Analyze Pinduoduo's event operation system and coupon gameplay!

Pinduoduo’s slogan is “More affordable, more fun”. More affordable means low price, and more fun means various ways to play. In fact, the two are unified. The benefits obtained when shopping need to be found from a variety of ways of playing, and the reason why some people are keen on these ways of playing is because they can get benefits while playing.

1. Occupy your time and you have endless possibilities

There was a popular saying some time ago: The person who occupies your mobile phone is either surnamed Zhang or Zhang. This refers to the powerful ability of WeChat and TikTok, two national applications, to occupy time. How important it is to seize time can be seen from the development speed of Toutiao. Today, Toutiao was once rumored to have a market value second only to Alibaba and Tencent, surpassing Baidu to become the third with US$70 billion.

The reason why occupying time is so important is, on the one hand, that only by occupying the user's time can the user be encouraged to consume the product, thereby achieving a series of goals such as revenue, traffic, and advertising promotion; on the other hand, if an application cannot occupy the user's time in a zero-sum game, then the user's excess time will be given to another application. The result of this is user loss and the growing strength of competitors.

Based on the above two reasons, an application is very valuable whether it has good revenue-generating capabilities or time-occupying capabilities.

Pinduoduo's strategy is very clever. It occupies users' time while generating revenue. It was successfully listed three years ago and surpassed many established e-commerce companies to become the third largest e-commerce company.

2. Selling the same product to different people at different prices

It is very common to sell different products to different people at different prices. For example, wealthy users may choose high-priced goods while ordinary users will focus more on products with higher cost performance. But as the business model develops, a new situation has gradually emerged, which is selling the same product to different people at different prices. But is there anyone willing to pay for this? In fact, of course there are some, such as big data price discrimination and price discrimination, which are specific manifestations of such behavior.

However, Pinduoduo does not achieve its goal of different prices for different people through methods such as big data killing old customers. Its model is to let users exchange time for money. Those who are willing to spend more time to actively explore can receive various coupons to reduce the price of goods, while those who are unwilling to spend time and want to buy quickly and close the app will need to buy at a high price.

By utilizing a complex discount system, those who are able to purchase goods at full price can be successfully dissuaded, while those who really need to purchase goods at low prices can be filtered out. These people contribute their time to Pinduoduo while purchasing goods at low prices. This is a situation where both parties are willing to fight and be beaten, and everyone gets the upper hand in their own logic.

In fact, this practice has existed since ancient times. For example, the famous case of mixing sand into rice: the corrupt official Heshen mixed sand into the rice given to the victims. The reason was that if the sand was not mixed in, it might attract many people who would just eat and wait to die. Those who were still willing to eat after mixing the sand in the rice were those who really had no other way to fill their stomachs. This practice is consistent with the complex discount system of e-commerce, which is a filtering mechanism.

3. Pinduoduo’s discount system

The above two parts talk about the purpose of Pinduoduo's discount system - to provide discounts while preventing users with good spending power from taking away too much of the platform's resources. Pinduoduo’s main selling point is cost-effectiveness, which is very attractive to low-income users and users who rent houses. The author has faced the situation of renting a house. At this time, many things need to be purchased, but they have to move out not long after buying them. Buying products of very good quality is obviously not cost-effective. At this time, the existence of Pinduoduo provides the author with the best solution.

As an author with a strong interest in products, I spent some time understanding Pinduoduo's discount model, and now I have organized it as follows. I believe that the discount logic of this billion-dollar product can not only provide inspiration to e-commerce operators, but also help Pinduoduo users buy items at lower prices in the shortest possible time. Of course, the discounts mentioned below do not include platform-wide shopping festival discounts such as 618, but refer to Pinduoduo’s daily discount strategies.

In addition, because Pinduoduo's discount system is very complicated and limited in length, this article will not introduce the more complicated tree planting, pig raising and star elimination (Duoduo Orchard, Golden Pigs Make Big Money, Duoduo Love Elimination) for the time being. These modules may be introduced in another article when possible.

