5,000 Assured Consumption Clusters: Why should rights protection be shifted from "after the incident" to "before placing an order"?

What is the most frustrating part of shopping?

It is not necessarily spending dozens of extra yuan, but suddenly being trapped in a "find-someone race" once a problem arises:

You contact customer service, only to be told to turn to the merchant; you reach out to the merchant, who redirects you to the platform; after you get through to the platform, you are asked to upload the order, chat records, unboxing videos... In the end, consumers not only have to prove that the product is defective, but also prove that "the problem was not caused by themselves".

Sometimes, to return a product worth a hundred or dozens of yuan, the time cost invested is even higher than the value of the product itself.

In September, the State Administration for Market Regulation unveiled a target for the development of a consumer-friendly environment: by 2030, there will be more than 5,000 national reassuring consumption clusters across the country, and the widespread coverage of reassuring consumption entities in key sectors will be promoted.

The truly noteworthy part of this policy is not whether more "reassuring consumption" signs will appear on the street, but that the starting point of consumer governance is changing — shifting from safeguarding rights after problems occur, to identifying risks before placing an order, having clear commitments during transactions, and enabling nearby handling once problems arise.

To put it more plainly:

In the past, efforts were mainly focused on "what to do after a complaint is filed", while now research is being carried out on "how to reduce the likelihood that consumers will have to file a complaint in the first place".

01

A single sign matters little, what counts is who stands behind it

First of all, two concepts need to be distinguished: reassuring consumption entity and reassuring consumption cluster.

A reassuring consumption entity can be a supermarket, a restaurant, a factory outlet, or even a live streaming room. It targets individual business operators: what commitments the store makes, who to contact if there is a product problem, and how after-sales services are handled.

A reassuring consumption cluster covers a larger scope, which can be a shopping mall, a commercial street, a scenic spot, or a specialized market.

The biggest difference between the two lies not only in the area and the number of merchants.

In the past, when a problem occurred in a store, consumers usually could only contact the store on their own. Under the cluster model, the operation and management parties of shopping malls, commercial streets and scenic spots are also pushed to the front line, participating in formulating service specifications, managing settled merchants and mediating consumer disputes.

This is equivalent to adding a "general service desk" to the consumption relationship.

For example, when dining in a food street, consumers encountering problems with food quality, charging or service do not have to look for the specific merchant among the crowd every time. Whether the street management party has a unified complaint entry, can contact the merchant first, and records the merchant's handling results will directly affect the consumer experience.

Therefore, the real value of the 5,000 clusters does not lie in the number itself, but in whether three things are established:

Unified service standards, clear responsibility subjects, and a merchant management mechanism that can be truly implemented.

If only a sign is hung up, while the management party still claims no responsibility for any problems caused by merchants, it is nothing more than a superficial renovation.

02

The first step to being "reassuring" is to put commitments in place before consumption

Consumers often hear a phrase: "The merchant reserves the right of final interpretation."

What makes this phrase uncomfortable is that after the transaction is completed, the rules seem to be subject to change at any time.

The first problem that the reassuring consumption cultivation initiative aims to solve is to make operators' commitments as transparent as possible before consumption.

According to the currently disclosed plan, operators' commitments will focus on areas including safety, quality, price, service and dispute resolution; clusters will also improve mechanisms such as first-question responsibility, online dispute resolution and settled merchant management.

For consumers, these terms should not only stay in official documents, but be translated into several easy-to-understand questions:

Can the product be returned? Under what circumstances can it not be returned? How many days will it take for the refund to arrive? Are there any additional conditions for promotional prices? Is the product displayed in the live streaming room consistent with the actual delivered product? Who should I contact first once a problem occurs?

Commitments that are more specific lead to lower uncertainty during consumption.

Take an example.

If a restaurant only posts "operate with integrity", consumers can hardly figure out what it actually means. If it clearly publicizes the dish prices, measurement methods, reservation cancellation rules and complaint channels, consumers can judge whether there are any easily overlooked traps before ordering meals.

Similarly, a live streaming room with the eye-catching slogan "one fake, ten compensate" is not enough — what matters more is: who will identify the authenticity? What materials do consumers need to provide? Will the platform participate in the handling? How is the compensation period calculated?

A truly valuable commitment should be enforceable, rather than just being suitable for posting on a poster.

03

What clusters aim to solve is the problem of "who is responsible"

Many consumer disputes in reality do not lack clear rules, but have an overly long responsibility chain.

When you buy a defective product in a shopping mall, the brand tells you to contact the distributor; the distributor says identification from the manufacturer is required; the shopping mall states that it can only assist in communication.

When placing an order in a live streaming room, the anchor, merchant, platform and logistics provider may all be involved in the transaction. Once a problem arises, consumers can easily get stuck in the middle of all parties.

Therefore, an important change in cluster governance is to clarify "who will receive the consumer first".

This is exactly where the value of the first-question responsibility mechanism lies: consumers do not need to figure out the complete business relationship first, nor do they have to judge whether they should contact the brand, the store or the property management. The first responsible subject that receives the complaint should help handle the problem first, instead of pushing the consumer away immediately.

The exploration in Zhejiang provides an observable sample. So far, some local merchants have been connected to the "one-click reconciliation" mechanism for consumer disputes, covering more than 80,000 merchants. Around 11,000 disputes have been resolved by operators themselves, with a reconciliation success rate of 88%.

