Pinduoduo goes all in on the real economy, and big data empowers the rise of domestic products

Once upon a time, when people mentioned "domestic products", they always equated them with "rustic and cheap" and "low-priced and low-quality". Even though the prices of many international brands are several times that of domestic products, the streets are still full of "foreign products" that look very foreign.

In recent years, the situation has changed, and it has become a trend that domestic products are more popular than foreign products. From daily chemicals to consumer electronics, from clothing and hats to home life, from domestic manufacturing to rural products, one after another domestic products have been reborn and have shown explosive growth.

In-depth research shows that the explosion of quality domestic products is due not only to the gradual improvement of Chinese people's cultural confidence, but also to the transformation and upgrading of domestic manufacturing under the support of technologies such as the Internet and big data. In the process of transformation and upgrading of domestic manufacturing, Internet players represented by Pinduoduo continue to empower the real economy and are becoming a key force in promoting the rise of Chinese local brands.

The rise of domestic manufacturing and the “renewal” of rural products

For a long time, China has become a world-renowned factory by virtue of its advantages in labor and land costs. However, at the same time, under the impact of foreign goods, traditional domestic products and traditional skills generally face problems such as core technology being controlled by others, production and sales difficulties, and brand competitiveness is seriously insufficient. Under the global competitive landscape, domestic manufacturing has long been at the end of the industrial chain, and the survival space of domestic brands has been infinitely compressed by international brands.

At present, this dilemma is completely changing. With the collision of the Internet and the real economy, the spark of the rise of domestic manufacturing and the "renewal" of rural products has been rekindled.

The explosion of Sea-Gull watches is a representative example of this.

As an old domestic brand, Seagull Watch produced the first watch in China, marking the beginning of China's watchmaking industry. However, in its 66-year history, Seagull has experienced many difficulties and setbacks. In the 1990s, due to the shrinking watch market, Seagull Watch suffered an annual loss of 20 million yuan. In recent years, the high cost of online traffic and the decline in average customer spending have become another major problem.

Today, Sea-Gull watches have entered a new stage of rapid development, launching popular products such as the "Changjin Lake" co-branded model, the Heart-Stirring Design series, and the Ocean series. Especially after entering Pinduoduo, the store's sales volume approached one million within two or three months, and is still continuing to explode.

From "time-honored brand" to "new national trend", the important reason why Seagull watches are enjoying a "second spring" is that the new e-commerce platform Pinduoduo has deeply empowered it. The cooperation between Pinduoduo and Seagull not only creates mechanical watches exclusively for users on the Pinduoduo platform, but also joins hands with Seagull watches to jointly plan the "Duoduo New National Trend" live broadcast event in order to help the time-honored brand find new channels. In the live broadcast, it brings the sharing of new national trend products such as the "Changjin Lake" co-branded model, which has attracted the attention and pursuit of 2.03 million users.

Seagull watches are not the only example of a domestic brand regaining its momentum. On Pinduoduo, many domestic brands have experienced strong growth. Data shows that in the past year, more than 50 time-honored brands with sales of over 100 million yuan and more than 30 new domestic brands with sales of over 100 million yuan have emerged on Pinduoduo.

Based on its full-link digital service capabilities, Pinduoduo provides domestic manufacturing brands with multi-dimensional professional services such as marketing, products, technology, and data, helping to promote domestic brands such as Pechoin, Shanghai Jahwa, Zhang Xiaoquan, Tan Mujiang, and Huili, and successfully becoming a representative of the rise of domestic manufacturing.

On the other side of the leap forward in domestic manufacturing, the development of rural handicraft manufacturing industry has also ushered in earth-shaking changes thanks to Pinduoduo's in-depth exploration and empowerment.

As an important ceramic town in China, Chaozhou ceramics have a history of more than 1,300 years and are extremely famous both at home and abroad. In the 1990s, Chaozhou had become an important export base for Chinese ceramics. However, although Chaozhou ceramics have been exported all over the world, the production model is still at the handicraft workshop stage, and the operation also follows the "take one order and do one order" order model. In 2020, with the outbreak of the epidemic, foreign trade orders shrank sharply. The local ceramic manufacturers Chen Jiashuo and Chen Xiaopeng's team had no choice but to turn to online channels. Unexpectedly, they soon found hope for a comeback.

After only one month of opening, the Pinduoduo store of Chen Jiashuo and Chen Xiaopeng has received over 1,000 orders per day, and the annual sales in 2021 are close to 10 million. Driven by the massive orders from Pinduoduo, the original manual workshop production model of Chenjia Ceramics Factory could neither meet the production efficiency needs nor adapt to the new demands of consumers, which forced the factory to carry out a series of mechanized production line transformations, opening up a new model of digital upgraded production.

