Rush to the hot search! Shop owner: This scene is infuriating, with returns of over 3000 pieces and a rush | Online store | Skirt | Shop owner
Late last night,
Because the store has received over 2000 return notifications,
This online store from Chengdu,
It has once again become a hot topic nationwide.
"This is something we never expected." The owner of this original design online store is two post-90s shop owners - Chen Yang and Di Meng. The two of them became popular due to news events by chance, and were repeatedly caught up in the whirlpool of public opinion.
"In three days, I slept for less than 5 hours and always felt like something was not done well." While working hard to handle this wave of traffic, I unexpectedly became popular, a dress was hard to come by, a large number of returns, and copycat rights protection... Traffic influenced the direction of the incident, leaving me at the forefront of the storm, but I couldn't help it.
A magical experience of an online store, an unexpected explosion and controversy, on June 11th, a journalist from Chao News interviewed Meng, the person involved.
"Internet celebrity skirts" flying all over the sky
Hundreds of stores selling goods using the same image
In early June, a street auction triggered a "hand in hand door" incident. In just 5 days, the mood of the two shop owners was like riding a roller coaster. Launched in 2021, this suspender French style skirt has sold over 200 pieces. With huge traffic, this dress quickly sold out. After 30 days of pre sale, crazy netizens still swept away over 4000 dresses.
But with the tireless exploration of netizens, the dress worn by the female lead in the video was found by sharp eyed netizens on various platforms to be of the same style.
"Everyone, take a look. Their store is selling for over 500 yuan, and they have already bought 4000 little rich women. Let's just follow them without thinking. I don't need 499 here, I don't need 399, just over a hundred yuan. I got a beautiful dress and posted it to show off your little waist. It walks with agility and elegance, and the fabric is as thin as cicada wings."
In a live broadcast room with only a few people, the host didn't even have a physical item, only holding a printed paper with a product image in his hand, shouting desperately, "We are a newly opened live broadcast room, giving everyone a meeting gift. This Taikoo style dress is the same, and we only sell it for 108 yuan." However, the store hasn't had a live broadcast in the past 30 days. According to sales data, three dresses were sold in the first live broadcast. Most of the other products on display in the live broadcast room are snacks and fresh produce.
Similar images and different prices also make some netizens picky
Overnight, Damon discovered that not only skirts were popular, but the original picture of the skirt also became a "shared image" of hundreds of stores online. On major e-commerce platforms, as long as you enter the words "Taikoo Li", "Hand in Hand", and "Skirt", a large number of identical skirts will be displayed on the screen, and the store will display the same model and product pictures, with prices ranging from tens of yuan to two to three hundred yuan.
A variety of online stores are also showcasing a similar image of the same design, all featuring "SIBLEU French niche design new Chinese silk floral skirt". Even on the same platform, there have been "Li Gui" online stores with only a few words difference from the store name of Damon. Netizens who are unaware of the truth are bewildered. At first glance, anyone could have eaten the wrong melon by looking at the store name. Clicking inside to take a closer look is even more indescribable, as the store has moved some pictures of the Meng store.
"We are using chiffon fabric, which is the same style as Taikoo Li!" Another shop owner said. The color matching camisole skirt with similar patterns is only priced at 79 yuan, so there is no need to wait for pre-sales. There is currently a large amount of stock available, "it can be shipped within 48 hours, and our factory directly ships it with guaranteed quality."
On social media platforms, with "pink battle robes," "wealth codes," and "reaching the pinnacle of life," many shop owners have used blatant slogans and quietly launched the "internet celebrity dress" link, but most shops still use the same image.
Upstream and downstream clothing merchants have also smelled the opportunity for exposure, and have successively released skirt designs, as well as similar pattern fabrics and cutting patterns, shouting "Buy fabrics and find me" and "Customize and find me!" According to media reports, clothing factory owners have posted on their social media that many manufacturers have started producing the same style. When asked about the sales of this dress, the boss said that it is not a problem to make the same style now, but there is currently no one to purchase in large quantities.
