"Electric business War" under investigation and commercial speculation has the bottom line

"Electric dealer price war" caused the government regulatory department attaches great importance to the national Development and Reform Commission price supervision and inspection and antitrust Bureau of the recent "Electric Dealer price war" launched an investigation, initially believed that the promotion of electricity dealers suspected fraud consumers, the NDRC will be punished by law (September 5 "Beijing News").

In this vigorous so-called "price war", the performance of the warring electric giants can be summed up with "language giants, action Dwarf." On the one hand, they declared war with a high profile, what "three years 0 gross margin", "all product prices are lower than each other", "No bottom line cheap" and so on, on the other hand, to circumvent the promise of various methods, such as fictitious original price, the actual goods are marked no goods, etc., as "0 gross margin" is downright lies. According to the investigation, the actual gross profit margin of the electric dealer promotion product reached 10%.

It is common for the consumer to be fooled, but it is rarely seen in such a large scale, and it is unheard of for a few big giants in the industry to join hands to fool consumers. Think of the price war at the beginning, the crowd cheered, there are some good people worried that a few big electric dealers so desperate will lead to "a few defeats", there are some people worried that the electricity dealers under the cost of selling products suspected of unfair competition, violating the "Price law." Now looking back on these concerns, it is clearly a romantic unfounded, full of strong irony. The price war once again witnessed the "buy not to sell the essence", was fooled by the consumer disappointed and sad, but also to see the electric business giant's true face. A price war intended to promote hype has instead damaged the image of the electric giant, and savvy Liu didn't expect that? The only explanation I'm afraid is to be smart.

Businesses need publicity and even hype, but publicity hype is clearly not to self-destruct image. Therefore, commercial propaganda or hype must adhere to the bottom line, that is not to deceive consumers. But the electric business giant fictitious original price, actually has the goods to indicate that does not have the goods and so on behavior, while tricking consumers, they also hit the muzzle of the law. The Price Act expressly stipulates that operators shall not collude with each other, manipulate market prices, and not use false or misleading price means to lure consumers or other operators into trading with them. From this perspective, the electric business giant's behavior is indeed suspected of breaking the law, the National Development and Reform Commission to investigate and punish the responsibility, act according to the law, cheating consumers should pay the price for their illegal activities.

The consumers who are being fooled need legal backing, and the government needs to be in charge of justice. Although theoretically, consumers can "vote with their feet" to punish the business, but, in view of several major electric power companies in the home appliance market to form a joint monopoly, consumers have few options, "vote with their feet" leeway. The problem that cannot be solved by market means should be solved by law and administrative means. If the act of cheating a consumer like this is not punishable by law, then the law would degenerate into a "paper tiger", and if regulators were to ignore it, it would allow more businesses to emulate it, trampling on the bottom line of business ethics, not only protecting consumers ' rights, but also disorderly market order.

Hypocrisy of the "electric Dealer price war" was investigated, not only to the war on the credibility of the business to learn, but also warn other businesses, commercial publicity and speculation to have the bottom line, this bottom line is honest and trustworthy, not to deceive consumers, is to comply with laws and regulations. Smart-aleck fooled consumers, and in the end only to the foot. ()