I met my whole family through Baidu Tieba.

Chen Shi walked to the locker counter, pulled up the text message on his phone, and handed it to the sorting clerk behind the counter.

"Hello, I'm here to pick up something I bought online."

The sorting clerk stood in front of the computer at the locker counter. On the computer screen in front of her, after swiping her Beiming prepaid card at the cashier, a new window had popped up with an input box.

"Please scan the code," the sorting clerk said.

Chen Shi took the phone back and read out the numbers from the pickup message: "614578".

The sorting staff enters and clicks on the computer, and new information pops up.

Following the information, the sorter turned around, looked in a newly added goods area, and found Chen Shi's package—a cardboard box.

Chen Shi stared intently at the screen, his hands outstretched, ready to take the computer from him.

The sorting clerk didn't give him the computer immediately. Instead, he placed it on the counter, opened the box himself, and took out a laptop.

"Check it first to see if there are any problems."

So Chen Shi lowered his head and began to examine it.

The machine was newer than he had imagined.

The black magnesium alloy casing gleamed with a calm, matte sheen under the laundry room's fluorescent lights. Upon closer inspection, there was indeed wear on the exterior, exactly in the same locations marked in the photos on the website, but...

Chen Shi's expression was strange.

As he looked up at the picture, he felt that the other party's description of the wear and tear in the picture as "obvious" was a bit excessive.

At the time, he thought that the photos might not have been taken well, and that the wear and tear on the exterior would probably be more obvious in reality than in the pictures.

He was mentally prepared for this.

Upon receiving it and examining it on-site, I realized it was exactly the same as the picture! And the level of wear and tear…

Chen Shi picked up the notebook with both hands and looked at it from the left and right.

If you don't look closely, how much difference is there between this and a brand new one?

He had thought that in reality there might be a "Syrian-damaged version," but to his surprise, it looked almost identical to the new one.

Chen was truly pleasantly surprised.

Then Chen Shi opened his laptop, leaned closer, and carefully examined the screen.

He did indeed see scratches on the screen at the location marked in red on the webpage, just like in the webpage image. It wasn't the situation he had imagined, which might be more serious in reality.

At this point, Chen Shi was quite satisfied.

Finally, Chen Shi turned the notebook over—there was a seal on it, and on the seal was a jumbled ten-digit number.

This is the seal code.

When ordering and paying for this computer, there was a prominent and important notice that read:

Please verify and record the seal code on the machine upon receipt. For after-sales service, please present the seal code; otherwise, this platform reserves the right to refuse after-sales service.

If the seal code is incorrect, please refuse to sign for the package and contact our customer service. If you sign for the package upon receipt, it will be considered that you have confirmed that the seal code is correct.

When Chen Shi saw this message in his dormitory, he was stunned for a moment—the other party refused to provide after-sales service without showing the seal code?

However, he was quite intelligent and quickly figured out the logic behind it:

This seal code is likely part of a mechanism that affixes it when the item leaves the warehouse. This way, as long as you verify the seal code later and it's correct, it means that no one tampered with the item during the process from leaving the warehouse to picking it up, and what you receive is the same item that was there when it left the warehouse.

This "seal code" is probably to prevent someone from having malicious intentions and switching the goods between the time the goods leave the warehouse and the time the customer picks them up.

Only after verifying that the seal code is correct and confirming that the item delivered to the customer is the one that has been shipped out, will the platform confirm the authenticity of the transaction and provide after-sales service.

After figuring out this logic, Chen Shi was no longer alarmed by the message "Otherwise, this platform has the right to refuse after-sales service," but he still felt a little uncomfortable.

"If the customer does not present the seal code, this platform has the right to refuse after-sales service"—this statement makes it sound like the customer is trying to commit insurance fraud.

Chen Shijue, this rule design is flawed; it puts all the pressure on the customer. What if the customer accidentally loses the seal code record, or the seal wears out during use? Will the after-sales service not cover it? Then isn't this warranty just an empty promise?

Chen Shi had even devised his own process in his mind.

He felt that a more reasonable approach would be to give the store clerks the initiative to verify the seals: the system would force the clerks to operate, and when picking up the goods, the customer must be asked to verify the seal code, and the clerk would click to confirm in the system before proceeding to the next step of delivery.

This way, customers don't need to remember or keep the seal code themselves. The system has a record for after-sales service, and store staff can easily check to determine if the machine is original. The responsibility lies with the platform, not the customer. This results in a better customer experience and prevents the machine from being swapped out.

He felt that this solution was much better than the "refusal of insurance without showing the seal code" design of Huanhuan.com.

