Compiled from The Paper
 
During "Double 11," L'Oreal pre-sold a product in Li Jiaqi's livestream claiming the lowest price of the year, but later in its own livestream, netizens found the product's price was nearly half cheaper than the pre-sale price. L'Oreal was accused of false advertising, and related hashtags trended on Weibo.

 
 

Case review
At the end of October, several top livestreamers, including Li Jiaqi and Viya, promoted a L'Oréal ampoule mask during their broadcasts. L'Oréal officially claimed it was the "biggest discount of the year," with 50 masks priced at 429 yuan. However, just a few days later, many consumers discovered that on L'Oréal's own livestream channel, they could purchase 50 of the same masks for 257 yuan, nearly half the price.

 
 

Of course, some attentive consumers noted that the reason L'Oréal's brand livestream price was lower than the livestreamers' price was because, after the Double 11 pre-sale ended, L'Oréal continuously released a large number of 999-yuan-off-200-yuan coupons from November 1 to 3. After using these coupons, the transaction price was significantly discounted.
 
Earlier screenshots from netizens showed that, according to the editing history of the "L'Oréal Paris" official Weibo account, L'Oréal posted on October 13 and 14 that "the L'Oréal ampoule mask in Li Jiaqi's livestream on October 20 is the biggest discount of the year." However, on November 11, the above Weibo content had removed the phrase "biggest discount of the year."

 
 

Consumers who found they had paid more in the livestreams flocked to various complaint platforms. On the Black Cat complaint platform, a group of consumers filed a collective complaint: "L'Oréal Paris made false claims, issued a large number of coupons after deposits were paid, deceived consumers, and refused to refund the price difference equally." The number of collective complaints has now exceeded 1,000.
 
 
"Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China"
Article 8
Business operators shall not engage in false or misleading commercial publicity regarding the performance, function, quality, sales status, user reviews, or honors received of their goods, thereby deceiving or misleading consumers.
Business operators shall not assist other business operators in conducting false or misleading commercial publicity by organizing fictitious transactions or other means.
 
 
"Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China"
Article 3
Advertising shall be truthful and lawful, and shall conform to the requirements of socialist spiritual civilization.
 
Article 4
Advertisements must not contain false content, and must not deceive or mislead consumers.

 
 

 
[1] The author's perspective
Currently, the companies of Li Jiaqi and Viya have both issued statements, demanding that L'Oréal provide a proper solution, suspending all cooperation with L'Oréal, and stating that if L'Oréal does not offer a reasonable resolution, they will compensate consumers accordingly. It is evident that the attitude of these two streamers deserves praise from netizens.
 
After this incident escalated for a day, let's look at L'Oréal's official response. L'Oréal issued a late-night apology but avoided addressing key issues such as false advertising and poor after-sales service, merely offering to compensate consumers with a certain number of vouchers. Double 11 should be a "shopping carnival" where consumers get real benefits, not a "trick competition" to fool them. This case, criticized by the China Consumers Association, reflects the depth of merchants' tricks. The market has rules, transactions require integrity, and discounts should be genuine. Profiting through tricks harms customer interests, damages one's own reputation, and undermines the business ecosystem and consumption environment.