Internet opium: fake orders

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Recently, a piece of news about Uber fake orders went viral on WeChat Moments, saying that many drivers took advantage of loopholes in Uber's rules to grab high subsidies, and some even swiped millions of dollars. There are several ways to swiped orders. The simplest way is to use relatives and friends to place orders for yourself; the more complicated way is to buy a lot of SIM cards to place orders for yourself; the more complicated way is to have a special system that can move the geographical location to generate a completely fake order, thereby earning platform subsidies.

Many people are worried that Uber is in trouble. But what I want to say is that everyone sees that Uber drivers make a lot of money by taking advantage of loopholes. However, from another perspective, thanks to fake orders, Uber city managers have exceeded their order tasks, and Uber's monthly active user data has been raised. Before the business really makes money, Uber can use the order growth to get more financing.

Just like an athlete who wants to participate in a running competition, if he can use stimulants without being investigated, many people will not be able to resist the temptation. And fake orders are the opium of many Internet platforms. The rules of the Internet game are different from those of traditional industries that earn sales price differences. In the early promotion stage, as long as users are subsidized, fake orders will inevitably be triggered.

Let me first tell you about a real O2O front-line case. A game hall offered 2,000 discounted packages of 10 game coins for 1 yuan and sold them on the O2O platform. Local salesmen helped sell game coins and install App software at the door, which could help them win back some marketing expenses.

After a few days of activities, the game hall owner was satisfied, the door was full of people every day, and the O2O substation was satisfied. Although it cost a little marketing fee, it completed the installation and order tasks required by the headquarters. The biggest beneficiaries were the marketing staff of the game hall. They applied for 2,000 copies, bought half of the game coins with their own accounts, and then sold these 10,000 game coins at the market price.

Similar fake order behaviors are repeated on many platforms. For example, the group buying industry is generally sluggish, but many first-tier city managers actually made enough money back then. Several city managers of Meituan worked with merchants to fake orders, monetize traffic, and realize the life event of a house and a car early. The big fake order sellers are movie tickets and buffets. City managers and market managers can work together to buy group-buy movie tickets, and then sell them to customers at the regular price, and the difference is theirs. Some of the more powerful movie theaters can also get platform subsidies.

When it comes to fake orders, JD.com and Alibaba are also big players. Some time ago, a screenshot of JD.com staff guiding merchants to fake orders was made public by the media, triggering a round of discussion about fake orders. Of course, JD.com was not exposed entirely because of fake orders, but because it was exposed that staff guided or even forced merchants to fake orders. After all, secretly taking some opium at home is one thing, and forcing others to take opium is another.

Why is such a "perverted" behavior of fake orders condoned by the platform intentionally or unintentionally? Because there is a strange phenomenon in the Internet industry that "bad boys" are more likely to stand out, that is, athletes who use stimulants will not be punished. After all, the rules of Internet assessment are too simple. Capital parties focus on the number of orders and transaction volume, rather than the company value brought by the price difference of product sales in the traditional commercial sense.

Take group buying as an example. In fact, factors such as gross profit, sales volume, and merchant sustainability should all be considered, but data statisticians only choose the transaction amount as one dimension. Group buying executives will use transaction amount as the main KPI, and sales managers will talk to merchants about only serving transaction amount rather than other orders. When conventional methods cannot meet the endless data needs, fake orders become a life-saving remedy. When the company's performance rises steadily according to the leaders, entrepreneurs have more bargaining chips to negotiate with investors. This is a feast of industry carnival.

This phenomenon often reminds me of a joke. How to get a pig to climb a tree? Option 1, vision incentive: give the pig a beautiful vision and tell it that you are a monkey. Option 2, performance appraisal: tell the pig that if it can't climb up, there will be a pig feast at night. Option 3, copycat effect: cut down the tree and let the pig lie on the tree for a photo. Usually the top management will choose the first option, the middle management will choose the second option, but in fact the grassroots often choose the third option. If you add the argument from the capital side, that is, in the wind, pigs can fly.

The opium of fake orders can create a short-term illusion of perfection for the platform. The Internet industry as a whole attracts more capital to catalyze this false sense of expansion. This strange phenomenon can be called an industry feature or a bubble.

Why do so many platforms with fake orders and corruption not cause irreversible damage in the end? Because milk mixed with water is different from water mixed with milk. If fake orders only account for a small proportion, or are personal behaviors of platform merchants in order to gain a better position and more resources, then it is a small adjustment. I have seen a merchant manually brush 100,000 PVs in order to get a better position, which is the sum of dozens of other merchants. However, if the proportion of fake orders is too high, it is inevitable that it will die suddenly in the end.

For example, Gaopeng had a serious problem of fake orders. Sales managers collected hundreds of thousands of yuan to buy their own group-buying products to earn company subsidies. In order to increase transaction volume, they even used real estate as a group-buying product. This crazy behavior led to the replacement of all managers in the Northeast region and indirectly led to the death of Gaopeng. Of course, there are many reasons for Gaopeng's death, and fake orders are just one of them.

Normal new user acquisition and retention will be assessed based on a certain percentage, while fake orders are simply buying data with money, and there will be no retention afterwards. So now, whoever is immersed in the wonderful illusion brought by opium will eventually swallow the bitter fruit, and the answer will be revealed soon. As an ordinary user, just seize the time to enjoy the benefits brought by this industry.

Here is a piece of information that will subvert your worldview: it is not illegal for individual users to take advantage of loopholes in platform rules to place fake orders and earn subsidies. It is illegal for those who create fake order systems and work with merchants to embezzle company assets.