Pinduoduo is getting more and more expensive

For the past few years, our family has been using Pinduoduo to buy things.

For no other reason, Pinduoduo is really cheap.

For a long time, what to buy Pinduoduo is the lowest price on the whole network, free shipping, or SF, and free return if you are not satisfied. When some things for a few dollars were delivered to our house, I really didn't know how the merchants made money.

So not only do I use it myself, but I also recommend it when I meet friends. When the whole network is scolding Pinduoduo, I often say to my friends: "Pinduoduo is really easy to use, don't be biased".

But recently, I suddenly found that Pinduoduo is not so cheap to buy things. Not only do I think so, but there are also a lot of complaints on the Internet.

Let's name a few visual examples:

A shovel officer wants to buy cat food.

But he suddenly found that in 2022, it only cost 25 yuan to buy four catties of cat food, but now it costs 36-38 yuan.

A small thing like a garbage bag is also directly doubled.

Some people want to buy Maxim's mooncakes and are surprised to find the same productSell 108 in**, inPinduoduo sells 189.

The same mentality exploded with this classmate.

In order to save money, I unloaded the ** for three years, but I don't want the so-called "saving" to be just an illusion. Same thing spelled more than one**Twice as expensive

After careful price comparison, everyone realized that the direct equation of "Pinduoduo" and "the lowest price on the whole network" was just a joke between themselves and their wallets.

The time spent on Pinduoduo in those years was a mistake after all.

I tried it out with the items in my ** shopping cart and found that quite a few things do sell more expensive on PDD.

For example, this horse-faced skirt, **flash drop" sells for 288, and it is also 354 yuan when not**flash drop.

Then Pinduoduo sells 380:

There are many similar examples.

The following vacuum cleaner is sold on Tmall New Year's Festival

Similar models are sold on Pinduoduo

Home computer chairs, sold after folding on Tmall

Pinduoduo sells

The price difference is even more exaggerated is this home projector, Pinduoduo is more expensive than TmallMulti-block:

Of course, there are also many goods that are sold cheaper than ** after Pinduoduo's tens of billions of subsidies. But it's no longer the "Pinduoduo brainless cheap" I knew before.

It can only be said that in the current wave of e-commerce wars, low-price leakage is a metaphysics.

Whether you can "want the goods at the lowest price" depends not only on the platform, but also on our luck and patience to shop around.

The difference in channels, as well as the difference in the intensity of platform activities, will affect the ** of the product.

However, many merchants choose to sell goods at a higher price on Pinduoduo with other considerations.

I once bought a dishwashing powder on Pinduoduo, and later found that it was nearly thirty percent more expensive than **, so I contacted the merchant to refund the difference.

But the merchant told me that he couldn't return it, and they just wanted to sell it more expensive on Pinduoduo because the operating cost of this platform was higher.

Coincidentally, many merchants are wailing on the Internet that it is too expensive to open a store on Pinduoduo.

It's nothing, everyone has it.

But what makes everyone even more bald is the three words "refund only".

According to statistics, there are about 8 million third-party small and medium-sized merchants on Pinduoduo.

Almost every one of them has been suffering from "refund only" for a long time.

Because under this set of rules, a large number of buyers of wool are overbearing on the platform.

In the case of this kind of person who finds a reason to "refund only" after receiving the goods, the seller can appeal, but it is difficult to ensure that the customer service will refuse or reject it directly.

In many cases, in addition to losing goods and discounting freight, poor merchants will also be deducted an additional technical service fee by the platform, which is unjust when you think about it.

It is said that someone bought a book and took a flashlight**, accusing the seller of the wrong version and asking for a refund only.

I bought chicken feet, accused the seller of sending chicken feet, and applied for a refund only.

There is also a group of "full-time wool parties", which specialize in using "refund only" to cut merchant leeks.

Their common phrase is:

"It was bought by the old man in the family, and I didn't know it. I'm too busy at work to send back the goods, so I'm going to get a refund only. ”

"Anyway, we all have to 'refund only', and you can pay directly and save courier fees and handling fees. ”

Given that more than 30% of the post-00s users on Pinduoduo are worried, many people are worried that this innocent ecology of white prostitution is teaching our next generation badly.

In fact, this set of loopholes in the rules has also made Pinduoduo suffer the consequences.

In March last year, Pinduoduo launched its self-operated store "Duoduo Welfare Society".

In just two hours after the new launch, the number of fans increased by 3 million.

But the nightmare soon began.

Many people made up fake addresses, placed orders frantically in the store, and immediately clicked "refunded" after the merchant delivered the goods.

They call it a "fried shop."

After more than four hours of indiscriminate bombardment, the "Duoduo Welfare Society" was shut down.

The planners also went to Pinduoduo's subsidized brand stores and blew up many big brand stores.

Look at the open letter sent by the convener of the bombing shop, it looks like a posture of breaking down Pinduoduo:

The platform may not have expected that the "refund-only" boomerang would hit itself in this form.

From a neutral point of view, the extreme behavior of "bombing the shop" is neither legal nor reasonable, but the objective contradiction is on the bright side.

The unequal rights of buyers and sellers violate the normal market rules and are destined to bring about a lose-lose situation for buyers, sellers and platforms.