This figure cannot represent the whole country, nor does it mean that all consumer problems can be solved quickly, but it at least shows that if the complaint entry, merchant contact and handling process are well connected, a part of disputes do not have to wait for administrative intervention to be resolved.

For consumers, it saves their time; for merchants, it may save the costs caused by escalated customer complaints, platform penalties and reputation damage.

04

Only when credit can bring business benefits will merchants be motivated to participate earnestly

Why are merchants willing to participate in the reassuring consumption cultivation initiative?

If there are only obligations but no benefits, operators will easily regard it as a routine inspection task that they have to cooperate with. A truly sustainable mechanism should allow rule-abiding merchants to get returns.

The returns do not necessarily have to be direct cash grants.

According to the plan disclosed by the market regulation authorities, operators with good credit are expected to obtain brand display opportunities, consumption scenario promotion, financial services and more precise regulatory arrangements in the future. Relevant information may also be connected with e-commerce platforms, navigation software and third-party applications, forming a "reassuring consumption map".

When consumers open the map, they can not only check the location of a store, but also view information of the business entity, service commitments, consumer reviews and dispute handling entry.

The commercial significance of this initiative is straightforward: reducing trust costs.

Suppose there are 20 restaurants on the same street, and a first-time consumer has no idea which one is more reliable. In the past, they could only judge by the decoration, the number of people queuing and online reviews; if business commitments, credit records and dispute handling methods are more transparent, consumers will have an extra set of judgment basis.

For merchants that operate in good faith, this is equivalent to turning their years of accumulated credit into visible customer flow.

Zhejiang has also explored financial services for relevant business entities. The "Reassuring Loan" program has covered 147 clusters, benefiting 41,600 merchants with a total loan size of over 180 billion yuan.

It should be noted that participating in the cultivation initiative does not mean that merchants can directly get cash subsidies, nor does it guarantee that they will definitely get loans. It conveys a clear direction: credit is not just an honor hanging on the wall, but can also affect financing costs, brand exposure and business opportunities.

Only when "abiding by the rules" can bring real benefits, will reassuring consumption not become a one-off sign-hanging activity.

05

Even with the "reassuring" label, consumers should not place orders blindly

A clear boundary should also be drawn here.

Reassuring consumption entities and clusters are neither government-provided guarantees for every transaction, nor certifications that "no disputes will ever occur".

As long as transactions exist in the market, problems such as product quality issues, service understanding discrepancies, delivery damage or refund disputes may arise. What the reassuring consumption mechanism does is to reduce the probability of problems occurring and improve the efficiency of problem solving, rather than promising that all risks will disappear.

Moreover, the current relevant cultivation initiative emphasizes voluntary participation of operators, no mandatory indicators will be assigned to merchants, and it cannot be simply interpreted as a mandatory certification.

After seeing the "reassuring consumption" label, consumers should still pay attention to four things:

First, look at the specific content of the commitment, not just the sign. In particular, check the rules for return and exchange, pricing, warranty and dispute handling.

Second, confirm the actual business entity. For live streaming shopping, especially check the delivery merchant, after-sales entity and platform responsibilities, do not only recognize the name of the anchor.

Third, keep the order, invoice, payment record and promotion page. Without preserved evidence of the commitment, it is still difficult to restore the truth when a dispute occurs.

Fourth, check whether the problem can be solved nearby. Whether the shopping mall has a service desk, whether the commercial street has a unified complaint entry, and whether the platform can contact the merchant online, all these are more practical than a simple slogan of "operate with integrity".

If the operator cannot handle the problem properly, consumers can still report the issue through channels such as 12315 in accordance with the law.

06

To make consumers willing to spend, first remove their fear of falling into traps

Boosting consumption is often understood as launching more discounts, holding events and distributing consumption coupons.

These measures do work, but consumer confidence also has a more simple side: what consumers worry about is not that there is nothing to buy, but that it is too troublesome to solve problems after making a wrong purchase.

A product that is 20 yuan cheaper may require two hours of rights protection; a restaurant set meal that looks favorable may suddenly have additional restrictions when paying the bill; a live streaming room that shouts "last ten orders" may have no responsible person to be found when after-sales service is needed.

These seemingly trivial experiences, when accumulated, will erode consumers' willingness to spend.

To give full play to the role of the 5,000 reassuring consumption clusters, we should not only answer the question of "where is more reassuring", but also answer the following questions:

What commitments have merchants made? Who supervises the implementation of these commitments? Who will take over the disputes first once they occur? Can the handling results affect the credit records of merchants? Can trustworthy merchants get more business opportunities as a result?

What consumers need is never a sign that guarantees no problems will ever happen.

Instead, they want to know clearly what they are getting before placing an order, have clear rules during the transaction, and have a dedicated person to turn to once a problem arises.

When rights protection is no longer a time-consuming and laborious "level-breaking game", consumer confidence can truly spread from official documents to shopping malls, restaurants, scenic spots and live streaming rooms.

References:

1. State Administration for Market Regulation: Transcript of the Special Press Conference on "Carrying out Cultivation of Reassuring Consumption Entities and Clusters to Help Boost Consumer Confidence", September 8, 2026.

2. State Administration for Market Regulation and other departments: Notice on Carrying out the Cultivation of Reassuring Consumption Entities and Clusters.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "BT Finance" (ID: btcjv1), authored by BT Finance, authorized for release by 36Kr.