Ebrun Research: Seven Ministries Launch 'Five Excellence' Initiative for Quality E-Commerce, Reshaping Online Competition Dynamics

[Ebrun Original] On October 10, the Ministry of Commerce, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the State Post Bureau jointly issued the "Notice on Implementing the 'Five Excellence' Action for Quality E-Commerce" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"). The Notice outlines 15 specific measures across five areas: organizing e-commerce platforms for "Excellence in Quality Promotion," supporting various merchants in "Excellence in Quality Creation," facilitating consumers in "Excellence in Quality Selection," guiding Silk Road e-commerce in "Excellence in Quality Competition," and strengthening standards for "Long-Term Quality Protection." This marks a systematic policy deployment for the development of quality e-commerce since the "Action Plan to Boost Consumption" proposed "vigorously cultivating quality e-commerce." The Notice combines quality enhancement with regulating competition, proposing policy measures across platform governance, merchant cultivation, consumer guidance, international cooperation, and industry standards, providing new policy guidance for the e-commerce industry to explore high-quality development pathways.

I. Policy Rationale for the Joint Deployment and Systematic Implementation of the Quality E-Commerce Action

Cultivating quality e-commerce is a key measure to implement consumption-boosting policies. In March 2025, the General Offices of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the "Action Plan to Boost Consumption," which explicitly proposed "deepening the digital consumption enhancement initiative and vigorously cultivating quality e-commerce." In April 2026, the Ministry of Commerce and five other departments further proposed implementing a quality e-commerce cultivation action in policies related to promoting high-quality development of e-commerce. The "Five Excellence" action is the concrete implementation of these policy deployments. In 2025, national online retail sales reached 15.97 trillion yuan, with physical goods online retail sales accounting for 26.1% of total retail sales of consumer goods. E-commerce's impact on product supply, consumption habits, and industrial development is increasingly profound, and the quality of e-commerce development directly affects the actual effectiveness of consumption-boosting efforts. Encouraging platforms and merchants to place greater emphasis on product quality and service experience helps improve consumer supply, enhance residents' willingness to consume, and drive upstream and downstream industry chains to upgrade product and service quality.

E-commerce urgently needs to move away from excessive reliance on price-based competition. The intense competition in the e-commerce sector mirrors and amplifies macroeconomic challenges. The market currently faces both an oversupply of homogeneous low-price goods and insufficient satisfaction of high-quality consumption demand. Relying solely on price cuts to compete for market share cannot fundamentally resolve this structural supply-demand contradiction. In response, the Notice requires, on one hand, promoting platform rules to shift toward quality orientation, strengthening quality indicators such as product quality, service reputation, and credit information; on the other hand, it explicitly calls for rectifying disorderly competitive behaviors like "automatic price matching" and "lowest price across platforms," and regulating platform commission structures and merchant rating rules. Optimizing platform rules and the market competition environment to create more favorable operating conditions for quality merchants will become a key focal point for driving high-quality industry development.

Quality orientation is an inevitable requirement for the long-term internationalization of e-commerce. The externalization of domestic e-commerce competition can easily trigger local industry protection and overseas regulatory risks, negatively impacting products' international image. Operating models that rely solely on low-price distribution to gain market share face both geopolitical policy risks and the risk of being undercut in low-price competition, leaving increasingly limited room for growth. Against the backdrop of e-commerce globalization, where the global e-commerce market is expected to sustain an annual growth rate of around 7%, the growth potential for Chinese e-commerce platforms, merchants, and products lies in leveraging supply chain and design engineer advantages, capitalizing on e-commerce operational and user experience strengths, and shifting toward scaled, high-quality growth in international cooperation and competition. The Notice specifically includes a section on "Excellence in Quality Competition" for Silk Road e-commerce, proposing to promote the establishment of "brand + quality" dual review mechanisms and product traceability systems on overseas-facing platforms, while deepening multilateral and bilateral Silk Road e-commerce cooperation to accelerate the implementation of outcomes such as "one declaration, two reports," electronic bills of lading, and cross-border identity authentication.

II. What are the Policy Focal Points of the 'Five Excellence' Action?

1. Platform traffic allocation mechanisms should strengthen quality orientation. The traffic mechanisms of e-commerce platforms are a critical factor affecting merchant operations. For a long time, price and sales volume have carried significant weight in traffic allocation on some platforms, meaning quality merchants—even when investing more in R&D, materials, production, and services—may not receive corresponding traffic support. Ebrun Research's 2025 quality e-commerce survey shows that 37.5% of surveyed platforms have not established independent weightage for product quality in their traffic allocation mechanisms; among platforms that have set quality weightage, the proportion is generally below 20%. The Notice explicitly requires promoting continuous optimization of product display, recommendation, and marketing activity mechanisms on e-commerce platforms, strengthening quality orientation through product quality, service reputation, and credit information, and facilitating better reach of quality goods and services to consumers. The document clarifies the direction for optimizing platform traffic allocation mechanisms. In the future, how platforms establish scientific and reasonable quality evaluation systems and how they reflect quality differences in traffic allocation will become key aspects of policy implementation.

2. Platform quality management should advance toward regularization and systematization. The Notice places more systematic requirements on platform quality management. One notable measure is guiding e-commerce platforms to establish a chief quality officer system, promoting systematic construction of quality management systems, and improving online service quality evaluation systems. Additionally, it proposes deepening the empowerment of administrative data verification, supporting the provision of merchant license information verification and comparison services to e-commerce platforms to enhance qualification review efficiency and risk prevention and control; and promoting the use of electronic authentication services provided by credible service providers to improve the reliability and convenience of contract signing. These measures involve organizational construction, merchant qualification review, and operational services in platform quality management, helping to elevate the professionalism and standardization of platform quality governance.