In order to help Chaoshan ceramics to further its digital transformation, after Pinduoduo officially launched the "2022 Duoduo New Craftsmanship" campaign, the "Duoduo New Craftsmanship" special team made a special trip to contact Chenjia Ceramics Factory to discuss the future cooperation model between the two parties, and started to apply for a "brand black label" for it, providing data and technical support, and focusing on supporting the Chaozhou ceramic industry belt.

Relying on Pinduoduo's traffic support, data and technology empowerment for Chaozhou ceramics, Chaozhou ceramics successfully broke out of the circle and regained the vitality of the industry when foreign trade orders were severely reduced.

Like Chaozhou ceramics, the development of Gaocheng palace lanterns has also been revitalized by the deep empowerment of the new e-commerce company Pinduoduo.

The Gaocheng Palace Lanterns, which are beautiful, bright, wind-resistant and durable, were selected as lanterns for the royal family as early as the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty. However, the production and management methods of the Gaocheng Palace Lanterns were very traditional. In terms of production, every process was made by handcraftsmen, and in terms of management, they were sold from street to street. According to this production model and management method, it is almost impossible to realize the industrial development of Gaocheng Palace Lanterns.

In recent years, with the combination of e-commerce and physical stores, the industrialization of Gaocheng Palace Lanterns has gradually become a reality, allowing this traditional craft of Gaocheng Palace Lanterns to create new glory. Today, Gaocheng Palace Lantern craftsmen use e-commerce and live broadcasts to showcase the stories and production techniques of Gaocheng Palace Lanterns, further enhancing the popularity of Gaocheng Palace Lanterns while also further opening up sales channels for Gaocheng Palace Lanterns. On Pinduoduo, Gaocheng Palace Lantern brand merchants can even achieve daily sales of more than 5,000 pairs during the peak sales season.

From the explosive growth of Gaocheng palace lanterns, it is not difficult to see that riding on the express train of new e-commerce development is the key to truly realizing the revitalization of this traditional handmade manufacturing industry. Today, with the empowerment of new e-commerce platforms such as Pinduoduo, Gaocheng palace lanterns have gradually formed an industrial chain and built an industrial belt. In Tuntou Village, the "No. 1 Palace Lantern Village in China", Gaocheng palace lanterns have achieved assembly line production. During the peak sales season, workers who wear frames, put on lampshades, smooth gold bars, dry them, and pack them each perform their duties. After industrial transformation and development, its annual production and sales have exceeded 100 million pairs, and its annual output value has reached 1.5 billion yuan, becoming a typical representative of the industrialization and industrialization of handmade manufacturing.

In addition to Chaozhou ceramics and Gaocheng palace lanterns, a number of domestic products such as Qixian glass, Chongqing Deng family knives, and Jixin cattail fans are now supported and empowered by new e-commerce platforms, inheriting traditional skills while achieving industrial chain upgrading and industrial development.

Overall, whether it is the rise of traditional Chinese manufacturing such as Seagull watches, or the rejuvenation of Chaozhou ceramics and Gaocheng palace lanterns, the key reason behind this is that new e-commerce platforms are all in the real economy, actively helping the real economy to transform with technologies such as the Internet and big data. At present, it has become a general trend for new e-commerce platforms to embrace the real economy. Against this background, more and more good Chinese products will become "regular customers" in people's lives, and more and more industrial belts will emerge from this.

With comprehensive and in-depth empowerment, Pinduoduo is heading deep into the real economy  

In the process of the rise of domestic products, it is not difficult to see that Pinduoduo has actually been "everywhere". As a representative of the new e-commerce platform, Pinduoduo's determination to swim deep into the real economy is obvious. As Pinduoduo CEO Chen Lei said, "Continuing to take root in the real industry, investing in science and technology in different links of agricultural entities and manufacturing industries, and doing a good job in value creation, this is the support for the long-term high-quality development of this platform." And its frequent actions to empower the real economy have opened up a broader upward blueprint for traditional domestic brands and rural products.

A review of Pinduoduo's layout in supporting the real economy reveals that Pinduoduo's continued increase in investment has two distinct characteristics, namely, comprehensiveness and in-depth.

