Find"复制"拼多多,"超越"拼多多?

Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Lin slowly

In its 30 years of existence, Amazon may not have expected to one day be chased by a company that is less than two years old.

In September 2022, Temu, a cross-border e-commerce company under Pinduoduo Group, was launched in North America. But in the next two years, according to SimilarWeb data, in December 2023, the number of unique visitors to Temu reached 467 million, slightly higher than Aliexpress's 422 million, surpassing SHEIN (172.3 million), and second only to Amazon (2.659 billion). Temu is not only large, but also growing fast, with the number of unique visitors to Temu growing by 106.4% in the second half of 2023.

The user is soaring, and the corresponding is the territory expansion breakthrough. At Pinduoduo's financial report exchange meeting, Chen Lei, chairman and co-CEO of Pinduoduo, said that Temu has expanded to more than 50 countries and regions.

On the evening of March 20, Pinduoduo Group released its fourth quarter and annual performance report for 2023. In the fourth quarter of last year, Pinduoduo achieved revenue of 88.881 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 123%. net profit was 23.28 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 146%. For the full year of 2023, Pinduoduo's revenue will be 247.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 90%, and its net profit will be 60 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 90%.

Among them, in the fourth quarter of last year, Pinduoduo's online marketing services (advertising) revenue was 48.68 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 57%. Transaction service revenue (commission) was 40.21 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 357%. The growth rate of commission income has far exceeded the growth rate of advertising revenue, which accounts for the majority of the total, and the amount is close to advertising revenue.

In the composition of transaction service revenue, mainly including Temu income, Duoduo grocery commission income and part of the 10 billion subsidy commission, there is no doubt that the most important growth of Pinduoduo Group comes from Temu's global expansion.

A year and a half after its launch, Temu has become the second growth curve of Pinduoduo Group.

Source: Picture Worm Creative

Copy Pinduoduo?

2022 is the 7th year of the establishment of Pinduoduo Group. This year's government work report proposes to accelerate the development of new forms and models of foreign trade and give full play to the role of cross-border e-commerce.

In September of the same year, Temu was launched in North America, the name of the company taken from "Team up, price down", and the corresponding Chinese slogan is "fight to buy, cheaper".

Temu, which was born out of Pinduoduo, has expanded its territory overseas and continued its genes: the ultimate cost performance. At the same time, Temu relies on the full custody model to achieve the ultimate efficiency of the supply chain with the role of "super big seller" like self-management.

Compared with other e-commerce platforms, Temu mainly adopts a quasi-self-operated model, that is, the merchant supplier only needs to be responsible for the two links of "commodity production" and "commodity delivery to the domestic warehouse", and the manufacturer only needs to control the production cost, and the subsequent operation, logistics, warehousing and distribution, customer service and after-sales service are all responsible for the platform side, which greatly reduces the threshold of cross-border e-commerce for merchants, and also removes intermediate links such as distributors to ensure price advantage.

In addition to simplifying the process, the platform will also introduce a bidding mechanism to select high-quality suppliers. In addition, there will be corresponding measures for unsalable products and rated products, and the platform's service to merchants will in turn improve the platform's right to speak, thereby improving the efficiency of Temu's supply chain.

Coupled with the ultimate cost performance, Temu has brought rising GMV to merchants.

Last year's Black Friday, Liu Wenhai, the second generation of the factory, saw this kind of magic. "It doesn't matter if you have 10,000 hats, 50,000 hats, or 100,000 hats, you can sell them directly. Just the single amount of the hat made the equipment in the factory smoke, and Temu almost revitalized the entire factory. ”

At the same time, Temu has excellent advantages in product selection and supply chain building. By gathering the homogeneous needs of consumers, we create a C2M supply chain model to guide merchants to produce goods according to consumer needs, improve business efficiency and reduce inventory pressure.

There were also some problems in the transition from 2B to 2C in the second generation of the factory, but the Temu buyer allowed her to capture the undiscovered consumer trends through some small and precise suggestions. "Buyers often communicate with us about the latest trends in overseas markets and provide suggestions for new product development, and the massive number of user reviews also promotes micro-innovation on the production side. ”

In addition, Pinduoduo has also accumulated experience in product selection in the process of 10 billion subsidies, according to Pinduoduo data, during last year's Double 11, the agricultural goods and domestic merchants settled in the 10 billion subsidies increased by more than 2 times year-on-year; in the global shopping business, 21 of the top 100 brands achieved a year-on-year growth of more than 300%, and 59 single products with single-day sales of more than one million.

In the case of relatively mature suppliers, in March this year, Temu once again launched the "semi-managed" model, which means that merchants can choose not to use the warehouse logistics service provider designated by Temu, and decide the warehousing and logistics plan more flexibly according to the way that suits them. The same merchant can also choose two different models at the same time according to their own situation, and Temu's move may also be to give merchants more space and freedom.

