On July 26th, Pinduoduo was listed on NASDAQ with a market value of about $3 billion. It took more than 15 years for Ali and JD.COM to go public, while it took only 3 years for Pinduoduo. In three years, Pinduoduo has reached 3 million users, and now it is the third largest e-commerce platform in China. At the same time, Huang Zheng, the founder of Pinduoduo, has surpassed Liu Qiangdong, the founder of JD.COM, in his personal wealth because of his high proportion of personal shares.
Many people are wondering why Pinduoduo has achieved such great success in such a short time, and what tricks or unique marketing techniques does it have? Interesting soul, talking about science and technology. I'm Li Ziran, so let's talk about Pinduoduo in this issue. ?
Pinduoduo's team is especially NB, first of all, its founder Huang Zheng.
This is a real super schoolmaster. He was recommended by famous schools all the way to school, and his internship company is also a well-known big enterprise. Under such a background that he is far superior to ordinary people, he naturally has quite high quality. What is really powerful is his investor team, which is full of big names, which can be described as a famous river and lake. For example, Sun Tongyu, the first CEO of Taobao, rose from his hands. This person is particularly good at using low-priced models to occupy the market, and Taobao also won with low-priced and brand-name goods in the early days. In addition, Sun Tongyu is also adept at using some means of barbaric growth. Old Taobao users may know that just clicking on some messy websites will pop up more than a dozen Taobao windows, which are actually from Sun Xiong's hands. Later, Taobao abandoned the low-end marketing route and devoted itself to platform standardization and brand upgrading, so Sun Tongyu was relieved by Ma Yun's glass of wine. We can see the routine of Taobao in the early days from the current state of Pinduoduo.
Duan Yongping, another big shot in Pinduoduo's investor team.
At first glance, ordinary people look puzzled, but when it comes to bully and BBK, I believe everyone is quite familiar with it. Duan Yongping, the founder of these two brands, is his masterpiece. Later, Duan Yongping focused on investment and invested in a series of companies such as Netease, which was also quite powerful. Rumor has it that Duan Yongping has four apprentices, namely, the boss of OPPO, the boss of VIVO, the CEO of BBK, and now the founder of Pinduoduo, Huang Zheng, which really makes people unconvinced. When Huang Zheng studied in the United States for a master's degree, he lived very close to Duan Yongping, and they were alumni. In addition, Huang Zheng was really talented and won the appreciation of Duan Yongping. As we all know, Buffett auctions a charity dinner every year. In his early years, Duan Yongping took a seat for lunch with Buffett at a price of $62,. This meal with high gold content was attended by Duan Yongping with Huang Zheng. At that time, Huang Zheng was only 26 years old. At the age of 26, ordinary people may still be taking various domestic "talent certificates" at the age of 26, and people have already eaten at the same table with Buffett, which makes people sigh.
Another crocodile in Pinduoduo's investor team is Ding Lei, the "Ding Sanshi" in the mouth of many Netease gamers.
Ding Lei is the founder of Netease and the richest man in China for a while. Brother Sanshi is particularly good at making products and operating games. The large-scale end-game Fantasy Journey to the West, owned by Netease, has 25 million registered users, with the highest online number of 2.71 million. In addition, high-quality end-games such as Tianxia 3, Datang Wuhun 2 and Ghost Story 2 are popular online games in China. In June 216, Netease's self-developed 3D Japanese-style and wind-turn RPG mobile game "Yin Yang Shi" opened the first test of Android, which detonated the entire mobile game market in just a few days.
the last big shot in Pinduoduo's investor team is Wang Wei, the founder of SF Express.
To be an e-commerce, you definitely need someone who knows logistics very well. Undoubtedly, this "most knowledgeable" candidate is Wang Wei. I believe he also played a great role in the growth of Pinduoduo. Wang Wei and Ma Yun had an issue. Ma Yun visited Wang Wei twice, but Wang Wei didn't see him. Later, Wang Wei had something to look for Ma Yun, and Ma Yun also turned him down. The two men set up their own logistics companies, and both sides killed each other. Wang Wei had an idea to be an e-commerce, so he naturally chose to support an e-commerce platform like Pinduoduo, to compete with Ma Yungang without steaming steamed bread.
After a brief look at the investor team in Pinduoduo, we clearly understand that Huang Zheng has never been fighting alone, nor is it a fight that belongs to a company in Pinduoduo alone. Judging from the list of investors, Huang Zheng has opened the gap between several galaxies and other entrepreneurs.
The second and most important reason for Pinduoduo's success is its good market selection.
In recent two years, a word-consumption upgrade has become popular in the Internet venture capital circle. Assuming that the living standards of residents will improve in the future, the so-called emerging middle-class consumers will generally pursue higher quality, better experience and healthier life. On the basis of this user demand, many entrepreneurs will be attracted to do entertainment, cook food, do fitness, do unmanned KTV and rent high-quality houses. Many people have lived in first-tier cities for a long time, and they will feel that people around them have high academic qualifications and good spending power, but this may not be the case.
Not long ago, Wang Xing, the founder of Meituan, said that, in fact, at present, the population who graduated from undergraduate courses only accounts for 4% of the national population; Some friends of Sequoia Capital sent a circle of friends saying that there are more than 7 million people in China who don't have credit cards and more than 1.2 billion people who don't have passports. Under such a "cruel data background", Pinduoduo goes against other people's path and faces the market outside the so-called Fifth Ring Road-third-and fourth-tier cities and even rural areas. This is actually a huge consumer market, and the feedback you can get from going deep into it far exceeds the high-end consumer market. Some Internet friends told me that everyone is upgrading consumption, but Pinduoduo is downgrading consumption. In my humble opinion, I don't think Pinduoduo is a kind of consumption downgrade. For example, some elderly people have just started using smart phones and just learned to use WeChat. For them, it has never been upgraded, and naturally it is not downgraded.