3.1 Direct price reduction

This type of module has limited-time flash sales , clearance sales , 9.9 yuan special sales , and 10 billion yuan in subsidies that are breaking the bank . The characteristic of this type of offer is that there is no need to complete additional tasks. You only need to place an order in the corresponding tab to get the product at a relatively low price. If the product that the user needs to purchase happens to be among these activities, then the user can place an order directly.

Of course, this kind of discount is also subject to certain limitations, for example, these activity pages do not provide search functions. For users, if the product they like is not discounted, they naturally cannot enjoy the discount. Even if it is discounted, it may take a while to get it. For the platform, these modules lower the prices of goods, but increase the user retention time and the number of goods they see, which can increase sales to a certain extent.

Summary: The rules are simple, and the price is discounted to attract users and make them spend more time browsing the APP.

3.2 Sign-in courtesy type

The role of sign-in has been mentioned in many articles, such as increasing daily activity. In order to encourage users to sign in, the product will also give users various rewards, such as level upgrades, book coupons, etc. As an e-commerce product, Pinduoduo's approach is even simpler and more crude, that is, giving money when signing in. Pinduoduo has two sign-in modules, namely cash sign-in and daily cash collection .

Let’s talk about cash sign-in first. The functions of this module are relatively complex and can be divided into multiple sub-modules. The overall design is quite conscientious. As long as users can sign in continuously, they can get monetary rewards. Of course, as a product with hundreds of millions of users, the amount of money that can be earned will naturally not be too much.

The specific content is shown in the screenshots below:

The product introduction is very detailed. Just click on the activity rules and a pop-up window introducing the rules will pop up. The specific rules have been clearly introduced in the screenshots, so I will not repeat them here. In general, the sign-in task is still profitable for users. If users can really sign in every day, they can indeed receive a lot of rewards.

But if users only regard Pinduoduo as a tool and only open it when shopping, and find it difficult to sign in for a long time, then the rewards will be greatly reduced. However, there is a certain probability of receiving a WeChat red envelope (sharing type or order type) when signing in. This money can be obtained even if the user only signs in once, so you may get a surprise if you sign in out of nothing.

The second sign-in module is to receive cash every day . The rules of this part are much simpler. In one sentence, you can get cash by signing in and sharing. It can be cashed out after reaching a certain amount. The activities are updated daily.

Like cash check-in, the product also provides detailed instructions. This part of cash is valid for only one day. If the user fails to reach the withdrawal amount within one day, the amount already obtained will be invalidated. Users need to consider whether their sharing ability can reach the withdrawal threshold, otherwise it is easy to find that they do not have enough withdrawal quota after sharing.

Summary: Stimulate users to open the APP and increase interaction between users.

3.3 Sharing free type

The free sharing type is divided into two modules, one is to help you enjoy free orders , and the other is to bargain and get them for free . The two modules are very similar, as can be seen from their interfaces.

The designs of the two are very similar, the one on top is for helping to get a free order, and the one on the bottom is for bargaining to get it for free. There are three basic interfaces, namely the main page, the sharing page, and the reminder page when exiting. The characteristic of helping to enjoy free meals is that you need to invite new APP users, but the number of invitations is fixed, which means that whether you can get the prize is basically controllable.

However, you can bargain with your friends to get something for free, and it doesn’t require the other party to be a new user of the app. This seems to be a lot more relaxed, but the number of times you can bargain to get something for free is unknown. This means that users have no idea how many times they have to bargain before they can get the product. It could be 5 times or 50 times.

Summary: Stimulate old users to attract new ones and enhance interaction between users.

3.4 One point to win a big prize

A magical module that allows you to participate in the lottery by spending only one cent. The prize can even be a BMW car and the platform will indeed honor it. However, there is a substantial difference between this module and buying lottery tickets. Lottery companies are profitable, and the amount collected from lottery tickets is much larger than the total amount of winnings. The money spent by Pinduoduo's non-winners will be refunded, which means that the platform does not take a penny and the prizes will be distributed as expected.

