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at the end of august, pinduoduo announced the official launch of the “10 billion reduction” plan, which will reduce merchant transaction fees by 10 billion yuan in the next year. in the past month, pinduoduo has successively launched a number of fee refund and exemption benefits, lowered store deposits and cash withdrawal thresholds, waived logistics transfer fees for merchants in remote areas, etc., and helped merchants and industry leaders shift through "real money" support and exemptions. high quality development.

▲in the past month, pinduoduo launched a package of tax reduction and exemption measures for “ten billions of dollars”.

up to now, the platform's use-now-pay-later exemption rights and 0.6% technical service fee refund rights have been expanded from active orders to all orders. store deposit reductions have also covered all categories of merchants. more than 10 million merchants have purchased a series of products on the platform. the reduction and exemption measures have achieved cost reduction and efficiency improvement. many businesses in agricultural production areas and industrial belts said that they will save hundreds of thousands of expenses every year, and more funds will be invested in new product research and development and supply chain upgrades.

in the view of industry insiders, pinduoduo’s new policy of “tens of billions of tax exemptions” is a reshaping of the e-commerce ecosystem and a great benefit to the entire e-commerce ecological environment. platforms have begun to integrate merchants, consumers and platforms. finding the (operational) balance point will help build a healthier and sustainable industry ecosystem.

merchants in multiple categories save hundreds of thousands annually

on september 11, pinduoduo’s “ten billion waiver” upgraded merchant service fee refund and exemption rights, reducing the technical service fee for all use now, pay later orders from 1% to 0.6%. hu fei, a sichuan fruit merchant, felt it immediately the intensity of the new measures.

according to hu fei, among agricultural product orders, a high proportion of orders are used first and paid later. the store he is responsible for sells more than 100,000 kilograms of seasonal fruits on pinduoduo every day. the proportion of orders used first and paid later is close to half.

“now the technical service fee for use now and pay later has been reduced to 6%, which is great news for us. in addition, with the previous refund and exemption of resource technology fees, we can save an average of 50,000 to 60,000 yuan per month, which also allows us to more funds will be invested in the agricultural supply chain," hu fei said.

in addition to hu fei, fruit merchant wang yu also feels the same way. many of his monthly sales orders of more than 4 million yuan come from various platform activities such as flash sales and tens of billions of subsidies, so more than half of his orders can enjoy refundable technical service fees.

"the fruit category is more likely to explode through platform activities. now the platform has reduced the technical service fee by 6% of the return and refund order, which has helped us generate a lot of revenue in disguise." according to wang yu's rough estimate, the two technical service fees after the preferential policies are introduced, i will generate tens of thousands of yuan in disguised income a year.

▲benefiting from pinduoduo’s “tens of billions of exemptions”, many agricultural goods merchants save hundreds of thousands in expenses every year. photo by du jia

prior to this, pinduoduo’s “ten billion reduction” program offered merchants the right to refund promotional service fees and return related fees in the form of red envelopes. this reduction measure also aroused heated discussion among the merchant community.

since entering pinduoduo three years ago, snack merchant fang bo has opened more than 20 stores, with monthly sales reaching 25 million yuan. "we are developing very fast in pinduoduo, and our investment in the platform is constantly increasing. the daily promotion fee for a large store alone is 30,000 to 40,000 yuan, and the single-day promotion fee can reach 140,000 yuan, so the promotion fee is refundable equity has been very helpful to us.”

"now is the peak sales season for snacks. such large-scale promotion fee refunds are expected to continue for some time. the average red envelope returned every day now is two to three thousand yuan. overall, it is estimated that we can receive hundreds of thousands of yuan in refunds in a year. red envelope." fang bo said.

not long after the promotion fee refund benefit was launched, it coincided with the mid-autumn festival. merchants in the mooncake category benefited a lot, and wu lei was one of them.

