The Real Purpose Behind Taobao's Ranking Rules and Credit Evaluation System
Taobao has changed its item ranking rules from being arranged by time to being sorted by popularity, factoring in credit, favorites, transactions, reviews, traffic, time, and costs. It is evident that Taobao’s search is becoming increasingly commercialized. This change directly leads to a situation where the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker. As a result, small sellers and new sellers have little chance for their products to even be displayed. Or perhaps only the most determined buyers would venture into large, comprehensive crown-level stores.
In this scenario, what opportunities do new or small sellers have to compete for the lucrative Taobao market? Sellers can't help but ask: What happened to our traffic? The current ranking rules have greatly promoted the prosperity of the fake credit industry because high credit and high favorites mean a greater chance for product rankings to improve. The more people discover you, the more likely your sales will increase. Therefore, sellers choose to fake their credits. In the eyes of sellers, faking credit is merely a sales promotion method. Consequently, the fake credit industry thrives like mushrooms after the rain.
What does fake credit truly represent? Is it a sign of seller dishonesty, or is it a distorted byproduct under the rules of item ranking and credit evaluation system? When opening an online store, without credit, no one will pay attention, and goods will never sell. Many buyers don’t know that Taobao shops can fake their credit, making it even harder to distinguish which credits are genuine. Thus, they easily trust sellers with fake credits.
Regarding fake credit in online stores, it seems that most, if not all, sellers have engaged in fake credit at some point. But why do so many sellers resort to such deceptive means against consumers? Is there a deeper reason behind this?
Reason Analysis: Taobao's current credit evaluation system indirectly promotes the prosperity of the fake credit industry. Such arbitrary falsification and consumer deception ultimately harms not only buyers but also sellers, trapping them in a vicious cycle. What role does the credit evaluation system play? Taobao's reluctance to change the current credit evaluation system suggests something significant. Is it that Taobao doesn't want to give up on the massive social benefits generated by fake credit, or is it laying important groundwork for a future transformation?
From a certain perspective, fake credit is the most powerful assistant in expanding Taobao! Fake credit not only brings Taobao immense popularity and economic benefits but also effectively increases Taobao's fame. From the data announced annually by Taobao, we learn about the number of new registered users each year, how much the transaction volume has broken through, how many job opportunities have been created for society, and how many people have realized their entrepreneurial dreams... All these attract entrepreneurs and investors to join the ranks of Taobao, continuously enhancing Taobao's competitive strength! Statistics show that as of February 2011, Taobao had a total of 4.335 million stores, increasing by 200,000 every month.
Therefore, Taobao still allows fake credit today, and on Baidu, you can easily find over 150 websites offering fake credit services. If Taobao genuinely didn't want sellers to fake their credit and despised such practices, it would surely crack down on the fake credit market with all its might (at least not let the fake credit market be as rampant as it currently is). This wouldn't be difficult to achieve, but doing so would significantly reduce Taobao's social benefits!
Many aspiring entrepreneurs, seeing Taobao's prosperity, can't help but be moved. Seeing hundreds or even thousands of monthly transactions for Taobao sellers' goods, they can't contain their long-held entrepreneurial passion and dive into Taobao. However, they don't realize that those hundreds of monthly transactions are deliberately set up smokescreens by Taobao store owners to deceive buyers. As a result, new sellers flock to open stores on Taobao daily, believing miracles will eventually happen, even if they sell nothing for months.
They won't consider the intense competition due to the enormous number of existing stores and new entrants until they actually start a store on Taobao. Reality isn't as Taobao outwardly advertises — making money online is easier than picking up money, and succeeding in entrepreneurship on Taobao is effortless. Nowadays, no matter how hard you try on Taobao, it's futile. You can stare at your computer screen 24 hours a day, but does anyone come? Without inflating your credit, doing promotions, engaging in marketing, or spending money, your traffic will be negligible. After all, free things are just myths; there's no such thing as a free lunch. Without capital investment, you'll never make money.
It's not difficult to understand that since April 2008, Taobao has been vigorously promoting its mall business. Currently, there are already over 30,000 malls. Most of Taobao's activities target these malls. Everyone who has shopped on Taobao knows that malls have obvious advantages. Is Taobao transitioning from a pure C2C site to a B2C model, gradually moving from free to paid services? As China's largest C2C online trading platform, constantly launching mall businesses enhances the reputation of large merchants while seemingly ignoring small sellers struggling on the brink of survival. What is the purpose behind this?
A few years ago, Taobao defeated EachNet with its advantage of free store openings, becoming China's largest shopping website. Always remember that profit is the ultimate goal of any merchant. With sufficient popularity, Taobao is gradually revealing its true intentions. How to recover investment profits is what Ma Yun really aims for. Using Taobao's ever-increasing C2C popularity and mature shopping environment to create a higher-profit, lower-management-cost B2C brand is Taobao's ultimate goal, inevitably giving sellers the impression that Taobao intends to "kill the goose that lays the golden eggs."
Finally, according to official Taobao data, the average monthly income for Taobao sellers is only 1000 yuan. What thoughts come to mind when faced with this data?
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