The U.S. government indictment demonstrated deep knowledge of the Russian spies’ activities, including their real-world meetings at a cafe in Moscow. Many also questioned the validity of entertaining features in Pinduoduo’s value proposition. “We have observed that a few users find shopping on Pinduoduo to be very entertaining, which is attributable to its extremely low pricing and interaction among Weixin users,” according to research institute deutsche bank remains bullish on apple stock; sees 30% upside 86 Research. “They don’t really understand how the other makes money,” Huang said to Bloomberg. Set up a store for free on the Pinduoduo Seller app with a phone number and a verified ID card. As of 2019, Pinduoduo has amassed a 7.3% market share, coming behind JD.com (16.7%) and Alibaba (55.9%) according to eMarketer.
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But the growth of Pinduoduo has sparked an argument focusing on whether the platform represents consumption downgrading. It is just one more piece of evidence for how big and segmented the Chinese market can be. Rising income may give part of Chinese urban citizens the freedom to vote for quality, but RMB 1 difference in price tag may be enough of an incentive for their countryside counterparts, who have been more neglected by e-commerce so far.
But even more impressive is its 7-day retention rate of 77%, the highest of any e-commerce platform in China. This retention comes from the continuous re-engagement at the prospect of winning deep discounts. It’s the combination of the viral acquisition loop and the addictive shopping experience that has caused Pinduoduo to become bigger than eBay in just four short years. It’s no coincidence that founder Huang “Colin” Zheng, an ex-Google engineer, had prior startup experience on a consumer electronics e-commerce site as well as a WeChat based role playing game company.
Pinduoduo users can invite friends and family on social media to join a group deal in order to generate discounts. By purchasing in groups, price-conscious shoppers attain more competitive prices. But it is succeeding thanks to a new ecosystem consisting of super app WeChat, mobile payment infrastructure, and mobile-first users.
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Although the country’s e-commerce market is highly consolidated, it’s not impossible for startup teams to crack this market as long as they are solving the right problems for the right group of customers. The social nature of this platform has led to its exponential growth in third-tier cities in China. Pinduoduo suffered a net loss of RMB 292 million ($43 million) and RMB 525.1 million ($77 million) in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Its net losses reached RMB 201 million ($30 million) in the first quarter of this year. The net loss is expected to be widened, mainly attributable to investments in branding and ads.
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This social sharing of deals is primarily done on WeChat, the super app that is used by a billion people in China. WeChat’s parent company Tencent, recognized Pinduoduo’s potential and became an investor in 2016, promoting Pinduoduo and turbocharging its user acquisition. Driven by sharing on WeChat, Pinduoduo’s average customer acquisition cost is only $2, compared to $39 and $41 for primary rivals JD.com and Taobao.
Coupled with other incentives such as cash, coupon, lottery and free products, Pinduoduo manages to acquire users at a very low cost. Combined with the extra satisfaction of scoring a good deal with your friends as a team, Pinduoduo soon became a viral sensation in China. The name Pinduoduo means “Together, More Savings, More Fun.” It’s a great summation of the company’s core group-buying value proposition, which has been described as “Groupon on Steroids.” But there are key differences.
There are many factors, but one of the most interesting is how Pinduoduo has successfully gamified shopping for the most mundane everyday products to drive re-engagement and user retention. In many ways, Pinduoduo represents the most successful example of how a mobile commerce app can be designed from the ground up to engineer social sharing, viral engagement and repeat buying as part of the user experience. Lesser-known brands were chosen over famous brands to erase any premium that comes from branding. Additionally, the costs for advertising and marketing are also lowered through user sharing to social media. Through social sharing, users are sending the product information precisely to friends and groups that may have similar income and consumption preferences. Viral marketing is a more clever way to build the identity of all the lesser-known brands on its platform.
