Just like eight years ago, Pinduoduo keenly captured the changes in domestic consumption demand, this time it focused on the needs of overseas e-commerce users.

If you ask employees how to pronounce the word "Temu" in Pinduoduo, 10 employees may give you 10 different pronunciations. But it is this application that even internal employees are not familiar with, but it has set off a whirlwind in the world and has repeatedly topped the list of overseas applications.

Back in September 2022, Pinduoduo officially launched a new business called Multiduo Cross border, which mainly sold daily necessities produced by domestic manufacturing enterprises overseas through the application of Temu. The first stop was in the United States.

In the past year, Pinduoduo's internal non cross-border business employees may not know what happened, but they quietly found that colleagues with different skin colors began to appear around them; The characters on the reimbursement backboard have changed from Chinese to bilingual; Many colleagues' pseudonyms have changed from Chinese to English; In Pinduoduo's Guangzhou office, labels of overseas place names began to be seen everywhere, such as New York, New Zealand

However, the rapid growth of many cross-border businesses has surprised businesses, competitors and even their own employees.

Less than half a year ago, Temu entered the annual championship game (Super Bowl) of the NFL Major League of Professional Football; The commodities cover all categories except food and daily chemicals; Go deep into more than 100 domestic industrial belts and help more than 10000 factories successfully go to sea; Reach consumers in more than 30 countries and regions such as North America, Australia, Europe and Asia.

"So far, Pinduoduo has experienced two start-ups: one is the main station, and the other is Duoduo buys vegetables." Chen Lei, chairman and co CEO of Pinduoduo, said in an interview with China Entrepreneur, while Duoduo Cross border is regarded as Pinduoduo's third venture after the main station and Duoduo buys vegetables, and it is also an extension of the main station.

When you open the App Store, you can easily find this "extension": "Temu" is introduced as "Team Up, Price Down”， That is, "the more people buy, the lower the price", which is the same as the Slogan of Pinduoduo, "the cheaper it is to buy".

The special period starting from 2020 has catalyzed the change of global consumers' shopping habits, and the demand for online shopping is increasing. Just like eight years ago, Pinduoduo keenly captured the demand of domestic consumption grading, this time it focused on the demand of overseas e-commerce users.

meanwhile, Temu has rapidly become popular overseas, attracting more and more Chinese manufacturers.

The highly centralized and specialized regional industrial cluster with obvious local characteristics in China has laid a solid foundation for manufacturing in China, and has also become an important source of goods for many cross-border enterprises. Among many cross-border businesses, there are both traders and manufacturing plants, both "second generation factory" and "second generation trade", both foreign trade veterans and new entrepreneurs.

Some of them have infiltrated the e-commerce industry for many years and have rich online operation experience; Some people are good at work but not good at trade. They are "invisible champions" of the industrial belt that has been focusing on production for decades. However, compared with traditional cross-border e-commerce platforms, they are generally young. Many people even have the background of studying abroad and come back to take over their parents' factories.

A key background behind these business decisions is that cross-border e-commerce is becoming a new form of foreign trade export.

Data from the General Administration of Customs shows that in the first half of 2023, China's cross-border e-commerce import and export will reach 1.1 trillion yuan, up 16% year on year. However, in 2022, the import and export of cross-border e-commerce goods will account for only about 5% of the total import and export of foreign trade. Five years ago, this figure was less than 1%.

When a group of well-educated young people take over the factory, the brand awareness hidden in the heart of the foundry for decades is awakening. They began to yearn for more initiative and premium space in cross-border e-commerce. Just at this time, a new generation of cross-border e-commerce platforms is emerging, and the story of a new generation of foreign traders begins a new chapter.

Why is it Duoduo cross-border?

Change of overseas consumption habits+accumulation of supply chain

"During the development of Pinduoduo master station, we found early that some overseas Chinese would often place orders on the platform, and then transfer them to their countries and regions through logistics companies. They even shared their buying experience and strategies on social media." Chen Lei talked about the reasons for the launch of a multi border.

