On September 24 and 25, when Shandong's agricultural specialty products ushered in a Dafengshou (Salad of assorted fresh vegetables), Pinduoduo "Nongyun Action" successively went to Yantai and Jinan to provide local fruit and vegetable merchants with special e-commerce operation training and one-on-one operation guidance. Unlike before, during these two days of activities, Pinduoduo representatives focused on analyzing the platform's recently launched "billion yuan reduction" policy for hundreds of new quality merchants on site, including service fee refunds, deposit reductions, exemption from logistics transfer fees, upgrading merchant after-sales services, and automatic refund of technical service fees. It is reported that this is the first stop of the "Nongyun Action" to deliver new policies to the doorstep, and more production areas across the country will be visited in the future.
After the detailed explanation of the entire policy "combination fist" item by item, it has aroused widespread discussion and attention among the attending merchants. Some merchants have stated that they have benefited from it and can receive return red envelopes every day. A merchant with an annual sales scale of tens of millions of orders calculated that benefiting from this, they will save one or two million costs in a year.
The person in charge of Pinduoduo's "Nongyun Action" said, "By bringing policies to our doorstep, we hope to let more new quality merchants understand and familiarize themselves with the platform's high-quality development strategy, as well as the ideas and measures to help and benefit businesses, improve the reach and coverage of the new policy, guide high-quality supply to further penetrate remote inland areas, and provide more development opportunities and support for new quality merchants in production areas while helping the western region better integrate into the domestic consumption cycle, promoting rural revitalization
On September 25th, Pinduoduo's "Nongyun Action" entered Jinan to provide new policy explanations for local high-quality merchants. Photo by Liu Hao
'Billion dollar reduction' praised by merchants
On September 24th, Pinduoduo upgraded the refund rights for merchants' technical service fees under the "Billion Reduction" policy, expanding the refund scope from the previous promotional products to all products. Merchants with more than ten million yuan will further reduce their operating costs, and Sun Wu is one of them.
In 2021, Sun Wu joined Pinduoduo and sold frozen durian on the platform. Thai durians are frozen, boxed, and shipped directly to China after being peeled. Domestic factories decompose frozen durians again, remove bad durian fruits, repackage and send them out again. Consumers can store frozen durian in the refrigerator for up to six months after receiving it.
This is a good business, and in recent years, durian fruits have become increasingly popular among domestic consumers. Sun Wu has a frozen durian factory in Qingdao that covers an area of over a thousand square meters and can ship throughout the year. Normally, there are about 500 orders per day, and during peak periods, there are over 1000 orders. In September of this year, Sun Wu saw someone reposting information about the "billion yuan reduction and exemption" policy in the Pinduoduo business group. At first, he didn't pay attention until his phone kept popping up promotion red envelope refund notifications, and then he truly felt the platform's real investment in merchants.
Since August this year, Pinduoduo has launched multiple new policies that benefit businesses, including service fee refunds, deposit reductions, exemption from logistics transfer fees, upgrading merchant after-sales services, and automatic refund of software service fees. The clause regarding the automatic refund of promotional software service fees and equal amounts of promotional red envelopes in some scenario platforms has been widely praised by merchants as "very attractive". This clause states that in scenarios where the platform voluntarily refunds and meets the conditions, or where the consumer fully refunds and meets the conditions before shipment, the platform will automatically refund the corresponding amount of promotional software service fee as a promotional red envelope, without the need for the merchant to initiate an application.