Financially, the platform could even out part of discounts with less marketing budgets. Like Alibaba’s Taobao and rival JD.com, Pinduoduo is an e-commerce platform that offers a wide range of products from daily groceries to home appliances. Pinduoduo’s twist lies in its integration of social components into the traditional online shopping process, which the company describes as the “team purchase” model. By sharing Pinduoduo’s product information on social networks such as WeChat and QQ, users can invite their contacts to form a shopping team to get a lower price for their purchase. The mechanism keeps the users motivated and better hooked for a more interactive and dynamic shopping experience.
- In this way, Pinduoduo is more like a social sharing driven version of Costco or Dollar General.
- Over 88.4 percent of Pinduoduo’s RMB 1.2 billion ($180 million) Q1 revenue was spent on marketing.
- In 2015, Huang launched Pinhaohuo, a social commerce platform for fruits, with the team from his second startup Leqi.
- You get free products for getting friends to install the app, and there are leaderboards showing people who have had the most friends sign up.
- Compared to the previous year, it reaches up to 1,000 percent year on year growth according to data from Jiguang.
- Company founder Huang insisted Pinduoduo’s decision and punishment of the owners is just and fair.
Pinduoduo is an e-commerce platform that offers a wide range of rock bottom priced products from home appliances to daily groceries. Its key differentiator from other Alibaba’s Taobao and JD.com is it’s ‘team purchase’ model. Founded in September 2015, Pinduoduo is the fourth startup of Colin Huang, an ex-Googler who once worked on early search algorithms for e-commerce. His previous startups include consumer electronics e-commerce site Ouku.com, Leqi, e-commerce platform marketing agent service and a WeChat-based role-playing game company. As Pinduoduo gets into life as a public company, xtb review is xtb a scam or legit forex broker the firm is following the e-commerce giants in cleaning up the platform.
Consumption upgrade, a trend in which affluent Chinese customers are increasingly willing to pay for quality, has dominated China’s e-commerce industry in the past few years. Taobao and JD’s globalization initiatives to bring overseas quality products, the boom of cross-border e-commerce sites like Red and NetEase Yanxuan and Kaola are all based on the consumption-upgrading backdrop. Pinduoduo’s C2B model allows it to ship directly from the manufacturers eliminates layers of distributors, not only reduces the price tag for buyers but also raises the profit of manufacturers. This approach is particularly effective for the sales of perishable agricultural and fresh products, where the speed for matching supply and demand is critical. “The retention rate is a big challenge of Pinduoduo, implying potential GMV slow down. Pinduoduo will have difficulty in upgrading to a marketplace of premium products because of its user demographics and brand image,” according to 86 Research.
Over 88.4 percent of Pinduoduo’s RMB 1.2 billion ($180 million) Q1 revenue was spent on marketing. A huge turning point occurred in the third quarter of 2017 when the weekly active rate, penetration rate, and open rate of the Pinduoduo app all surpassed those of JD. Compared to the previous year, it reaches up to 1,000 percent year on year growth according to data from Jiguang.
Tapping into the fastest-developing areas in China, Pinduoduo is a popular outlet for international brands to achieve high volume sales fast. In a brief update ahead of the weekend, the London transport network said it has no evidence yet that customer data was compromised. By using readily available natural gas as the feedstock, C-Zero hopes to produce emission-free hydrogen for less than other green hydrogen startups.
Where Groupon focused on local vendors of “want to have” goods and services like fancy dinners and massages, Pinduoduo offers deep discounts for bulk purchases of everyday “need to have” household items. In this way, Pinduoduo is more like a social sharing driven version of Costco or Dollar General. The Shanghai-based company just went public raising $1.6 billion through a U.S. IPO this week, which stands out as one of the largest deals of the year. Excitement is quickly intensifying surround the company, which claims 195 million monthly users and has managed to become successful within China’s highly competitive e-commerce market inside just three years.
He deliberately sought to combine a game-like experience with e-commerce. This is evident in many game-like features that Pinduoduo uses to re-engage users, including special deals and promotions. You get free products for getting friends to install the app, and there are leaderboards showing people who have had the most friends sign up. You win coupons by spinning a wheel on an in-app game, then the coupon only lasts 2 hours, prompting an impulse buy. And how did Pinduoduo achieve it in the face of such what is a crypto matching engine how does it work large established competitors?