Recent reports indicate that merchants have been penalized by Tmall for collaborating with Douyin platform influencers during Double 11 live streaming sales, with the platform canceling subsidy benefits as punishment. Sources suggest Tmall is restricting platform merchants from cooperating with specific Douyin influencers for this year's Double 11 marketing activities, threatening various punitive measures otherwise. The blacklist reportedly includes over ten influencers such as Dong Yuhui, Jia Nailiang, and Make Friends. Additionally, Tmall has demanded that merchants "cannot jump the gun" and that "platform mechanisms cannot be weaker than JD.com, Pinduoduo and other platforms."
**"Choose One" Practice in New Disguise: Restricting Collaboration with Other Platform Streamers**
To maximize promotional period traffic, merchants typically conduct live streaming sales simultaneously across multiple e-commerce platforms including Douyin, Tmall, Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo. Abandoning any platform significantly impacts their traffic and sales performance, particularly during major promotional periods like Double 11 and 618.
More intense traffic competition exists between various e-commerce platforms. To attract more consumers to their platforms, "exclusive brand partnerships" serve as promotional advantages beyond pricing. Therefore, e-commerce platforms with relative dominant positions have historically used explicit or implicit means to require merchants to only settle on their platform and not others. Non-compliant merchants cannot enjoy certain preferential policies or resource support, and may even be expelled from platforms. This factually describes the "choose one" practice. Research institutions have found that nearly 60% of e-commerce merchants reported being required to "choose one" by platforms.
As early as April 10, 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued an Administrative Penalty Decision against Alibaba Group, imposing a fine of 18.228 billion yuan. The reason was that to restrict the development of other competitive platforms and maintain and consolidate its market position, Alibaba abused its dominant position in China's online retail platform service market by implementing "choose one" behaviors. Through prohibiting platform merchants from opening stores on other competitive platforms and participating in promotional activities on other competitive platforms, it restricted platform merchants to only transact with the company, using various reward and punishment measures to ensure implementation. This violated Article 17, Paragraph 1, Item (4) of the Anti-Monopoly Law regarding "without justifiable reasons, restricting transaction counterparts to only transact with it," constituting abuse of market dominant position.
Following Alibaba's "choose one" case, market regulators reiterated the prohibition of such behavior in 2024 Double 11 compliance reminders. However, "choose one" behaviors have not disappeared. Currently, most e-commerce platforms recognize the compliance risks of implementing "choose one" practices, becoming more cautious and covert when using such methods, such as adopting verbal hints via phone calls or using "technical violence" methods like traffic blocking and search downgrading to indirectly force merchants to accept these requirements. Therefore, investigating, gathering evidence, and legally determining such behaviors becomes more difficult.
Tmall's restriction on platform merchants participating in Douyin's Double 11 marketing activities, while temporarily unconfirmable in detail due to being "verbal statements," may potentially constitute "prohibiting platform merchants from participating in promotional activities on other competitive platforms" - the "choose one" behavior identified by regulators. Canceling subsidy benefits was previously explicitly recognized in the Decision as one of the various reward and punishment measures ensuring "choose one" behavior implementation. Similar punishments include reducing promotional activity resource support, canceling promotional activity participation qualifications, search downgrading, and canceling other major platform benefits.
Dr. Xu Zelin, Special Associate Researcher at East China University of Political Science and Law's Digital Rule of Law Research Institute, stated that Tmall's "prohibition on cooperating with specific top influencers" directly interferes with merchants' operational autonomy on other competitive platforms. These top influencers are important traffic and sales channels in the Douyin ecosystem. Restricting merchant usage essentially weakens Douyin's platform competitiveness and hinders brands from optimally allocating resources across the internet.
Dr. Xu further analyzed that Tmall's current behavior is essentially consistent with its previously penalized "choose one" behavior, representing a variant and upgrade of "choose one." Both core approaches involve using market dominant positions to weaken competitors by imposing unreasonable restrictions or punishments on merchants. This behavior no longer prohibits opening stores on competitive platforms but prohibits merchants from using competitive platforms' core competitive resources. In the current context where e-commerce content and live streaming sales have become important growth points, the impact is more precise.
**The Cost of "Lowest Price Across the Web": Monopolistic Concerns of Platform Most Favored Nation Clauses**
In recent years, consumption has become more rational, with users pursuing cost-effectiveness. Therefore, during promotional periods, platforms' major competitive weapon is typically: lowest price across the web. Beyond competing on subsidies and coupons, e-commerce platforms with relative dominant positions also make demands on product pricing.
Liu Xu, Special Researcher at Tsinghua University's National Strategy Institute, stated that if platforms require merchants to provide the most favorable prices or trading conditions, or prohibit lower prices on other platforms, this potentially constitutes "most favored nation clauses." According to Article 7, Paragraph 2 of the Anti-Monopoly Guidelines for Platform Economy issued in 2021: Platform operators requiring platform merchants to provide trading conditions equal to or better than other competitive platforms in terms of product prices and quantities may constitute monopolistic agreements or abuse of market dominant position. Since Alibaba allegedly holds market dominant position, requiring merchants that "platform mechanisms cannot be weaker than JD.com, Pinduoduo and other platforms" may constitute abuse of dominant position by setting unreasonable trading conditions.
Dr. Xu Zelin also believes the "mechanisms cannot be weaker than other platforms" behavior potentially constitutes "most favored nation treatment" clauses. Such clauses require merchants to provide optimal prices and preferential conditions across the web on Tmall platform. This stifles the possibility for JD.com, Pinduoduo and other platforms to attract merchants through differentiated competitive strategies, leading to rigid inter-platform competition that ultimately harms consumer interests.
**Protecting Fair Competition and Stimulating Market Vitality**
Dr. Xu Zelin stated that objectively, Tmall's current behavior is a typical reflection of intensified platform economy competition, with questionable legality. For merchants, joint rights protection and complaints to regulatory departments are effective approaches for safeguarding their rights and market competition order. For the entire industry, how to avoid falling into vicious ecosystem lockdowns and return to healthy competition based on user value is a question requiring deep consideration by all parties.
Professor Sun Jin from Wuhan University Law School also indicated that regulatory departments have many tools available for governing "choose one" behaviors. "Choose one" behaviors that should receive negative evaluation under the Anti-Monopoly Law and require strict investigation first need recognition of operators having "market dominant position" - a complex legal judgment and application process. However, beyond using the Anti-Monopoly Law to impose hefty fines, enforcement departments can also approach from the Anti-Unfair Competition Law or guide enterprises toward positive competition through soft governance methods like interviews and guidance.
Currently, China's economy has entered a high-quality development stage, with past extensive growth models long gone. Many merchants are already facing transformation challenges while exploring future development directions. As platforms, they should find ways to reduce merchant burdens, provide good services, and progress together. If they only pursue their own competitive advantages by abusing scale and market advantages to coerce merchants into abandoning multi-channel operations, they will ultimately lose user and public trust.