In the fifth year of the May 5th Shopping Festival, Pinduoduo once again became an active role.
(‘The “May 5th Shopping Festival” activity page of Pinduoduo has been launched, and users can receive consumption subsidies by entering the special area. Meng Yungui | Photo’,)
In addition to participating in the Shanghai International Coffee Culture Festival offline, we also collaborated with China Central Television to launch the “Buy coffee from the main station and send Yunnan flowers” “Coffee Bar Together” activity, delivering 6000 roses in 5 days; Online, Pinduoduo has also fully played its role as a bridge connecting the local market in Shanghai and the markets outside of Shanghai: local brands, including Shanlin Dahongchang, have started to leave Shanghai with the help of Pinduoduo’s platform and shopping festival activities, while Yunnan flower brands have leveraged Pinduoduo’s supply chain advantages to bring more high-quality and affordable flowers to Shanghai in a faster manner.
Shanghai local brand: Borrowing Pinduoduo to go out of Shanghai
Shanghai Shanlin Food Co., Ltd. is an old established cooked food enterprise in Shanghai, known to the locals for producing and selling “big red sausage”. As early as 1949, Shanghai Shanlin was established, but for over 70 years, its main brand marketing and sales channels have been offline. As of now, Shanghai Shanlin has hundreds of directly operated stores offline, mainly selling red sausages in bulk weighing form, with a main customer base of middle class or silver haired people in their forties and fifties.
Pinduoduo is one of the key e-commerce platforms in Shanghai’s Shanlin layout, which is related to its new strategy of e-commerce business starting in 2023, as well as its attribute of connecting local and overseas markets in Shanghai.
Within six months, Shanghai Shanlin formed a team of over 20 people and joined Pinduoduo in March of this year. With the help of Pinduoduo, “first of all, let more people see and understand Shanghai’s local time-honored brands. Furthermore, we hope to use Pinduoduo to make more consumers understand and like our products.” said Jiang Shiyuan, General Manager of Shanghai Shanlin E-commerce.
The demands of Shanghai’s mountains and forests are very clear, firstly, to reach a wider audience through Pinduoduo; Secondly, expand beyond Shanghai through Pinduoduo, including nationwide consumer groups in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and more regions.
Not long after entering Pinduoduo, Shanghai Shanlin applied for the black label flagship store logo, which gave it more support than regular stores. According to data provided by Jiang Shiyuan, after completing the certification of the black label brand store, its daily sales maintained a stable growth of 10% to 20%. When the May 5th Shopping Festival approaches, local time-honored brands like Shanghai Shanlin have received traffic support from activities such as “billion yuan subsidies”.
Billion dollar subsidy is a product subsidy activity launched by Pinduoduo on the eve of June 18, 2019. Through real gold and silver concessions, the marketing costs originally invested in user growth are transformed into direct benefits that users can obtain, creating a win-win situation for users, merchants, and platforms – users receive high-quality and cost-effective products, merchants receive traffic orders, and platforms achieve high-quality growth.
Jiang Shiyuan said that before joining Pinduoduo, almost 100% of the sales revenue of Shanghai’s mountains and forests came from the local market in Shanghai. After more than a month of operation and sales during the May 5th Shopping Festival, “the cake has grown,” and the sales ratio of the two markets has become 8:2-20% of the sales began to come from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places outside of Shanghai, with some buyers even coming from Guangdong.
Agricultural products from other regions: Taping Duoduo’s entry into Shanghai
Yang Pan’s “Kunming Flower Square” store settled in Pinduoduo much earlier than Shanghai Shanlin. As early as 2019, this flower merchant from Yunnan smelled the shift in consumer demand in the first tier flower market from gift oriented to self pleasing. “Previously, 90% of people who bought flowers were male, mainly expressing love by giving them to girlfriends or wives, but now more than 70% are female customers, basically giving them to themselves as embellishments of life,” said Yang Pan.
However, in the national market sales, the fastest growing market for online sales was once in third and fourth tier cities, rather than first tier cities like Shanghai. The reason is that third – and fourth tier cities used to lack flower sales channels, and at one point only offline physical flower shops were available for consumers to purchase. Like Shanghai Shanlin, Kunming Huafang’s main distribution channel before entering Pinduoduo was also offline physical stores.
The emergence of more users of Yueji style flowers is good news for online channels, because “buying flowers online is more convenient, logistics is faster, price comparison is better, and there are more product types because stores will not display so many flowers.” Taking Yang Pan’s flower brand as an example, “Kunming Flower Shop” may sell up to 180 to 200 types of flowers, and offline stores generally can only display and store 10 to 20 types, with higher losses. Compared to others, online flower display and logistics are already very mature. Flowers picked in the morning will be packaged and sent out in the warehouse in the afternoon. If it is fast, customers can receive them the next day, and if it is slow, it will not exceed three days.
(‘▲ Some products that have been featured in special live streaming sessions with billions of subsidies. Meng Yungui | Photo’,)
After joining Pinduoduo, Yang Pan can also sell flowers at affordable prices. For example, in the past, a rose used to cost five or six yuan. On the Pinduoduo platform, due to the significant increase in sales scale, 10 roses can be sold for only 9.9 yuan, and it is free shipping to home. “The consumption of (flowers) in various cities across the country has also increased,” Yang Pan believes that it is Pinduoduo and merchants who have expanded the category of flowers.
During this year’s May 5th Shopping Festival, Pinduoduo added the flower category to the billion yuan subsidy camp for the first time, allowing consumers across Shanghai to buy flowers that make their lives better at a better price – the lowest cost is only 9.9 yuan, and the quality of life can be improved.
Yang Pan’s “Kunming Flower Shop” flower shop has also joined the 10 billion yuan subsidy. He specifically selected rare varieties for Shanghai consumers besides roses, lilies, and carnations, and prepared more creative bouquets and DIY bouquets, creatively combining five to ten types of flowers to meet the consumption needs of the first tier market.
According to data provided by Yang Pan, compared to last year, the offline business of Kunming Huafang has shrunk, but the online business has doubled in growth. He believes that the growth of online business will continue because although many consumers have started to order flowers through e-commerce, this flower buying model is still a new thing for many people. At the same time, e-commerce platforms are also more supportive of the development of flower categories. “In the past, Pinduoduo’s 10 billion subsidy may have mainly focused on fast-moving consumer goods, but with the continuous improvement of living standards, people’s demand for flowers and material richness is increasing.” Yang Pan introduced that his store’s flowers also appeared in the 10 billion subsidy special live streaming event jointly organized by Pinduoduo and the headquarters.