According to Euromonitor statistics, in 2022, China's e-commerce penetration rate will reach 27.21%, compared with 20.4% of the global overall e-commerce penetration rate. Among them, the U.S. market with relatively mature e-commerce development will have an e-commerce penetration rate of 26.26% in 2022, while the penetration rate of emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East will be less than 10% in 2022.

Therefore, compared with the Chinese market, overseas e-commerce penetration still has great room for improvement, which is why Pinduoduo chose the United States as its first cross-border stop.

Although increment is an opportunity, it also requires market entrants to have more pioneering spirit. There are still many pain points in this model chain. For example, according to the previous foreign trade model, if Chinese goods are exported to the United States and want to enter the mainstream market, they must rely on a series of intermediaries in different links.

Of course, the factory can also choose to open stores on overseas platforms, but in recent years, not only has the operating cost gradually increased, but also faces great uncertainty. If businesses want to build their own overseas independent stations, online operation and traffic acquisition become their core difficulties. This has made domestic cross-border sellers constantly face reshuffle in recent years.

However, the foreign trade demand of domestic manufacturers is still strong.

Small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises located in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other regions have accumulated strong advantages in design, R&D and manufacturing in recent years, relying on the rapid growth of domestic manufacturing dividends, coupled with their years of manufacturing experience for overseas brand manufacturers. However, due to weak external demand, homogeneous competition and other reasons, the profit space of OEM has been continuously compressed.

Pinduoduo realized internally that if we use our domestic experience and flow advantages to help small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises expand new foreign trade channels and reduce intermediate links, can we improve the profit margin of cross-border goods? In order to help overseas consumers build bridges with Chinese manufacturing plants, Pinduoduo decided to enter into cross-border business.

What's more, Pinduoduo master station has repeatedly penetrated into many manufacturing fields such as household appliances, clothing, sports, cosmetics, daily chemicals, milk powder, household appliances, etc. in the development process, and has provided a full chain of digital services for manufacturing brands in terms of product structure, design and development, production and manufacturing, brand building, etc, It has also helped traditional enterprises and manufacturing plants realize transformation and upgrading to a certain extent.

In this process, Pinduoduo has accumulated a deep understanding of the domestic manufacturing supply chain with advantages such as scale, matching and comprehensive efficiency, and found that many Chinese manufacturing quality levels and price ranges are obviously competitive in the international market.

"Through many cross-border businesses, we hope to enable overseas business with new models and new business formats, reduce the threshold and cost of foreign trade, reduce intermediate links, help small and medium-sized enterprises find orders, improve profits, build brands, and further promote the upgrading of manufacturing industry belts around the country." Chen Lei told Chinese Entrepreneurs.

In September 2022, Pinduoduo officially launched the Multiduo Overseas Support Plan, launched the Multiduo cross-border "full trusteeship model", took the lead in landing in the United States, and helped China's manufacturing industry directly connect with overseas consumers. From Guangzhou women's clothing, Shenzhen digital products to Huzhou children's clothing, Wenzhou shoes, Taizhou plastic products, Jinhua thermos cups, to Shandong false eyelashes, etc., they have become products frequently purchased by overseas consumers in their daily lives.

In Wuyi, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, after graduating from Yale University, Wang Bowen, the second generation of the post-95 generation, went home to take over his parents' cup factory. In March this year, recommended by a friend, he tried to cross borders for the first time. Originally, he just wanted to clear the inventory, but he didn't expect that more than 300 ice cream cups would soon be sold out, which gave him greater confidence in innovating factories and building private brands through cross-border e-commerce.

In Chaozhou, Guangdong, He Jiayang, also the "second generation of factory" after 1995, gave up his job in Tencent after returning from studying in France. Since September 2022, she has become the first batch of ceramic merchants trying to cross borders. Here, she found that the factory can also directly face consumers through products, rather than just doing OEM. In the past, as a foundry, she must not violate any opinions of brand customers; Now, she has regained the autonomy of products and prices.