The quality of counterfeit skirts varies
The original store has received 3000 returns
Meng and Chen Yang, friends of a girl born in the 1990s, have been studying together in France for many years and have a common entrepreneurial dream. Six years ago, the SIBLEU studio, where one is responsible for design and the other is responsible for branding, focused on niche original designs, opened.
The store has been low-key in niche circles until June 7th this year, when a positive review from several years ago, like a sharp blade cutting through a huge traffic hole, pushed the store into the public opinion.
Numerous netizens speculate that this is a message left by a woman who is suspected to have "held hands" when purchasing this dress. Unknowingly, Chen Yanghe and Dimeng received the message from the old fans, "sisters, look, is it your dress? It's hot!"
For the first time facing a huge amount of traffic falling from the sky, everyone in the team was quite nervous.
On the one hand, I feel that this is an opportunity that even a small shop cannot buy, and on the other hand, I am also very anxious when facing public opinion. Before I can digest the taste of explosive popularity, the problem that makes Meng and Chen Sheep cry and laugh came immediately.
Some people label a dress with labels such as "dismissal dress" and "mistress dress", refuting "what are the three views of people who follow the trend to buy dresses", and various sharp doubts follow one after another; But some people comforted them, saying, "The design of the dress looks pretty." "This is two different things, the dress is innocent."
Due to the inability to predict the future changes of the situation, the manager Chen Yangyang appeared on social media and exclaimed in an article, "Do the consumers who come in due to news traffic really like our dresses? How many returns will we face behind this huge uncertainty?"
After experiencing these days of anxiety and questioning, Meng understands the trend of many people's consumption and is also mentally prepared for a large number of returns. She revealed to reporters that she sold over 4000 pieces of this dress, but 3000 were returned before shipment, mostly because she didn't want them anymore.
"I think it's normal for them to return the item before it's shipped. If they make a purchase, they can return it." Meng was quite calm about the "return" and said, "We didn't prepare too much fabric. It looks like 2000 meters, so even if we lose money, we won't let the store collapse."
Screenshots of the online store pages of Demeng and Chen Yangyang
What's even more frustrating is that from time to time, some netizens jump out and criticize, "You really know how to do business. If someone else sells a dress for tens of yuan, you have to sell it for five or six hundred yuan!"
After the popularity of "Hand in Hand Gate", this "internet celebrity dress" was unexpectedly copied. You can easily search for a full screen of pictures. Damon took the time to look at the "internet famous dresses" that were also on sale at other stores, most of which were made of simulated silk satin or chiffon fabrics. To prove that I am using double crepe silk fabric, "I have already sent the fabric for quality inspection, and a quality inspection report will be issued at that time."
"The quality difference between silk and chiffon is definitely different. If you watch the video carefully, some consumers may be able to sense it." Meng watched others' live broadcasts and tried to explain that the dress looked very similar, but the workmanship was actually different. "When trying it on the body, it is easy to stick to the fabric because it has poor breathability. If you sweat, it will stick to the body."
However, it cannot be denied that due to differences in material selection and process flow, some shops can replicate the images within a few days. If it is made of spun satin or chiffon materials, digital printing technology does not need to be finalized. If printing is not careful, the shipment will be fast, and the earliest it can be produced is one or two days. "It takes us three to four days just to shape, and it takes at least 5-7 days for the fabric to be made from production to production," said Damon.
The live broadcast room, which was originally in preparation, was launched in advance for this dress. Hundreds of thousands of people flooded into the live broadcast room to pursue the live broadcast, and the onlookers checked in the comment section, saying, "Is your dress original?" "Is your dress also plagiarized from other big brands?"
In response, we also pay attention to fashion brands and are influenced by some brands, but there is no plagiarism from big brands. "If you want to plagiarize, just buy back the best-selling products every year and create a new version. Why do you have to spend so much energy on creating and modifying a new version?"
Design drawings provided by the store
Monterey showed the design sketch to the Chao News reporter at that time. "The designers are our own people, and we also took the model pictures ourselves. When we put them on the shelves, we were the only one on the internet who had them."
