an important issue troubling merchants in the e-commerce industry. Although the original intention of shipping insurance was to improve customer experience by reducing contradictions and capital losses in the return process, it has also been exploited by some illegal and gray industries, damaging the interests of some normal operating merchants.
How to ensure customer experience while reducing the increase in operating costs caused by shipping insurance, is a major challenge that the platform faces.
During the 618 period, Taobao joined hands with partners to provide multiple discounts on shipping insurance premiums for new merchants, small and medium-sized merchants, high-quality industry merchants, live-streaming merchants, and other types of merchants. At the same time, for some new and low-priced goods, and for products in group buying and billion subsidy fields, Taobao/Tmall will also increase the support for shipping insurance premium discounts. The discount was at its highest level ever, and some merchants could enjoy a minimum discount of 0.01 yuan per order.
This comprehensive optimization of shipping insurance will not be limited to a certain large-scale promotional period. Taobao will collaborate with partners to introduce more normalized shipping insurance subsidy policies in more industries and systematically solve the current high cost problem of shipping insurance.
It is worth mentioning that Taobao will also further crack down on insurance fraud related to shipping insurance. Insiders revealed that Taobao and Tmall have already collaborated with the police and partners to crack down on gangs in other areas, such as Maoming in Guangdong and Pingxiang in Jiangxi, that committed crimes related to insurance fraud. The suspects in the Jiangxi case have been arrested, and the Guangdong region has filed a case.
As Taobao intensifies its crackdown on illegal and gray industries and implements a series of optimization policies in the future, the widespread problem of shipping insurance in the current e-commerce industry is expected to be alleviated. Although it is essential to protect consumers' interests and improve customer experience, it is equally important to safeguard the interests of normal operating merchants.
Recently, Taobao has been focusing on a series of issues that could harm merchants' interests. Prior to this, Taobao had taken the lead in announcing the optimization of the "refund only" policy in the entire industry, stating that it will increase merchants' after-sales autonomy based on the new version of the experience score and reduce or cancel after-sales intervention for high-quality stores. It is widely believed in the industry that optimizing the business environment and establishing a healthier e-commerce ecosystem has become an important development direction for Taobao.