Wang Hao: Is the e -commerce platform "two selection one", is it a monopoly or promoting cooperation?

Author:CITIC Publishing Time:2022.08.08

my country's market size is huge and the consumption level is abundant. In many fields, it can accommodate multiple platform companies to compete on the same stage. The external nature of the platform economy has a certain contradiction between the efficiency of the platform and the full competition, and it also makes the platform industry have a leading advantage -when a platform is successful, the entry of the new platform is more difficult. But it turns out that entering is still possible. Most of my country's platforms have changed from "a family" to "blooming flowers". Although the scale of some platforms is still large, the competition is relatively sufficient, and there is basically no possibility of monopoly. For example, in the online shopping industry, although the market share of Alibaba Group is still large, there are competitors such as Jingdong, Weishang, Pinduoduo, and many other small feature platforms.

Platform companies often require businesses on the platform to operate only on this platform and cannot operate on other platforms at the same time. This is the so -called "two choices". Professor Wang Hao of the Peking University National Development Institute proposed in the new book "Platform Economy: Innovation, Governance and Prosperity" in the research team that "two selections and one" may weaken the competition between merchants and suppress the development of small platforms, but it may also alleviate the platforms between platforms The phenomenon of "ride a car" is therefore improved the cooperation between the platform and the merchant. Therefore, the comprehensive impact of the two elections on the society is uncertain. Whether there is a "legitimate reason" requires specific analysis according to market conditions.

Platform "Two Selection One" strategy exposure

A basic feature of the platform is open sharing. As long as legal compliance, users can enter or exit a platform freely. However, on the e -commerce platform, the freedom of entering and leaving sometimes has some restrictions. The platform often requires businesses on the platform to sell on their own platform only, and oppose it to operate on other platforms at the same time. This is the so -called "two -choice one" strategy.

In our country, the "two selection" is suspected of violating Article 17 of the Anti -Monopoly Law, that is, "prohibiting operators with market dominance are prohibited from the following abuse of market dominance: (4) There are no legitimate reasons, limited to the counterparty of the transaction, only the counterparty only person Can be traded with it or can only be traded with the designated operators. "

Before 2020, the "two -choice" strategy was generally existed in my country's e -commerce platform and attracted the attention of relevant departments. On November 5, 2019, the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration held a "Symposium to Regulate the Administrative Guidance for Online Business Activities" in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. More than 20 platform companies including Jingdong, Meituan, Pinduoduo, and Alibaba attended the meeting. The General Administration pointed out that the e -commerce law clearly prohibits the exclusive trading behavior of "two selections". Nevertheless, there was no substantial action against "two choices" at the time.

In December 2020, the General Administration of Market Supervision launched an antitrust investigation on Alibaba Group. The survey found that since 2015, Alibaba has put forward two requirements for the merchants (especially the "core merchants") on its platform (especially the strong "core merchants") in the way in 2015. Alibaba has long passed various rewards and penalties to prevent merchants from opening or participating in promotional activities on the competitive platform, maintaining and strengthening its market forces, and gaining unfair competition advantages. On April 10, 2021, the General Administration issued an administrative penalty decision to order Alibaba to stop illegal acts, and punished 4%of its sales in China in 2019 in China for 457.512 billion yuan, totaling 18.228 billion yuan.

In April 2021, the General Administration of Market Supervision launched an antitrust investigation on the Meituan of the takeaway platform. The survey found that since 2018, Meituan has abused its dominant position in the catering and takeaway market. By charging differential rates, delaying merchants' launch, collecting exclusive cooperation deposits, algorithm discrimination, etc., it seduces merchants to sign exclusive agreements with them. These behaviors exclude and restrict the competition in related markets and damage the rights of merchants and consumers. On October 8, 2021, the General Administration ordered Meituan to stop illegal acts, refunded the exclusive cooperation deposit of RMB 1.289 billion in full amount, and punished 3%of its sales of 114.748 billion yuan in China in 2020, totaling 3.442 billion Yuan RMB.

Comparison of platforms and exclusive strategies in traditional economy

"Two Selection One", as an exclusive corporate behavior, is not a new phenomenon only in the Internet era.