So why does the platform do this? I guess it may be for popularity and to attract more users. Of course, winning is not completely random. You can increase the number of lucky codes by inviting friends. The user with the most lucky codes will definitely win. Even if you are not the user with the most lucky codes, you can increase the probability of winning by increasing the number of lucky codes.

Summary: Attract new users and increase interaction among old users.

3.5 Money-saving Monthly Card

The monthly card model is not new, it is a common practice in the industry. Monthly cards can be purchased from food delivery platforms to shared bicycles. The essence of a monthly card is to spend a certain amount of money to get a coupon that is greater than the amount spent. As long as certain consumption requirements are met, the goal of saving money can be achieved. If you want the monthly card to be worth it, you have to spend more money.

Pinduoduo’s money-saving monthly card can get a 194 yuan coupon, and it only costs 5.9 yuan to activate, which seems to be a great deal. In fact, it is indeed a good deal, but it is definitely not 5.9 yuan for 194 yuan. From the details of the 25 coupons, it is not difficult to find that except for the 4 5-yuan no-threshold coupons, the other coupons require a certain amount of consumption to be used, and the largest 20-yuan coupon is limited in quantity. In addition, there are rules and restrictions for collecting coupons, and not all of the above coupons can be collected at once.

In addition to coupons, the money-saving monthly card also provides three other privileges: free trials, free items, and discounted items, all of which have certain restrictions. In general, the more users spend on Pinduoduo and the more times they spend, the more worthwhile it is to purchase a monthly card service. As long as you spend twice to buy the monthly card, you will not lose money (use at least two no-threshold coupons). The monthly card is suitable for all Pinduoduo users.

Summary: To acquire loyal users, monthly card users may only use Pinduoduo for shopping in order to get a better value for the monthly card.

Summarize

Competition in the e-commerce field is extremely fierce, and Pinduoduo must have its merits to stand out. Because its target users are the silent majority, Pinduoduo is often accused by vocal groups of selling many counterfeit goods. In addition, many people believe that Pinduoduo’s strategy is low prices, and I can do it too. The author believes that the above views are unacceptable.

Pinduoduo is by no means a place with a lot of counterfeit goods or a place where I can do anything. Its discount model is very worthy of reference, but it is also very difficult to learn from. In this article, the author briefly sorted out its preferential system, but it only analyzed it from a qualitative perspective, while the more core part is quantitative, that is, the numerical system of the product. For example, there are certainly more companies than Pinduoduo that can think of bargaining to get things for free, but it is very difficult to really grow and succeed.

The problems that exist between thinking and doing include: how many times of bargaining is appropriate for users, how to avoid freeloaders, how the range of bargaining should vary each time, which products are suitable for logging in to bargain and get the module for free, etc. Each of the above items requires discussion, verification, and adjustment by product, operation, and programming personnel to make bargaining and getting things for free what it is today. Easily getting involved can easily lead to operational disasters. The huge workload, high cost and stringent requirements for talent capabilities are enough to discourage most companies from applying.

In terms of building a preferential system, Pinduoduo is undoubtedly the e-commerce company with the most complete categories and the most creativity, but there is no need to over-mythologize the role of the preferential system. Because this is closely related to the user group of the product, Pinduoduo focuses on low-income users and can naturally use the discount system to win again and again, while quality shopping websites like NetEase Yanxuan may backfire if they do so.

Related reading:

1. Activity operation: an inventory of mainstream gameplay such as group buying, bargaining, and distribution!

2. Three key points of event operation: How to increase users’ willingness to participate in activities?

3. Event operation: How to do a live broadcast sharing that can attract 10,000+ users?

4. What you need to know about event operation | The basic process of operating online events

5. Event Operation: If these 4 points are met, there is no event that cannot be done well

6. Event operation: How to run a good event? Share 4 points!

7. Event operation: 6 common types of event link title copywriting!

8. Event operation, complete analysis of the gameplay of flash sales

Author: Ma Lu

Source: Ma Lu