It is precisely because of this that more and more merchants will automatically raise their standards after entering PinduoduoThe potential cost of being prostituted is also included in the price of the product, so that all consumers can pay for it.

You bought expensive in Pinduoduo, and that's because you helped the "Wool Party" settle the account together.

The merchant also mentioned in an interview that Tige can also help them screen high-quality buyers invisibly.

The cheaper something is sold, the more some people will find it a big deal to be greedy and cheap.

The more expensive things are sold, the more people don't dare to prostitute them for nothing.

They also understand,The legal risk of prostituting a bottle of Kweichow Moutai for white is much higher than that of a pack of pickled pepper and phoenix feet.

In addition to the "wool party" pushing up transaction costs, Pinduoduo's price increase is also an inevitable trend.

At that time in 2018, the elderly in our family often went to buy daily necessities such as rags and kitchen gloves.

They also know that the quality of these things is not as good as Tmall, but considering that a wallet is really cheap to mail to your home, it doesn't hurt to buy some.

But as Pinduoduo changed its development ideas, this kind of bargain has become significantly less.

In order to get rid of stereotypes, Pinduoduo forced merchants to improve the quality of their products through a strict fine system.

According to their co-founder:

Before the brand owner obtains the "explosive traffic" of the platform, it is necessary to submit the factory qualification, product qualification certificate, quality inspection report and other informationAt the same time, binding clauses such as "one for one for one" are written into the merchant agreement to increase the cost of selling counterfeits.

Also returning to rationality is the platform side.

The bigwigs are keenly aware that the money-burning model that the Internet giants have been playing for more than ten years is no longer sustainable

In the era of savage growth, everyone does not need to make a profit, but only needs to rely on spending money to attract consumers to do large-scale. With scale, it is natural to squeeze competitors out of the market and realize that "the remainder is king".

As for the money lost, it can be recognised in the capital market for financing.

But now the situation has changed.

* The market is sluggish, the liquidity of the secondary market is getting worse and worse, and now that financing is becoming more and more difficult, everyone is looking for ways to reduce costs (layoffs) and increase efficiency (save money).

At this time, no one has the confidence to make money by losing money.

The same is true for Pinduoduo.

From the WeChat subordinate application specializing in "people outside the Fifth Ring Road" to the e-commerce giant, it has eaten the dividends of the times, but it is also unable to fight the torrent of the times.

Even though the stock price has been outstanding among Chinese concept stocks recently, it will not be able to rise back to the high point at the beginning of 2021.

I think that when it was born, it could throw money because it could really raise money.

Open information realized, in 2016 it took 1$100 million Series B financing.

Later, it quickly completed Series C and Series D financing in two years, raising more than $4.5 billion.

These real gold ** is the capital of its war with Ali Jingdong, and it is also the confidence that it is not afraid of losses.

The financial report shows:

Pinduoduo lost 5 in 20172.5 billion;

In 2018, the loss was 1021.7 billion;

In 2019, the loss was 6967.6 billion;

In 2020, the loss was 7179.7 billion.

I still remember that during the takeaway war, I ordered two duck legs, two eggs, one vegetable and one rice on Meituan for three yuan. The red envelope of 88 minus 85 really stunned me.

But these all come at a cost, and they will certainly be unsustainable for a long time. Now Meituan's takeaway and Didi taxi's ** are close to normal. Even Amazon is going to make a profit, and Pinduoduo can't lose money forever. In addition, they have to subsidize and support TEMU abroad, and they also need to send ammunition in the domestic part.

In the third quarter of 2020, Pinduoduo finally turned a profit.

It's a pity that it's no longer cheap, and there are more and more routines.

Some people find that the so-called "low prices" and "subsidies" are just gimmicks for merchants to engage in traffic.

Some people want to buy a mobile phone that enjoys tens of billions of subsidies from the platform, but it turns out that they have to receive a coupon first.

But he waited from 6 o'clock in the morning until 8 o'clock in the evening, and he did not receive the ...... of the ticket

After the huge amount of capital was burned, everything seemed to be returning to normal.

Now, all large factories are adapting to the new situation and learning to survive in the "stock game".

Tens of billions of subsidies" and "refund-only" strategies to cater to consumers are no longer the preserve of Pinduoduo.

Ali and JD.com are using their own ways to understand Pinduoduo and become Pinduoduo.

In particular, Xianyu, who buys and sells equal rights, also relies on the low price to attract countless fans.

The giants are competing, and the fierce battle is in full swing.

Where it will go from here, it is unknown.

I only hope that the "wool party" can show mercy to its subordinates, and don't let us sit with them and wait for the price increase of all parties.

From the perspective of history, the Internet money burning war in the past decade or so has shaped China's business model and industrial structure, and has also invisibly subverted people's lifestyles.

From the perspective of micro-experience,Burn money and scatter coins in good times, and kill ripe and return to capital in adversity, probably the logical closed loop left by the continuous giant wars.

The ebb and flow of the capital market is not affected by the will of those of us who eat melons.

What we can do may be: be diligent and thrifty, and shop around.

In this way, no matter in good times or bad, there is still the possibility of picking up leaks.