At present, Sun Wu's daily promotion fee is about 2000 yuan. Since the implementation of this new policy, he can receive more than 100 yuan in returned red envelopes every day. On September 24th, the rights to refund technical service fees were further upgraded, and Sun Wu once again experienced the joy of "reducing burden". "This also gives me more motivation to increase promotion investment and let our good products be seen by more people
At the Pinduoduo "Nongyun Action" event, many businesses expressed that this policy is a significant benefit. Some businesses claim that some agricultural products, such as cherries, are sold in pre-sales, and the refund rate for pre-sales is usually higher than that for spot goods. "The new policy can help us save a lot of costs," they said
In addition, after-sales appeals are no longer restricted, which is also one of the policies that merchants are quite interested in. Sun Wu said, "In the past, there were failures in appeals, and the success rate was not high. Now there is no limit on the number of appeals, and if we have objections, we will basically appeal, and the success rate has also increased by 30%
The cultivation method of apples in Yantai has changed from the traditional tree lined orchard to a dwarf orchard with wide rows and dense planting. Photo by Xue Tong
New quality merchants are advancing westward
According to Pinduoduo's "10 billion reduction" plan, in the future, the platform will bear all the logistics transfer fees incurred by merchants when distributing goods in remote areas such as Xinjiang, Xizang, Gansu, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. This is the first time in the industry that it aims to further dilute the logistics costs of goods entering rural areas and villages, and promote more high-quality goods to be directly connected to remote areas.
This also means that Pinduoduo merchants who ship to remote areas only need to bear the express delivery fee from the shipping location to the consolidation warehouse. According to the previous direct shipping method, merchants need to negotiate prices with courier companies. Currently, the initial cost generally starts at 15 yuan, and if it is cold chain air freight, the initial cost can reach 20-30 yuan. Nowadays, the cost of supplying goods to the western region has significantly decreased. Some merchants claim that the express delivery fee to remote areas may soon be only 1 yuan.
Pinduoduo exempts merchants from logistics transfer fees for orders placed in remote areas. Respondent provided pictures
Starting from September 9th, Pinduoduo will exempt merchants from logistics transfer fees for orders placed in remote areas, which will be fully borne by the platform. When Li Xiaolin saw this new policy, he was planning to warm up this year's new production season. His store opened according to seasonal fruit arrangements. The last time it opened was from April to the end of June, selling Yantai cherries, and finally closed with an order of 300000.
Now, Li Xiaolin is preparing to open a store on Pinduoduo to sell winter dates, and later sell Yantai apples and cherries. He has a high enthusiasm for markets in remote areas. "Since logistics costs have been reduced so much now, we also want our friends in Xinjiang to taste our Red Fuji from Shandong. And cherries, which have traveled thousands of miles from Chile to China, why can't we go to the northwest?" He believes that this is an opportunity to exchange high-quality fruits with remote areas.
Some businesses are also starting to consider how to overcome the challenges of long-distance transportation for fruits to reach consumers in remote areas in a better condition. Sun Wu said that the packaging of frozen durian is very strict, usually requiring five or six layers of packaging. First, vacuum package the fruit, then put in two pounds of dry ice, and then put it in a large fresh-keeping bag. The outer layer is then covered with dry ice or ice cubes, and finally packaged in a particularly thick fresh-keeping box before being sent out. At present, his team is conducting tests on how to further optimize preservation technology and reduce the damage to quality caused by long-distance transportation.
Or reshape the e-commerce industry ecosystem
Zhu Keli, Executive Director of the China Information Association and Founding Director of the National Research Institute for New Economy, analyzed that Pinduoduo's "Billion Dollar Reduction and Exemption" plan is an important reshaping of the e-commerce industry ecosystem. This plan not only directly reduces the financial pressure on businesses and improves capital turnover, but also brings consumers more diversified and high-quality product choices, especially for consumers in remote areas, which helps narrow the gap between their consumption level and that of cities. From a macro perspective, this policy has enriched the variety of products on the platform, enhanced consumer stickiness, and formed a positive interaction between the platform, merchants, and consumers.
In the past nine years, while we have brought more and more agricultural specialty products from remote mountainous areas to the whole country, we are also committed to providing consumers in remote areas with convenient access to a wide range of product choices, just like urban users, and sharing the dividends of high-quality development of e-commerce platforms. "The relevant person in charge of Pinduoduo said," Whether going out of the mountains or into villages, high logistics costs have always been a pain point in the industry. We aim to tap into this pain point and encourage more businesses in the ecosystem to join the market and consumption revitalization in remote areas, increase product circulation, and stimulate market vitality