Chances are, as a member of NYU Shanghai, you have attempted to navigate Taobao in your past semesters. But if not, my non-Chinese friends describe Taobao as “a website feeling like Amazon and much better than Amazon,” Cheap, massive, convenient and providing quick transportation --- all of these qualities have shaped Taobao as the symbol of China’s growing online shopping atmosphere. Where there is money, there is a way. Nowadays, users who write especially negative reviews of Taobao products online in order to blackmail the sellers have gradually come into public view. Labeled as “negative sock puppet masters,” ‘masters’ conveys not only their professionality, but also their organizational skills, making them tricky to deal with. Imagine a group of cunning masters have just sieged a new type of cleaning foam on Taobao. The good comes with free shipping and the product is only one yuan each. Now, five of these “puppet masters” buy the goods. Let’s say each puppet master takes three. The money that they lose from purchasing the product is not detrimental, and it is discussed between all five puppet masters. Some of these “puppet masters” disagree and argue that “in these days, 80% of the sellers are willing to pay at least ten yuan to erase the negative comments!” After some time of discussion on WeChat, they have made the resolution to buy the Taobao product. Then, in under 5 minutes, they buy five foams, scorning the products with hyperbolized complaints. Just as they masters expected, the seller does not hesitate to pay ten yuan to the puppet masters, ending the blackmail scheme. Now, you may have two questions: Why are the sellers so concerned about the negative comments? Why can’t the sellers appeal to the justice system and fight against those “negative sock puppet masters”? I’ll answer your questions one by one, solving the problem in a very “Chinese” way. First, why are the sellers so concerned about the negative comments? Even if you simply search “plastic tape” on Taobao, the search will yield over 1300 online shops, varying in size and location. Which shop will you click on? Abiding by the same principles of your experiences in physical shops, you will inevitably choose the shop with highest reputation. The reputation of online shops on Taobao are reflected by the “diamonds” of the shops, which are shown on the homepage of every shop. Most people will rank these shops by “credibility” -- the shops with the highest credibility will be shown on the first pages of the result. The profit of the high-credibility shops is dramatically higher than the others. With thousands of shops fiercely competing against each other, “credibility” becomes absolutely crucial. As you may have guessed, the credibility of every shop is determined by the reviews given by customers who have used the goods. Customers can choose to give “good comments”, “just so-so comments” and “negative comments”. A negative comment is practically deadly to a shop as it will lower their credibility, decreasing the shop’s probability of being listed on the front page of Taobao. Therefore, sellers are willing to try every means to persuade their customers to revise that comment —— they may return the payment, send extra presents, or even write letters to disgruntled customers. That still leaves the question, why can’t the sellers appeal to the justice system and fight against these “Negative sock puppet masters”? The online justice system in China is far from perfect. People hope that someday Taobao itself can establish a justice system and recognise those negative masters. However, experts have alerted the public that this is the worst time, with negative masters ganging up with staff members of Taobao, which means that you can never trust those so-called credibility ratings. For all of these reasons, we are still continuing to establish a “check and balance” system of online shopping. As students of NYU Shanghai, it is important to be aware of these issues when you use Taobao.

This article was written by Zoe Jordan. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: http://tech.qq.com/a/20121012/000045.htm