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He Shuang, who grows pomegranate in southern Sichuan, is a new farmer in Pinduoduo. The former flight attendant returned to her remote mountainous home from Kunming in 2017. She initially used trucks to deliver the fruit to wholesalers across China, and then resell the fruit to consumers. After switching to Pinduoduo, we can reach consumers directly; she said, this creates “strong and predictable demand for our products, which keeps our cash flow healthy.”
In a recent video, she picked a pomegranate from the bushes in the orchard. Because she “has no nails”, she bit off the peel to reveal the juicy seeds. Although she was stiff at first, now he shows talent in front of the camera. “Live streaming is like chatting with customers to build trust,” she said.Her soaring sales prompted Pinduoduo to recruit her video with text Marketing. His warehouse staff now has 150 people, and her 2019 annual income is 40 million yuan (5.7 million U.S. dollars).
Sofya Bakhta, analyst Daxue Consulting, Said that Pinduoduo’s group buying model helps aggregate dispersed consumer demand and connect these buyers with farmers, “effectively creating a large-scale national market.” This reduces farmers’ costs and provides them with Provides some of the benefits of large-scale agriculture. Gerard Sylvester, an investment officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, said that in the past, farmers often suffered from uncertain demand and price fluctuations. “We have seen a few farmers put their products on the market, only to find that the price of the products plummeted, far below his production cost. He threw the entire harvest out of the market to avoid paying additional costs. To the transporter Bring it back to his village,” he said.
Sylvester stated that Pinduoduo benefits from its strong logistics network and the convenience of mobile payments through the dominant Chinese messaging system. WechatHe said that Pinduoduo has increased farmers’ incomes, making it easier for them to plan and helping to create new jobs in rural areas. In August 2020, Pinduoduo launched Duo Duo Grocery, a next-day pick-up service, to help farmers sell goods directly to local consumers.
Not all farmers are satisfied with Pinduoduo. In 2019, Yang Lin sold 30 tons of apples a month on the platform, but he stated that he “did not make money” on Pinduoduo, especially after considering the ads he bought on the website to attract consumers. He thought that if he sold more apples, he could make a profit on Pinduoduo, but he gave up because the tipping point seemed too elusive. No ads are required. When asked about Yang’s situation, a company spokesperson said that Pinduoduo “supports” farmers and strives to “expand farmers’ market access so that they can sell better.”
Other critics say Pinduoduo and its competitors are subverting traditional sales chains and harming the interests of some farmers because these traditional networks are more balanced and inclusive than e-commerce algorithms that unfairly favor popular crops.
Dudarenok said that technology “is not the only way to get farmers out of poverty or structurally improve their lives and businesses.” But she said that Pinduoduo provides sellers with a stable consumer base, sales channels and logistics. “Farmers and consumers both win by reducing middlemen,” she said. However, she said, farmers “need to’work hard’ through live broadcasts and purchase advertisements. You need to be good at catching the eye.”
Bakhta said that applications such as Pinduoduo are unlikely to replace the physical market because China is large enough to accommodate both. The four years in China convinced her that the local market is “not just a place to buy groceries. This is a club where you can chat, practice bargaining skills, and buy fresh and delicious things,” she said. “Offline stores, especially those with agricultural products, are part of Chinese culture.”
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