First of all, there are "exclusive regional agents" in traditional economies. Under this arrangement, upstream product manufacturers authorize the only dealer in each geographical area. If we regard the e -commerce platform as downstream distributing companies, then "two -choice" is similar to the proxy of exclusive regions.

Secondly, there is also a phenomenon in the traditional economy called "exclusive operation", that is, manufacturers require dealers to promise to not sell competitors for upstream companies. If we regard the e -commerce platform as the upstream service provider, then the "two selection" is similar to the exclusive distribution.

Of course, the platform "two selections" is also different from the exclusive arrangement in the traditional economy.

First of all, e -commerce platforms usually do not buy off products, just to provide merchants with a channel for sales products. In addition to charging service fees, the platform generally does not interfere with the pricing or other decisions of merchants. Most of the downstream companies in the traditional economy will buy products from upstream companies and then sell themselves.

Secondly, unlike a large number of small dealers involving exclusive arrangements in the traditional economy, e -commerce platforms are generally large and there are many merchants in the platform. There are often many merchants in each subdivision category. Even if there are "two -choice" strategy, most of the competition between merchants in the platform is relatively sufficient. Of course, there are no limited competition in a minority category or even no competition. E -commerce platforms may be closer to traditional large chain supermarkets, but the latter rarely promotes the "two -choice" strategy.

There are many theoretical research on the agency and exclusive distribution of exclusive regions. In general, these contractual relationships between upstream and downstream companies have an uncertainty on social welfare, and specific analysis of specific problems requires specific problems.

How to know the "two -choice one" strategy of the platform

We can understand the "two -choice one" strategy of e -commerce platforms from the following three perspectives:

First, the platform's "two choices" may weaken the competition between merchants.

When all merchants are sold on each platform at the same time, consumers can search, view and buy all products on one platform. There is no need to compare products between the platforms. Therefore, the price of the product mainly depends on the competition between merchants. Or depending on the difference between products, it has little to do with the competition between platforms.

In the case of "two selections", each product may only be sold on one platform. Consumers often need to switch between different platforms when buying goods.

On the one hand, this is likely to increase consumers' shopping costs, increase the differences between the product they perceive, and eventually form a higher product price. In this case, the "two choices" weakened the competition between merchants.

On the other hand, when consumers switch between platforms is very easy, or when the number of merchants is large, the "two choices" will not significantly affect the purchase price of consumers. Because many consumers are used to search for products on different platforms at the same time, they are not very affected by the "two choices". In many product markets, such as household appliances, clothing, shoes, hats, food and beverages, etc., there are a large number of competitive brands. In this case, although the "two selection" reduces the number of merchants of each platform, it restricts the role of competition. limited.

Second, the "two -choice" strategy of large platforms is not conducive to the growth of small platforms.

The transactions of large platforms are more active, and there are more potential consumers. If merchants are forced to choose between large platforms and small platforms, they usually choose large platforms. This small platform is difficult to grow and it is difficult to become a powerful competitors on large platforms. Therefore, the "two -selection" strategy of large platforms is suspected of abusing the market advantage position, which is not conducive to strengthening competition between e -commerce platforms, and it is not conducive to "preventing capital disorderly expansion."

At the same time, e -commerce platforms often have a certain "external nature", that is, the larger the size of the platform, the easier it is to buy transactions when buying and sellers. Therefore, the higher the value of the platform. This phenomenon seems to mean that the competition in the platform field itself does not have high necessity, because weak competition is conducive to the formation of large platforms.

Nevertheless, the external nature of the e -commerce platform is not significant enough to exclude competition. In the field of e -commerce in my country, there are many small platforms. Through careful selection of high -quality goods and target consumers, they can win a place in the market. At the same time, the existence of these small platforms may force large platforms to improve the services provided to merchants, which can play a good role in the healthy development of the e -commerce industry. Therefore, it is necessary to encourage competition between platforms.

Third, the "two choices" can inhibit the platform service of the "ride" and promote the cooperation between the platform and the merchant.

