Chinese retailer Miniso’s founder slams ByteDance-owned Douyin for exorbitant fees

This marks the second high-profile bashing of Douyin over the past several days, involving some of the wealthiest individuals in China

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The social media and e-commerce operations of ByteDance-owned Douyin have been subject to strong criticism. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 6:00pm, 28 Nov 2024

Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok with domestic e-commerce operations, has been slammed for charging exorbitant promotion fees amid insufficient sales by the head of Chinese budget retailer Miniso Group, which runs multiple stores on the ByteDance-owned platform.

Miniso founder and chief executive Ye Guofu, 47, levelled his criticism of Douyin via his WeChat post on Wednesday that showed a video from online influencer Johnknow-nothing, who asserted in his recorded post that the ability of merchants to sell goods on the ByteDance platform was “deteriorating”. Miniso’s stores on Douyin sell a variety of lifestyle products such as beauty tools, toys and apparel.

Citing figures from the video, Ye said Douyin in 2023 recorded a gross merchandise volume (GMV) of 2 trillion yuan (US$276 billion), of which 40 per cent was refunded, while total advertising revenue reached 400 billion yuan in the same period.

In response to the social-media posts, a representative from Douyin said: “The figures [cited] are untrue.”

Neither Miniso nor the online influencer immediately responded to a request for comment. The WeChat posts of Ye and the influencer that targeted Douyin were no longer online as of noon on Thursday.

Miniso Group founder and chief executive Ye Guofu. Photo: Getty Images

Miniso’s fault-finding post marks the second high-profile bashing of Douyin over the past several days, involving some of the wealthiest individuals on the mainland.