"our sales reached more than 10 million yuan during the mid-autumn festival, but the characteristic of the mooncake industry is that it explodes intensively, so there are a lot of orders that are returned instantly. i have a lot of refunds for undelivered orders on various platforms. at 10%, the introduction of the new policy helped me recover a lot of promotion fees," wu lei said.

he clearly remembers that since receiving the first red envelope on august 26, the amount of promotional fee refunds he has received so far is as high as 58,000 yuan. wu lei estimates that he will receive promotional fee refund red envelopes one after another in the future.

"the mooncake business mainly relies on concentrated consumption during festivals, so in the end, the return of promotion fees will obviously increase net profit from the book." wu lei further said.

"ten billions of exemptions" empower merchants to show their effectiveness

on september 9, pinduoduo announced that it would waive logistics transfer fees for merchants’ orders in remote areas. merchants only need to send orders to transit warehouses in xi’an and other places, and the transit warehouses will deliver secondary shipments to logistics in xinjiang, tibet, gansu, ningxia and other places. all transfer fees will be borne by the platform.

this allowed li chuang, a yam merchant in henan, to see new opportunities. in li chuang's view, the platform's exemption of logistics transfer fees for merchants in remote areas will bring considerable growth to him.

"although yams can be stored at room temperature and are suitable for long-distance transportation. to be honest, we didn't have a strong intention to do business in xinjiang, tibet and other places in the past. some orders were even rejected because the logistics cost was too high. it's not an exaggeration. even if you make one order, you will lose one order," li chuang said.

li chuang made a simple calculation: 3 kilograms of yam were shipped directly from henan sf express to xinjiang, and the shipping cost was as high as more than 50 yuan. the price of the yam was only 60 yuan, and almost all of it was used to pay for logistics costs. li chuang also said that he has never forgotten the incremental market of nearly 90 million people in xinjiang, gansu, tibet and other places.

"it's okay now. after the platform bears the second half of the cost, the maximum cost for us to send yams to the transit warehouse is only seven or eight yuan." he said that after pinduoduo has significantly reduced logistics costs, he is now studying how to transport yams. better to sell to these remote areas.

after the implementation of a number of reduction and exemption policies, pinduoduo has also upgraded its merchant after-sales service system to fully support merchants in appealing for abnormal orders, malicious complaint orders, negative consumer experience, etc., and there is no limit on the number of appeals. successful appeals merchants will receive compensation from the platform.

li chuang said that in the past, appeal rights were divided according to store levels, and the number of appeals he made was limited, so he would first evaluate the possibility of successful appeals. now that his authority has been released, he will appeal for every abnormal order, and half of them will be approved.

"for example, i have 50 abnormal yam after-sales orders every month, and in practice, more than 20 orders will be approved." li chuang estimates that after the after-sales service system is upgraded, he will be able to increase his income by nearly a thousand yuan per month.

compared with li chuang, fang bo is more impressed by the upgrade of the after-sales service system.

"we have 20 stores, and the daily order volume of large stores is five to six thousand, so the after-sales service will also be operated in a systematic manner." fang bo said that before this, the company will first arrange for grading supervisors to appeal, and after summarizing experience, then provided training to more than 40 customer service specialists.

after the introduction of the new after-sales policy, fang bo immediately increased the frequency of customer service complaints. "in the past, we required customer service staff to make 400 complaints about after-sales orders per store per month, but now it has increased to 600 to 700 complaints. although the relevant data on efficiency improvements after adjustments have not yet been released, we are full of expectations."

as pinduoduo’s “10 billion tax exemption” policy continues to be implemented, many merchants have expressed that they will further increase investment and introduce new products to expand their team configuration on the platform. for example, fang bo, after receiving two to three thousand yuan in red envelopes from promotion fees every day, plans to add 10% to 20% to the daily promotion fee of 140,000 yuan for new product promotion.

"the casual snacks we operate also have instant refunds. now that the platform has returned the promotion fee, we have more funds to promote pastries and other snack peripheral products. pinduoduo has allowed us to realize our plan to expand business categories in advance." he said. coupled with the efficiency improvements brought about by the upgrade of the after-sales service system, he plans to increase the team of 20 people responsible for pinduoduo to 30 people before the end of the year.

(at the request of the merchant, hu fei, fang bo, wang yu, wu lei and li chuang are all pseudonyms)