In the process of turning to online sales, traditional merchants need to re -learn relevant business knowledge, accumulate online sales experience, and establish a new network brand. The most subject to this aspect is the platform itself. Therefore, the platform often cooperates with merchants, such as teaching various online sales methods and experience to merchants (especially small businesses), providing merchants with access to "traffic" required for creating brands, and providing data required for new product research and development.

This cooperation process requires the platform to pay considerable costs or resources. For example, the takeaway platform "Meituan" helped thousands of restaurants in consultation and training projects to help small restaurants on online sales. The average cost of each restaurant was said to reach more than 1,000 yuan. For another example, the e -commerce platform "Alibaba" also provides a lot of free online sales training or consulting services for small businesses. As an enterprise, the provision of these free services for e -commerce platforms is not exactly altruistic, but is looking forward to compensation from the business expanding business in the future.

If there are no "two selections and one" arrangement, merchants who receive a platform business training, traffic support, or quality certification services will probably open stores on other platforms after they grow up, so that other platforms will benefit directly from them. This is " Phenomenon. Riding a car will not be protected from the investment benefits of the original platform, so the motivation for the platform to provide such services will decline.

Due to the high uncertainty of commercial development and the funding constraints faced by small merchants, the "touch net" service provided by the platform for merchants is difficult to get compensation directly. If there is no "two selection and one" arrangement, the platform is unwilling to invest in small merchants to cultivate, which will eventually slow down the development of e -commerce. From this perspective, severe cracking down on the platform's "two choices" may not be conducive to the development of the platform economy. Therefore, although the "two choices" are exclusive, there may indeed be a "legitimate reason" specified in the antitrust law.

In practice, it is also very difficult to completely prevent the platform's "two selections". Even if the platform does not implement the "two choices", it can also hidden the merchants who do not comply with the dexterous contract by discrimination, rejecting transactions, and distinguishing pricing by algorithm, rejecting transactions, and distinguishing pricing, forcing merchants to "actively" give up and choose other platforms. If the antitrust agencies are severely investigated and punished, the platform is likely to increase the threshold for merchants to enter the entry into the threshold and drive away from cooperative merchants on the grounds of strengthening the quality management of the product. Excessive investigation and punishment may also be regarded as the result of the "two selection" of some merchants as the hidden platform of the platform, thereby interfere with the normal and legal operation of the enterprise.

In short, the "two -choice" strategy of e -commerce platforms may have a role in restricting competition, but it may also improve the efficiency of cooperation between the platform and merchants, so its comprehensive impact is uncertain. Specifically, the "two selection" may weaken the competition between merchants and increase product prices, but in the industry with a large number of merchants, this impact can be ignored. At the same time, the "two choices" are not conducive to the growth of small platforms, so it may weaken competition between platforms, but when the number of platforms is large, this worry can be excluded. In addition, the phenomenon of "two selections" may suppress the platform for providing services by other platforms, which is conducive to improving the cooperation between platforms and small merchants, so there is a certain "legitimate reason". Of course, in antitrust practice, it is very difficult to completely prevent such platform behaviors and should not be forced. It is necessary to protect market competition, but also encourage platforms to provide high -quality services for merchants.

"Platform Economy"

Editor Huang Yiping

CITIC Publishing Group in July 2022

brief introduction:

The platform economy has become a reality that is closely related to everyone's daily life, and has also greatly promoted economic development. However, the disorderly expansion of the platform economy has also brought many challenges.

The platform economy should not be unreasonable prosperity, but to develop in an orderly and standardized manner so that it can benefit the economic form of every ordinary person. Therefore, the governance, innovation and supervision of the platform economy is now imminent and widespread concern.

This book is edited by Professor Huang Yiping of the National Development Research Institute of Peking University, and organizes a number of scholars from many fields such as economy, digital finance, Internet, management, law, and other fields. The impact of platforms on employment and income distribution, data governance and algorithm governance, risk and problems of digital financial platforms, labor and user rights, antitrust and supervision, etc., jointly study the economic innovation and governance of the platform, provide the platform to provide the platform to the platform Policy suggestions and solutions for various types of economic problems make the platform economy more fair and fair, and then promote the orderly, stable and prosperous development of the economy.

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