![]() TikTok’s Chinese rival Kuaishou becomes a popular online bazaarīut Pinduoduo wants to go beyond selling and also help tackle farmers’ production problems. When orders are placed, third-party logistics services transport the produce to consumers, thanks to a mature delivery network that took shape during China’s e-commerce boom. To attract vendors of agricultural products, Pinduoduo has been waiving commissions and said on last week’s earnings call that it planned to maintain the policy for the “future quarters.” Once farmers sign up, the platform then trains them to be savvy digital store operators and marketers. ![]() The setup meant farmers often ended up with razor-thin profits. Agriculture in China was dominated by millions of small family-owned farms, which relied on layers of distributors to sell their produce nationwide. Some see Pinduoduo’s investment in agriculture as an effort to alleviate rural poverty and is thus an answer to Beijing’s recent call for “common prosperity,” which denotes “affluence shared by everyone, both in material and cultural terms.” But the company has reiterated that agriculture was at its core business from the outset.įounded in 2015, Pinduoduo took off by selling fruit online before gradually broadening its product categories. The program won’t be profit-driven, the company promised, and all profit from the second quarter and “any potential profits in future quarters would be allocated to the initiative.” In August, Pinduoduo unveiled its 10 billion yuan ($1.57 billion) agriculture program to “face and address critical needs in the agricultural sector and rural areas.” The initiative is all-encompassing, including possible equity funding for agritech startups and grants for fundamental research and talent training. Both e-commerce titans are starting to see their growth plateau, but instead of doubling down on cloud computing like Alibaba, Pinduoduo is pouring money into agriculture. In its pursuit of new growth engines, Pinduoduo is taking a different route from its older rival. ![]() While Alibaba reported 863 million annual active consumers across its retail platforms in the 12 months ended September, Pinduoduo’s monthly active users exceeded 740 million in the quarter ended September. For the past few years, Pinduoduo has been widely regarded as Alibaba’s strongest challenger. ![]()
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