It used to be a tacit "common sense" that remote areas do not offer free shipping. But this year, this' common sense 'has been rewritten.
Three months ago, Lhasa consumer Geng Bing purchased a suitcase online and the delivery fee was 30 yuan. Three months later, he tried to 'consolidate orders again' and found that the same product was free shipping, so there was no need to pay for the postage himself.
This is largely due to Pinduoduo's continued tilt towards logistics subsidies for remote areas. On September 9, the platform announced that it would reduce or exempt the second stage freight for transfer and consolidation orders in remote areas. The platform would bear all the logistics transfer fees incurred when merchants supply goods to Xinjiang, Xizang, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai.
I didn't expect that after the platform covered the second shipping fee, the merchant covered another portion of the shipping fee and directly implemented free shipping. It's so surprising, "Geng Bing said.
Exempted delivery fees
Geng Bing saw the above information while browsing news in October. He works in Lhasa and likes to ride or camp around with friends on weekends. During holidays, he drives himself in Xizang to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the plateau.
On July 16th, Geng Bing bought a roof luggage worth over 600 yuan on Pinduoduo. When he was traveling on November 11th, he drove to Yanghu and the trunk couldn't fit in, so the roof luggage came in handy. Folding chairs, folding tables, outdoor canopies, thank you for this suitcase, "he said. One day during his vacation, he sat quietly and comfortably by the lake for an afternoon.
After seeing the new policy released by Pinduoduo, Geng Bing remembered that the roof luggage box's price of over 600 yuan includes a delivery fee of 30 yuan. He immediately clicked on the order and found that three months had passed, and the delivery fee had been waived, making the price more than 50 yuan more affordable than before.
Order screenshot
"This is really good news. As far as Xizang, it would be good to deliver goods to us. Unexpectedly, the platform has paid two sections of freight, and the merchants have paid a section of freight, so we can save 30 yuan for postage. It's amazing. I'm glad that we consumers in Xizang can be taken care of," said Geng Bing.
Immediately, he shared this good news with his friends around him, 'In the future, online shopping can save more delivery fees.'.
In Xizang, online shopping is not without some happiness
Geng Bing's hometown is in Jilin. He has loved cycling since childhood and enjoys the wind blowing on his body. In 2015, Geng Bing and his classmates set off from Chengdu and rode along National Highway 318 all the way to Lhasa.
Many people have gained a new understanding of lifestyle from cycling and seeing Lhasa, and Geng Bing is no exception. On the way, he met all kinds of people, including those who pushed carts to Xizang on foot, and also met the eldest brother who had traveled around more than 100 countries in the world.
This made him realize the diversity of lifestyles, and he liked the calm and relaxed life in Lhasa, so he stayed to work. In 2022, Geng Bing's first purchase from Pinduoduo was a DJI drone, which was much more affordable than other platforms. This drone is still perfectly placed in the cabinet, and I will bring it with me when I go out to play
To reward himself, he wants to buy a high-end mountain bike. The shipping cost on other platforms is over 500 yuan, which I really can't bear. But on Pinduoduo, the delivery fee was only around 10 yuan at that time, which was too friendly for us plateau users
The bicycle was packaged very carefully when it arrived, without any damage. After assembling it, he touched his beloved car and truly experienced the joy and satisfaction that shopping brings. From then on, he was able to ride this car at lightning speed.
In addition to these large items, Geng Bing also purchases cycling equipment on Pinduoduo, including electric inflators, quick charging cylinders, gears, bone conduction Bluetooth earphones, a stopwatch and stopwatch stand, smart taillights, storage bags, goggles, face shields, etc. He even bought a car mattress.
Sometimes, when Geng Bing misses home, he gathers sticky corn from his hometown. When he receives three boxes full of sticky corn, he will be very happy: "The journey is so far, how did these corn be delivered
How to achieve 'free shipping'?
Three months, the delivery fee has increased from 30 yuan to 0 yuan. Who is behind this?
For a long time, Xizang, Xinjiang and other western regions are sparsely populated, and the landform is complex, so the cost of "business flow" entering the hinterland is high. However, in recent years, in the context of the "the Belt and Road" and the in-depth promotion of the Western Development Strategy, the local infrastructure construction has made rapid progress. The traffic has been improved by roads, railways and routes, and many places have achieved access to counties and rural areas.
The recently released "Report on the Development of E-commerce for Agricultural Products in China in the First Half of 2024" shows that the logistics cost of agricultural products from villages to cities in China has continued to decline, dropping from 18% in 2012 to 14.4% last year, and reaching a new low of 14.2% in the first half of this year.
The publisher of the above report, Hong Tao, director of the Institute of Business Economics at Beijing Technology and Business University, pointed out that this is closely related to the recent increase in logistics subsidies for high-quality agricultural products to penetrate westward by e-commerce platforms, as well as the continuous investment in infrastructure construction such as fresh cold chain logistics for many years.
And among them, Pinduoduo has always been at the forefront. In 2022, the platform will create the first transit, collection, transportation and parcel post mode, upgrading Xinjiang, Xizang and other places to "parcel post areas"; In 2023, Xinjiang will implement free and free express delivery services to villages; In September of this year, the "New Policy for Reduction and Exemption of Transit Fees" was first introduced.
Starting from September 9th, Pinduoduo will waive the second stage logistics transfer fee for orders sent by platform merchants to remote areas.
Taking Xinjiang as an example to break down Pinduoduo's package measures: the platform first guides merchants who supply high-quality goods to the western region to transport their packages to the Xi'an transit consolidation warehouse, and then the third-party logistics service operator conducts the second stage transportation uniformly. By scaling up transportation, logistics costs can be effectively reduced. At the same time, the layout of villages in Xinjiang is scattered, and in the past, after couriers delivered packages to delivery points in the county, villagers often had to go to the city to pick them up on their own. In view of this, Pinduoduo has also partnered with third-party service providers to provide express delivery services to villages, shortening the distance between the end delivery points and consumers to a few kilometers and compressing the delivery time to within 24 hours.
The new policy on transit fees has solved the problem of high costs and difficulty in promoting e-commerce in the central and western regions, "analyzed a senior logistics expert.
In the past nine years, while we have brought more and more agricultural 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 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, and we aim to tap into this pain point to encourage more businesses in the ecosystem to join the market and consumption revitalization in remote areas, increase product circulation, and stimulate market vitality
Now, Geng Bing still wants to go abroad to see a bigger world. In order to improve his English, he purchases online speaking classes through Pinduoduo and connects with foreign friends at fixed times every day for one hour of conversation. Every time he finishes class, he feels a little closer to his goal.