The Taobao that I both love and hate?
From 6 pm tonight to 2:30 in the morning, I was uploading items to Taobao. While uploading products, I roughly learned about the prices of some similar products. I am in the cosmetics business, just starting out, so I'm not very familiar with it yet. I purchased a batch of goods. Some products were bought at a high price, while others were bought at a relatively low price. However, after searching for similar products on Taobao, I found that the retail price of the same product on Taobao was actually cheaper than my wholesale price. This is really frustrating! With such price competition, how can I sell anything?
At the same time, in order to enhance competitiveness, I also specifically started a Japanese authentic cosmetics purchasing service. But the price for the Japanese purchasing service is also very low, indicating that the competition is becoming increasingly fierce, even more intense than I imagined. The products in my Taobao store, E Taokè Japan Cosmetics Purchasing Store, are newly listed, so the credibility of the store is not yet high enough. In order to quickly improve the store's credibility, my retail price is almost no more than 2 yuan higher than the wholesale price. Yet, I still feel that some of my products lack an advantage.
Taobao is truly a website that makes me both love and hate it?
I love Taobao because, with Taobao, entrepreneurs like me can start a business at a very low cost, greatly reducing the threshold for entrepreneurship. At the same time, we can expand our business across the country.
But I also hate Taobao because its convenience and low threshold lead to the naked exposure of each merchant's product prices in front of consumers. Such ruthless price comparisons have eliminated many advantageous stores. Because prices can be exposed, some reasonably priced, quality stores disappear into the vast internet sea. On the other hand, shops that focus on low prices thrive. Low prices may be due to various factors, such as good procurement channels, inferior products, counterfeit products, or fake products, but consumers find it hard to distinguish. And 90% of consumers judge by price.
If Taobao could also have a certification system for good products, well-known products, or branded products, similar to real-life malls, perhaps the situation would be more reasonable. Now that Taobao has grown significantly, it needs to develop in a fair, reasonable, and equitable direction. If it is not fair, it will only make counterfeit products more rampant, causing greater harm to consumers.
For consumers, with Taobao, they can naturally buy cheaper and more practical products, but at the same time, the probability of buying counterfeit and inferior products is increasing.