On August 19, the provincial consumer council, together with consumer protection organizations from nine other western regions, issued a joint initiative aimed at guiding business operators toward compliant e-commerce platform registration and rational online sales strategies.

The initiative, covering Chongqing, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Yunnan, and Guizhou, seeks to shield merchants from fraudulent third-party intermediaries and collectively foster a cleaner digital marketplace environment.

Consumer protection authorities highlight two primary scam patterns used by unregulated intermediaries. The first involves charging upfront fees under the guise of operational services or platform management, only to deliver subpar assistance or vanish entirely after payment. The second lures merchants with promises of "zero barriers and zero service fees," then leverages hidden contract clauses to force below-cost promotional pricing, leaving businesses trapped in a cycle where every order generates losses.

To avoid these pitfalls, operators are advised to prioritize official platform channels and complete registration independently. Before onboarding, merchants should prepare valid and comprehensive documentation, including business licenses and industry permits, ensuring all registered information accurately reflects actual operations while following official guidelines for a standardized entry process.

In daily online operations, the initiative encourages sellers to move beyond the misguided "traffic-first, quality-last" mindset, building reputations through superior products and services. Businesses should carefully select suitable e-commerce platforms based on their product categories and target audiences, avoiding reckless multi-platform expansion and reducing over-reliance on outsourced operations. Online promotions must truthfully represent products and physical store conditions, eliminating false advertising and mismatched deliveries to minimize consumer disputes.

The consumer organizations from all ten regions jointly call on merchants to abandon speculative thinking, safeguard core account credentials, consciously resist destructive low-price competition, uphold integrity and compliance standards, and fulfill primary responsibilities in consumer rights protection. Together, they aim to build a secure, orderly, and trustworthy online consumption ecosystem.