It took Meng and his colleagues over a month just to design this blueprint, and it took about two months from design to production. During the process of transforming the blueprint into a skirt, many adjustments were made. "The design draft is expected to be released around May 2021, and we have set the theme for the entire series to be 'New Chinese Style'. In response to this style, we have searched for many inspiration images, including patterns related to Valentine's Day and Chinese classical legends, and further extended them."
In the whirlpool of public opinion, even Meng couldn't care about these "Li ghosts", after all, he was almost unable to resist them——
There is a shortage of manpower and raw materials, and the factory's orders have been scheduled for a month.
Behind the scenes of "who rubs against who"
"Internet celebrity skirt" still needs cold thinking
Looking at the overwhelming number of pictures of my own dresses online, Meng was very angry. There were too many people selling "imitations". A newly opened store started broadcasting, hanging this "internet celebrity dress", and only a few fans started selling products. Damon said he reported them for engaging in hot topics, but said there was insufficient evidence.
In the face of interests, some online store operators who are enthusiastic about chasing traffic use the same image to make consumers mistakenly believe that it is "the same thing" as the original image online store, gaining more exposure and trading opportunities.
Do you still remember in 2021, there was a clothing item in the store that sold well and was quickly imitated by others. "We spent tens of thousands of yuan, basically using all the money we earned at the time to protect our rights. However, things like clothing, as long as we make slight modifications to the details, are not easy to identify. It's too difficult to protect our rights."
On e-commerce platforms, many original sellers of popular products have experienced the same troubles. Most of them have personally experienced their original stores being copied, popular images being stolen, and even being sold "the same" but different quality and price products under the guise of inferior ones. Store sales are not only impacted, but also frequently subjected to inexplicable complaints.
Prior to this, Chao News reporters also interviewed original sellers who were deeply troubled by it. A Hangzhou original design seller for women's clothing, when it comes to her painstakingly crafted designs being "stolen with just one click" by merchants with different ideas, she is both helpless and helpless.
She found that some stores used photos of themselves as models to showcase their clothing, and some store pages showed sales exceeding an astonishing 100000 pieces. She also personally purchased a so-called "same model", which was nearly half cheaper than her own design, but when she touched the material, it was completely different.
Someone is staring at the latest hot selling product, "In just two or three days, someone will steal pictures and sell goods." In the "circle," cracking down on "image theft" is similar to hitting a mole, "they hide from one hole to another." One seller said that there is a group of people who play this model, using low-quality imitations at low customer prices to compete for market sales and heat, and taking advantage of others' labor results to enjoy the benefits and easily make money.
In the face of fleeting traffic, this kind of image theft "rubbing method" is obviously not the last time. So, do individual online store merchants engage in infringement behavior? What kind of legal responsibility do we need to bear?
In response to a series of issues, Chao News reporters consulted lawyer Zhu Jieping, a specially invited researcher at the China Policy Science Research Association and founding partner of Taikun Law.
Lawyer Zhu Jieping stated that if the original store can be proven to be the copyright owner of the image, it can claim rights based on copyright, demand other users to stop using it, and bear compensation liability.
The protection of original designs has always been awkward, and many shop owners have experienced the difficulty of providing evidence but failing to do so. Lawyer Zhu Jieping believes that if the original creator has a copyright certificate and presents it to the platform, the platform generally takes down products suspected of infringement. But most original creators often do not apply for a copyright certificate, so it is necessary to prove the formation time and creative process of the copyright. "If it cannot be proven, it cannot be proven as the right holder. If it cannot be proven, it has no right to exclude other merchants from using it."
Anyway, the serious news events that should have been taken seriously have been blurred by netizens, but it also reflects the mentality of some people in the era of "traffic is king" who are willing to take advantage of others. When watching online, maintaining a rational focus and exploration of public events is the attitude we should have.
Netizen comments
Some netizens have expressed that,
The dress itself is not wrong
Although,
Many people don't think this dress looks good
Some netizens can also understand,
The Difficulties of Store Owners
But facing the magical explosion,
The shop owner actually has other options as well
