Atlaspost Tech Corp. & Zhen Long Consolidated Marketing Co., Ltd.

Case:

Key Words:

listed price, group buy website

Reference:

Fair Trade Commission Decision of November 30, 2011 (the 1047th Commissioners' Meeting), Disposition Kung Ch’u Tzu No. 100237

Industry:

Data Processing, Website Hosting and Related Services (6312)

Relevant Laws:

Article 21(1) of the Fair Trade Law

Summary:

1. In the advertisement posted on Groupon's group buy website for Kuo Yuan Ye moon cake gift sets, Atlaspost Tech Corp. (hereinafter referred to as Atlaspost) and Zhen Long consolidated Marketing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhen Long) claimed"NT$790 (including delivery fee) for Kuo Yuan Ye Century Autumn Festival Classic Jin Feng (transliteration) 3-tier 30-piece Gift Set at 50% discount from the listed price of NT$1,580."However, compared to the price of the same product on Kuo Yuan Ye's official website, what was claimed in the above advertisement was actually only a 10% discount. The listed price and discount quoted were inconsistent with reality. The advertisement was apparently untrue.
2. The product at issue – the Classic Jin Feng gift set – was in fact a market-testing package Kuo Yuan Ye Foods (hereinafter referred to as Kuo Yuan Ye) had put out before releasing the official product. Kuo Yuan Ye has never included the product in its official catalog or promoted it on the market. Besides Zhen Long, the gift sets had also been sold to other businesses. In other words, they had not been particularly designed for Zhen Long. The investigation also showed that the content of Classic Jin Feng seemed similar to that of another gift set named"Jin Feng Niang Yue"found in Kuo Yuan Ye's catalog, but the packaging was different and therefore the price of the latter could not be cited as the"listed price". Another finding of the investigation indicated that Kuo Yuan Ye only sold its moon cake gift sets by the box and never in separately pieces or units. Therefore, there were no unit prices for reference and Zhen Long's claim of the listed price of NT$1,580 as the total prices of the individual items was groundless. Furthermore, as Zhen Long confessed that the"listed price"was the result of the addition of prices of the individual items taken from the Internet, making it impossible to accept that the calculation of the listed price had any relation with the prices of Kuo Yuan Ye's products it was marketing, let alone the validity of the"listed price"being Kuo Yuan Ye's calculation. In addition, Kuo Yuan Ye confirmed that it had never sold the product at that price through any sales channel. Consequently, the wording of"…listed price of NT$1,580…at 50% discount"was a false, untrue and misleading representation with regard to price of product in violation of Article 21 of the Fair Trade Law. Acting according to Article 41 (1) of the Fair Trade Law, the Commission ordered Atlaspost and Zhen Long to immediately cease the unlawful act and also imposed an administrative fine of NT$100,000 on each.

Appendix:
Atlaspost Tech Corp.'s Uniform Invoice Number: 28481887
Zhen Long Integrated Marketing Co., Ltd.'s Uniform Invoice Number: 25021191

Summarized by Chen, Jen-Ying; Supervised by Chen, Chun-Ting