Source: Picture Worm Creative

Back to basics

But even so, at the results exchange meeting on March 20, Chen Lei modestly said that Pinduoduo's global business is still in its early stages. "There may be many changes and challenges in the future, and in the face of the unknown, what we can grasp is to continue to cultivate internal strength. ”

Chen Lei pointed out that no matter how the market or competition pattern changes, consumers' demands for more affordable and good services on e-commerce platforms will not change.

The keywords of "more affordable + good service" also literally explain why 8-year-old Pinduoduo and less than two-year-old Temu can quickly seize the market, not only because of the model, but also because of the essence of business.

Zhao Jiazhen, executive director and co-CEO of Pinduoduo Group, believes that consumption upgrading is not about high consumption and overdraft demand, but about helping users save money and providing consumers with better products and services.

In the past year, as Pinduoduo's market share has grown, other e-commerce platforms have been "Pinduoduo", emphasizing pricing strategies. But Pinduoduo proposes good service on the basis of how affordable.

Zhao Jiazhen believes that in the case of the recovery of the consumer market, it is a normal reaction of the industry for e-commerce platforms to see opportunities, increase promotional efforts, and make a fuss about prices. However, he said, "Competition is the main theme of the e-commerce industry, and Pinduoduo will face competition and return to its essence in the new year." ”

Zhao Jiazhen said that in the new year, we will do simple and direct promotions on products, categories and prices with the highest consumer demand, give back to consumers, and further strengthen the user's mind of the platform. In terms of good service, we will also continue to upgrade the shopping process in an all-round way in terms of licensing, logistics, fulfillment, after-sales and consumer protection, and will continue to focus on research and development, in line with the principle of science and technology for good, consolidate the platform capabilities of small and medium-sized businesses, and promote the industrial upgrading of agricultural products and manufacturing.

According to the financial report, Pinduoduo Group's R&D expenses in the fourth quarter of last year were 2.9 billion yuan, and the annual R&D expenses reached 11 billion yuan. Chen Lei said, "This year, we will maintain our investment to improve the support capacity of cutting-edge technologies in agriculture and manufacturing. He also said that by improving supply chain insights and technical capabilities, he will help manufacturing factories reduce costs and increase efficiency, and create more popular models.

"With our own supply chain and technical capabilities, we will bring excellent merchants and high-quality goods to consumers around the world. This is the original intention of Pinduoduo, but it may be Pinduoduo's ambition to start again in the 7th year.

Increase the size of manufacturing to go to sea

China's market is huge, but the world's market is even bigger.

According to the data, the proportion of cross-border e-commerce goods in foreign trade has increased from less than 1% five years ago to about 5% at present. Cross-border e-commerce platforms have become a new driving force for the transformation and upgrading of foreign trade and an important engine for the innovation and development of foreign trade.

The 2024 government work report of the State Council will also include "strengthening standard guidance and quality support, and creating more 'Made in China' brands with international influence" as this year's work tasks, and the manufacturing industry will once again stand in the spotlight on the world stage.

Starting with "copying" Pinduoduo, Temu's next step may be to plan to surpass Pinduoduo.

According to HSBC estimates, Temu's contribution to Pinduoduo Group's total revenue will be 23% in 2023, and this figure is expected to rise to 43% in 2024 and more than 50% in 2025.

HSBC also said that Temu's strong growth will continue into 2024, and Temu's GMV (gross merchandise volume) is expected to triple to about $48 billion in 2024 and reach $140 billion by 2027.

CICC believes that Temu's focus this year will shift from North America to Europe, the Middle East, Japan, South Korea and Latin America. CICC's prediction comes from the uncertainty of the North American market.

This year, the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee voted to pass a bill against TikTok (ByteDance's overseas short video platform), requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok or TikTok will be taken off the shelves.

The Information quoted sources as saying that the U.S. market currently accounts for 60% of Temu's total merchandise sales, but the platform plans to reduce this proportion to 30% by 2025.

It is understood that Temu is currently increasing investment in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America, and is also strengthening overseas legal and compliance construction.

Chen Lei emphasized on the earnings call that compliance is the foundation of business. Last year, Pinduoduo established a dedicated legal and compliance committee at the group level, and he himself chaired the committee to further enhance Temu's legal and compliance capabilities in various regions.

"Over the past year, we have continued to improve our internal compliance mechanisms and processes, and have also communicated and cooperated with relevant regulatory authorities in various countries. In terms of global business, Chen Lei said, "We always have a sincere attitude of learning from consumers and the market, and explore more technology and model innovation." ”

Going from 0 to 1 is hard, but going from 1 to 100 is equally hard.