In addition, there are some users who really bought things that they couldn't buy before on Pinduoduo, and they think it's very cost-effective. From this point of view, it is not a downgrade.
If the luxurious investor team and the correct market choice have laid a good foundation for Pinduoduo's success, then the following three points are the three essential key factors in the development of Pinduoduo.
As the largest instant messaging App in China, WeChat has more than 1 billion users, and the 1 billion users themselves contain huge traffic bonuses. Pinduoduo adopts the mode of "Grouping", which allows users to pull their friends and relatives onto their own platforms. In this way, users who have obtained geometric multiples at a particularly low price have grown rapidly by using traffic dividends.
Tencent is also one of the investors in Pinduoduo. Before investing in Pinduoduo, Tencent also invested in JD.COM, but JD.COM's use of WeChat is much thinner than the former. The latter's cooperation mode with WeChat is limited to advertising on WeChat, while Pinduoduo directly relies on WeChat's friendship and engages in this practice, which has a high utilization rate of WeChat. At the same time, this cooperation mode is also beneficial to WeChat. Mutual benefit and win-win is recognized as the best cooperation mode in the business community, so it has received strong support from Tencent.
Many people will refute Taobao. As mentioned above, Taobao is a competitor. How did it become a key factor for success here? In fact, Taobao means a little assist here. We already know that Taobao started by selling low-priced goods and miscellaneous brands in the early days, but after it was done, it wanted to enter the more mainstream consumer market and began to upgrade its brand. It also wanted to push its own Tmall brand, so it began to crowd out small and medium-sized businesses, which led to higher and higher occupancy costs for these small and medium-sized businesses in Taobao, making life more and more difficult; On the other hand, for consumers who want to buy cheap goods quite much, Pinduoduo has opened a mouth for their huge appeal potential. Once Pinduoduo was launched, small and medium-sized sellers and those manufacturers who produce miscellaneous brand goods saw hope again, and consumers also found a platform to buy cheap goods.
it can be said that several aspects hit it off, and the inner voice of small and medium-sized businesses: if you don't leave me here, you will leave me here! So Pinduoduo just caught the traffic that was pushed out from Taobao. Therefore, Taobao inadvertently made Pinduoduo more or less what it is now.
Before Pinduoduo was founded, Huang Zheng actually worked as a game company, and he played so-called erotic games, or soft erotic games, playing the sideline. They can best understand what the most fundamental needs of users are and know how to retain users. Pinduoduo now has some gamification settings, such as Duoduo Orchard, with the ultimate goal of allowing users to keep coming back and constantly brushing Pinduoduo. Huang Zheng said in his speech some time ago that the core of Pinduoduo is not to be cheap, but to satisfy users' feelings of taking advantage. This sentence shows that this is a team with a deep understanding of human nature.
The word "smooth sailing" does not exist in the business world, so will there be any crisis or problems in Pinduoduo in the future? I think there are three main points.
Yes, you are right. Pinduoduo keeps losing money. Pinduoduo has accumulated losses of more than RMB 1.3 billion since it started its business for more than three years. However, the loss itself is not a problem, because both Amazon and JD.COM have suffered long-term and large-scale losses. But we must understand that the loss is often to build a moat. This moat can be a channel, a logistics, a user's loyalty, a user's consumption habits, a supply chain, and so on. But at present, this moat in Pinduoduo is not particularly obvious. For example, users in Pinduoduo, most of whom are greedy users, are easy to come, but their loyalty is extremely low. One day, once other platforms offer lower prices or use higher subsidies, these users will definitely wave their sleeves and turn away without taking away a cloud. In other respects, Pinduoduo is not particularly strong, just like a castle hanging in the air with steel bars. Once that steel bar breaks, it will fall and smash.
At present, Pinduoduo has a good development momentum, but it may face encirclement and suppression from many sides. Pinduoduo has not been listed before, which is not enough to arouse the high vigilance of its opponents. Now Pinduoduo has achieved this level, like a sponge saturated with water, it has grown up instantly and become an opponent that no one can ignore. For Pinduoduo, Taobao launched a special edition of Taobao, while JD.COM and Suning also launched JD.COM and Suning. Interestingly, the slogan of Suning's shopping: authentic shopping for Suning. You can tell at a glance that it is a Special customization for Pinduoduo. Therefore, it is not clear whether Pinduoduo can maintain its first-Mover advantage in this increasingly dangerous and fierce competition.
After all, Pinduoduo is a company listed in the United States, and it's hard to say whether its business model can be recognized in the United States.
First of all, the United States doesn't have so many brand-name goods, unlike China, which has so many small manufacturers producing these brand-name goods in large quantities.
Secondly, American consumers don't have the habit of consuming miscellaneous brands. They tend to recognize brands, such as clothes, and may buy them in brands he or she knows, and will not consider other brands because they are cheap. One more thing, the logistics in the United States is very underdeveloped (China logistics is really NB here), and it is difficult to achieve this mode of low-cost package. On this premise, I think it is very difficult for Pinduoduo to internationalize this business model.
finally, Pinduoduo, after all, is a listed company in the United States, and its major investors are also in the United States. If there is no similar business model in the United States, when there are problems in Pinduoduo, do they choose to understand? Support? Or is it too late to wave goodbye like most consumers? These are all unknowns.
But after all, Pinduoduo is a particularly young company, and it is remarkable that it can achieve this level. These problems are not without solutions. Many companies and enterprises have faced all kinds of problems in the initial stage, and some will surely fall, but those who have overcome the difficulties have become strong. Here, I also wish that Pinduoduo will become better and better and more standardized in the future, and the most important thing is to bring more affordable consumption choices to everyone.