Click the image above for details Recently, it was reported that Pinduoduo's new community group-buying platform, "Duoduo Grocery" (Duoduo Maicai), is about to launch in Wuhan, Nanchang, and other cities. Although the strength of "Duoduo Grocery" is unknown, based on Pinduoduo's past tactics, it is expected to be another "moneyed" tough competitor.
-01- "Kuai Tuantuan" Takes the Lead As early as March 6 this year, when the domestic epidemic situation was still severe, Pinduoduo announced the launch of the offline group-buying tool "Kuai Tuantuan" to help merchants in various regions collect community residents' needs for daily necessities and complete online orders. "Kuai Tuantuan" is a group-buying tool that assists merchants in collecting community residents' needs online and enables online ordering and payment. According to Pinduoduo's official introduction, merchants can use "Kuai Tuantuan" to launch product group-buying pages, and community consumers can initiate group purchases. Once the required number of participants is reached, merchants can deliver contactlessly to the community gate in accordance with local epidemic prevention requirements, thereby ensuring people's livelihoods and supplies. But ideals are full, while reality is harsh. The new player "Kuai Tuantuan," which entered the field halfway, quickly encountered development problems. According to a person in charge of "Kuai Tuantuan," the epidemic blocked the transmission of information between merchants and community residents, forcing them to manually send purchase and sale information. The inefficiency of information transmission directly led to an imbalance between supply and demand. On the most important merchant and consumer sides, "Kuai Tuantuan" also had frequent problems. Merchant side: In group purchases, there were often cases of missed payments or statistical errors. According to local merchants on "Kuai Tuantuan," previously, when using manual relay in WeChat groups, an average of about 15% of orders per day resulted in refunds due to missed deliveries. Merchant operations were fraught with difficulties. Consumer side: Due to scattered suppliers, a consumer often had to join more than a dozen group-buying groups to complete the purchase of basic necessities. After a round of panic buying, they were already exhausted. A consumer surnamed Xiao from Shanghai said, "After placing orders in more than a dozen WeChat groups, I ended up not knowing how much I had bought. I also didn't know if the merchant missed my order when delivering." So the result was predictable: in the big wave of community group buying, "Kuai Tuantuan" did not make much of a splash.
-02- "Duoduo Grocery" Learns from Past Mistakes and Enters Strongly Recently, Pinduoduo has once again prepared and strongly launched the new group-buying platform "Duoduo Grocery." Compared with "Kuai Tuantuan," this move is more fully prepared. According to information from Cayman 4000, "Duoduo Grocery" will first land in Wuhan and Nanchang, targeting Meituan and Xingsheng Youxuan. Currently, efforts are concentrated on promoting and recruiting group leaders in these two places. The strategy uses early-stage high subsidies, high-frequency visits, and efficient onboarding to quickly accumulate group leaders in the short term. It is understood that the merchant onboarding portal on the WeChat public account "Duoduo Grocery Store End" shows that stores that successfully join Duoduo Grocery before August 25 will receive additional bonuses after completing daily order tasks. This move may attract stores to join.
-03- Pinduoduo, a Veteran of Burning Money Subsidies As is well known, Pinduoduo's method of seizing market share has always been simple and crude: burning money subsidies, and the amounts are not small. During the 618 shopping festival in 2019, Pinduoduo's "100 Billion Subsidy" campaign gave a glimpse. As the name suggests, it means subsidizing consumers with 10 billion yuan. While merchants offer discounts, the platform also subsidizes on top of the cost price, totaling 10 billion. Many consumers initially had a rejecting and skeptical attitude, thinking, "Can cheap goods be good?" "Is it just a gimmick?" In the end, they found it surprisingly good! It is understood that on "Kuai Tuantuan," Pinduoduo also spent 1 billion yuan in heavy subsidies just to compete for excellent group leader resources. This time, Pinduoduo is following its usual approach. However, as market leaders, Meituan Youxuan and Xingsheng Youxuan have certain layouts or market advantages in terms of market and group leaders. Pinduoduo's strong entry at this time will inevitably face layers of obstruction. According to relevant sources, in order to battle with Duoduo Grocery, Meituan Youxuan has made sufficient preparations and may strike a powerful blow to Duoduo Grocery in terms of group opening time and number of groups.
-04- Community Group Buying: Surprisingly Good At the end of 2019, pessimistic talk about the community group-buying track was everywhere, and the continuous wave of closures and declines seemed to confirm it. But the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020 gave this track unlimited vitality and vigor. Existing players took advantage of the situation to continue developing and deepening their efforts. Many leading players from other industries have entered or increased their investment, including Meituan, JD.com, Alibaba, Didi, and even Pinduoduo, all vying for a share of the trillion-yuan track. Some people laugh and joke, saying, "No matter how you fight, in the end, it will still be the world of BAT." But from the current situation, although BAT has certain advantages, it is uncertain whether they can perform steadily on the community group-buying track. Moreover, the leading players on the track are not idle. Who will laugh last is still hard to determine. But one thing is certain: Community group buying is, surprisingly, really good!
Article reference sources: "Pinduoduo Sells Groceries" - Cayman 4000, Six Brother JOJO "How Crazy Is Pinduoduo's 100 Billion Subsidy? You Know Too Little" - AppSo, Qiu Tong