In the past, in the eyes of many people, Pinduoduo was an e-commerce platform dominated by C-end traffic, but now, Pinduoduo is helping the real economy and moving towards more upstream B-ends. Whether it is supporting traditional domestic brands such as Seagull, or empowering Chaozhou ceramics and Gaocheng palace lanterns, increasing investment in supply-side upgrades, serving the real economy, helping consumption growth, and further meeting consumers' demand for quality goods, it is clearly visible in Pinduoduo.

At the same time, Pinduoduo's empowerment of the real economy is not limited to a single industry or a single link. Since the beginning of this year, Pinduoduo has launched a number of special activities to support the manufacturing industry, including "Duoduo New National Trend", "Duoduo New Craftsmanship", and "Duoduo Overseas Support Plan". It has penetrated more than 100 manufacturing and rural handicraft industrial belts, helping domestic brands and rural goods to open up the consumption chain, and providing full-chain digital services for manufacturing brands in terms of product structure, design and development, production and manufacturing, and brand building, helping traditional enterprises and manufacturing factories to transform and upgrade.

Taking the "2022 Pinduoduo New Craftsmanship" campaign as an example, Pinduoduo will focus on three aspects in supporting the rural handicraft industry in the future. In addition to investing 1 billion level of special traffic resources and subsidy resources to promote the export of rural products from the village to the city, it will also support high-quality rural industry brands and promote the branding and upgrading of traditional handicrafts and secondary industries. In addition, it will set up a special training team to develop e-commerce training courses for handicraft products and cultivate at least 100,000 new farmers and merchants.

As a result of the strong support measures, the number of merchants selling traditional handicrafts on Pinduoduo has increased by more than 132% in the past year, and the number of merchants with the "brand" black label has almost doubled. A large number of rural products have taken advantage of the new e-commerce platform to reach consumers in first- and second-tier cities.

In the past, e-commerce platforms were more of a commodity intermediary platform, more like a "landlord" in traditional business. In the process of fully embracing the real economy, an obvious change in Pinduoduo is that the platform is no longer a "spectator", but a "participant" in the digital transformation and upgrading of domestic manufacturing and rural products. For example, in helping Chaozhou ceramics, Pinduoduo not only brought it traffic support, but also provided support in data and technology, as well as back-end brand building. It also explored the "e-commerce live broadcast + factory live broadcast" model from industry to brand, from enterprise to individual level, and conducted in-depth research and empowerment of rural products.

For the traditional real economy, the participation of new e-commerce platforms not only helps companies solve the problem of sales channels, but also leverages the new e-commerce platforms' accumulation in marketing, operations, branding and other aspects to gain insight into users' real needs and reversely infer the production process, which will bring greater benefits to the digital transformation and upgrading of enterprises and achieve industrial growth, upgrading and efficiency improvement.

For Pinduoduo, by personally participating in the actual operation of the industry, it constantly sees new problems and new potential in the development of the real economy. Combined with its own technical accumulation, data accumulation, and operational accumulation, it will eventually be able to feed back into the creation of domestic products, create longer-term value, and promote the high-quality development of domestic manufacturing. At the same time, Pinduoduo will also reactivate and inherit the rural handicraft industry, drive more handicraft industries to open up sales and establish brands, and drive local villagers to create wealth and increase income in broader rural areas, thereby helping rural revitalization. .

At a time of consumption upgrading, consumers' demand for quality products is increasing. Feedback from the consumer side to the supply side requires that domestic manufacturing and rural products be optimized in all aspects such as product creation, marketing and packaging, so as to accumulate stronger brand potential with the help of new e-commerce platforms. Pinduoduo's advantage lies in its long-term Internet traffic and technology accumulation, as well as its long-term practice in the sinking market. These advantages will undoubtedly be demonstrated in the process of boosting the real economy, and ultimately domestic products will be continuously pushed to consumers, forming a new trend of domestic products.

Conclusion  

Nowadays, the stories of Chinese-made products and rural products breaking out of the circle are frequently staged in the market. From Seagull watches to Shanghai Jahwa, from Chaozhou ceramics to Gaocheng palace lanterns, batches of Chinese-made products are flowing to consumers like a tide.

Behind this trend, domestic manufacturing has achieved transformation and upgrading, and rural industries have ushered in leapfrog development. It can be seen from the map that new e-commerce platforms represented by Pinduoduo have brought industrial support.

In the long run, as a new e-commerce platform with nearly 800 million users, Pinduoduo is all in on the real economy. Relying on its experience in the Internet era and the sinking markets, it will bring real long-term value to consumers, manufacturers, brand owners and platform parties, and create a new model with profound epoch-making significance in the journey of accelerating the transformation and upgrading of the real economy.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.