But what can I do if I'm not the boss?

Therefore, back in his dormitory, Chen Shi could only shake his head and prepare to bring a notebook and pen that night to write down the seal code on the spot, so that he wouldn't be unable to enjoy after-sales service if anything unexpected happened later.

But when Chen Shi received the delivery notification that evening, he knew he no longer needed to carry a notebook and pen.

The delivery notification included a pickup code and a seal code, just like on the website. However, the difference was that the notification directly provided a jumbled ten-digit seal code for the computer he bought.

All he has to do is check the seal code on the item he bought when he picks it up to see if it matches the one in the text message.

At that moment, in the laundry room, Chen Shi was doing just that.

He glanced down at the seal code at the bottom of his notebook, then at the seal code on his phone, and finally looked up at a small screen in front of him—a display device facing the customer, showing a ten-digit seal code.

Because it was garbled text, Chen Shi checked it back and forth several times before he could finally get it right, confirming that the three were consistent and that the seal code was correct.

"without……"

Chen Shi looked up, ready to tell the sorting clerk that the seal code was fine.

It turned out that the sorting staff were not there.

Customers have arrived at the laundry room and are picking up their clothes. The sorting staff are serving them.

Chen Shi waited a moment until the sorting clerk finished serving the other person and came over before he spoke: "No problem."

"If there are no problems, then sign here," the sorting clerk said, handing over a form and a pen.

Chen Shi took the pen, and just as he was about to sign, he suddenly paused.

"I need to turn it on and take a look," Chen Shi said.

An impatience flashed in the sorting clerk's eyes, but he still gestured with his hand, "Okay." Another customer came to pick up their clothes, and the sorting clerk left again for the time being.

Chen Shi pressed the power button, the screen lit up, and the NP boot bar ran for a few seconds before entering the desktop.

He opened "My Computer," and saw that his 80GB hard drive was partitioned into two drives, with the remaining space matching the website description. He then opened Device Manager and checked each item: processor T5600, memory 1.5GHz, graphics card 1300MHz. Every item matched the product description.

He suddenly remembered that top-of-the-line T60 from the 3120—a high-resolution screen, a 1400 graphics card, and a T7200 processor. If he had gritted his teeth and borrowed another thousand yuan from Li Wei back then, that very car would be in front of him now.

However, Chen Shi immediately chuckled: Why didn't he ask Li Wei for three thousand more? Such a hypothesis is meaningless.

He turned off the phone and called over the busy shop assistant.

"No problem."

After signing the form and having the computer installed, Chen Shi carried it away, his heart pounding with excitement: he finally had his own computer!

After leaving Xiaodong Street, Chen Shi's excitement gradually subsided as he approached his dormitory.

Then, for some inexplicable reason, he suddenly remembered something—the way the shop assistants were busy in the laundry room earlier.

Chen Shi suddenly stopped and seemed to be deep in thought.

He thought of the sealing code process he had come up with during the day, which he believed to be better.

If his plan had been followed—with the store clerk leading the verification—the sorting staff would likely not have asked him to check the seals at all.

The sorting worker had been busy all day, with people picking up clothes, delivering clothes, and picking up packages, all lined up like a flowing river. He just wanted to get the process done as quickly as possible. Asking him to proactively remind every customer to check the seal? Asking him to take on that responsibility himself? He might be able to manage it for the first three days, but what about after a month? After six months?

At that time, "verifying the seal" will become a skipped step. The sorting staff will directly click to confirm in the system, and the customer will sign and leave. No one will remember that there is such a thing as a seal.

However, Huanhuan.com's current design does not rely on the sorting staff's sense of responsibility to drive the seal verification, but rather on the customers' own interests.

The platform prominently displays the rule that "seal codes are linked to after-sales service," so customers will naturally check it to ensure their after-sales rights are not voided. No reminders or supervision are needed.

Even if the sorting staff doesn't mention the seal at all, the customer will still look for it themselves. This is because customers care about their after-sales rights, while the sorting staff don't.

This is the core logic of the design—to put the motivation for verification on the person who truly cares about the result.

"Is that so? Was this an unintentional effect, or was it deliberate?... "

Chen Shi stood silently for a long time, lost in thought.

As someone who could get Zhao Lei to obediently go to study and give up his computer while lying in bed without making a sound, Chen Shi was quite proud deep down.

But now, this design made him realize that he hadn't considered things thoroughly enough. It wasn't until he actually arrived on-site and saw the actual environment that he understood the deeper meaning behind the design…

Chen Shi turned around and silently glanced in the direction of Xiaodong Street.

"Damn it, you want to make things difficult for the customers, huh?"