The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner, recently punished retail giants Suning, Gome and 360buy.com for allegedly cheating shoppers during the highly-publicized online price war which landed the three in the media spotlight last month.

While the NDRC's censure of these firms may offer those who ran afoul of this pricing war some emotional consolation, we should all take this incident as a lesson about protecting our legal rights as customers.

Indeed, prior to the NDRC's investigation into these giants, many customers had noticed that the three had raised their prices shortly before the supposed "war" began only to then offer discounts which still placed products above their original prices - a maneuver which breaches China's consumer protection laws - yet no shoppers came forward to challenge the three firms legally.

The author is Lou Shiqiang, a commentator.