3. Quality merchants should focus on investment in R&D and design. Regarding the cultivation of quality merchants, the Notice proposes multiple support measures, including customized training for small and medium-sized merchants, improving brand cultivation service systems, implementing "e-commerce + industrial belt" cultivation actions, and supporting foreign trade-quality products in expanding into the domestic market. The document explicitly proposes prioritizing support for small and medium-sized merchants with core technologies and original designs in connecting with e-commerce channels to enhance brand visibility. This arrangement helps address the insufficient market development capabilities of small and medium-sized quality merchants. The Notice also proposes promoting the deep integration of artificial intelligence with e-commerce, innovating service models such as intelligent agents. This indicates that digital technology applications like AI are also included in the policy support scope for quality e-commerce cultivation.

4. Major consumption nodes should feature quality-themed activities. Ebrun Research survey data shows that 76.9% of consumers believe that difficulty in assessing product quality through online information is a major barrier to choosing quality products. Meanwhile, 72% of consumers deliberately wait for major promotional periods to place orders, reflecting the impact of low-price promotions on consumption habits. The Notice specifically includes an "Excellence in Quality Selection" section, proposing quality-themed consumption promotion activities around major consumption nodes, building integrated online-offline quality consumption experience centers, and providing consumption guidance to help consumers identify quality goods and services. Additionally, the Notice proposes improving logistics fulfillment capabilities and delivery timeliness, and encouraging financial institutions to cooperate with e-commerce platforms in a standardized manner to better meet residents' quality consumption needs. These measures extend quality e-commerce cultivation to consumption experience and service aspects, helping to enhance consumer awareness and trust in quality goods and services.

5. Quality e-commerce should establish long-term standards and governance mechanisms. The sustainable development of quality e-commerce requires corresponding quality standards, industry rules, and supervision mechanisms. The Notice proposes launching an e-commerce standards benefit enterprise action, accelerating the development of standards for e-commerce product and service provision and quality assurance, and promoting enterprises to benchmark against and meet these standards. Meanwhile, it strengthens supervision and law enforcement in the e-commerce sector, corrects disorderly competitive behaviors, cracks down on illegal activities such as fake reviews and transaction fraud, and establishes communication mechanisms between e-commerce platforms and small and medium-sized merchants. In terms of industry self-regulation, the Notice proposes promoting the formation of a national e-commerce industry organization, strengthening coordination between industry organizations and consumer associations, and formulating and improving industry codes of conduct. Overall, this policy emphasizes both guiding quality competition through market mechanisms and valuing the safeguarding role of standards and industry governance, providing more complete policy support for the long-term development of quality e-commerce.

III. What Changes Might the 'Five Excellence' Action Bring?

E-commerce platforms: Highlighting quality operation and management capabilities. The Notice places two requirements on e-commerce platforms: first, optimizing product display, recommendation, and marketing activity mechanisms to direct traffic toward quality goods and services; second, improving quality management systems, strengthening merchant qualification review and risk prevention, and enhancing platform operation and management levels. In the short term, some platforms may need to increase investment in quality management and technology system construction. In the long run, improved quality management helps reduce product quality disputes, enhance consumer shopping experiences, strengthen user trust, and cultivate more stable competitive advantages for platforms.

E-commerce merchants: Highlighting quality and brand building capabilities. For merchants, the policy signals encouragement for quality operations, brand building, and product innovation. On one hand, merchants with core technologies, original designs, and strong quality management capabilities are expected to gain more market opportunities through measures such as platform rule optimization, industrial belt cultivation, brand incubation, and channel connection. On the other hand, as platform quality management and industry supervision enforcement continue to strengthen, operating behaviors that rely on low quality, low prices, and fake reviews to gain competitive advantages will face further constraints. It is worth noting that quality operations do not simply mean raising product prices. For the vast number of small and medium-sized merchants, reasonably controlling costs, stabilizing product quality, and improving after-sales services are equally important components of quality competition.

Cross-border e-commerce enterprises: Highlighting compliance, quality, and brand globalization capabilities. The Notice proposes promoting the establishment of "brand + quality" dual review mechanisms and product traceability systems on overseas-facing platforms, and strengthening anti-monopoly compliance guidance for e-commerce going global. This means that platforms and merchants need to place greater emphasis on product quality, brand qualifications, and operational compliance to reduce risks arising from disorderly low-price competition. For merchants that have long relied on low-price distribution without brand accumulation, increased quality review and compliance requirements may raise operating costs. However, for enterprises that prioritize product R&D, quality control, and brand building, a more standardized market environment is conducive to leveraging their competitive advantages. Additionally, the Notice proposes deepening multilateral and bilateral Silk Road e-commerce cooperation, and cross-border e-commerce enterprises are expected to gain more convenient trade conditions, promoting a shift in Chinese e-commerce from relying on price advantages to expanding markets through quality, brand, and service competition.

Consumers: Enhancing consumption experience and ability to identify quality products. For consumers, the direct impact of the Notice is mainly reflected in two aspects: product selection and shopping experience. As platforms gradually optimize product display and recommendation mechanisms, consumers are expected to access quality goods that better meet their needs more conveniently. Measures such as consumption guidance and quality consumption experience centers also help address the difficulty of judging product quality in online shopping. Meanwhile, improvements in logistics fulfillment, consumer services, and dispute resolution will further enhance the convenience and security of online consumption. It is important to recognize that consumers' attention to price is objectively reasonable. Cultivating quality consumption requires enabling consumers to fully understand differences in quality, performance, and service across products, and to make reasonable choices based on their own needs.

This article was first published on the official website of Ebrun.