In Guangzhou, Guangdong, Li Muzi, who has been engaged in cross-border clothing trade for more than 10 years, decided to change the company's development focus from the ODM factory of Shein to an independent brand on Temu. After more than a year of trying to cross border more, this year he completed the turnover target of 60 million yuan set at the beginning of the year one quarter ahead of schedule. At present, he has opened 6 stores in Duoduo cross-border. In August, the total daily average sales of these stores was about 6000.

On the one hand, there is a large and unfamiliar group of overseas e-commerce consumers, and on the other hand, there is an industrial chain cluster with strong domestic production capacity. Through Duoduo cross-border, the two sides are connected, and Pinduoduo is used as a bridge and hub to deliver the goods produced by the latter to the former.

These small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises distributed throughout the country, like "capillaries", constitute the world's largest trade exporter. Although their needs and motivations are different, today they all have a common choice - to shift the company's focus to more cross-border.

Full trusteeship mode

The factory returns to production and the platform provides unified services

Compared with previous cross-border e-commerce platforms, Duoduo cross-border e-commerce platforms are characterized by "full custody mode" and "flexible supply" mechanism.

In "Full Custody Mode", Businesses on the Temu platform can easily go to sea by doing their own work in R&D and production. The platform provides one-stop services for businesses, including website drainage, store operation, cross-border logistics, legal intellectual property rights, etc. On the overseas consumer side, the "full trusteeship model" requires the platform to be responsible for ensuring the quality of goods and the timeliness of performance, so as to ensure the user's shopping experience.

Take the thermos cup as an example. When a cup is delivered to overseas consumers from a factory in Jinhua Wuyi, Zhejiang, China, it will probably go through the following process:

1. The platform and merchants jointly negotiate to determine the styles that are conducive to overseas sales; 2. The platform conducts full platform price verification for the products on the shelves of merchants; 3. Businesses speed up production in their own factories; 4. The merchant sends a certain number of cups to the Guangdong warehouse of the platform; 5. Many cross-border goods are collected and sent directly to overseas transshipment hubs through third-party logistics service providers; 6. It is distributed to overseas consumers by local logistics companies.

For businesses, the "full trusteeship model" has greatly reduced the threshold for products to go to sea, while broadening the order channel.

Jin Weifeng is the head of a glasses factory in Duqiao Town, Linhai, Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, which is known as the "Hometown of Chinese glasses". Its factory mainly works for cross-border e-commerce and trade companies. In the past few years, Jin Weifeng has considered to build a cross-border e-commerce retail platform for countless times, but it is difficult to recruit a clerk in this town, even more difficult to recruit and operate, not to mention logistics and other complicated links.

After being exposed to many cross-border products, with the help of the platform's services, Jin Weifeng registered his own trademark, opened more than ten stores at a time, and improved the quality and packaging. The product soon became one of the top two Temu men's sunglasses. The price and profit of goods increased by nearly 50%, and the business volume increased by 30%. At present, Jin Weifeng has transferred 70% of the factory's production capacity to Duoduo cross-border.

As for the cost savings, just take cross-border logistics as an example. This work includes front-end collection, transportation and sorting, foreign customs declaration, trunk transportation, foreign customs clearance, overseas warehousing, and final delivery. At present, many cross-border enterprises adopt the three-stage logistics of domestic first journey transportation international trunk line overseas last journey transportation. After the seller sends the goods to the domestic warehouse of the platform in Guangdong, it will be directly sent to the overseas transshipment hub through the third-party logistics service providers, and then distributed to overseas consumers by the local logistics company.

Among all logistics costs, only the domestic first journey freight is shared by merchants and Duoduo cross-border, and other logistics costs are borne by Duoduo cross-border. Under the "full trusteeship model" of Duoduo cross-border, the logistics cost accounting for nearly a quarter of the price of goods in the traditional cross-border e-commerce model can be almost ignored. In addition, since the platform can choose charter flights, charter ships and other means of transportation after cargo collection, such investment and timeliness are unimaginable for ordinary and single merchants in the past.

In addition to logistics, businesses are also faced with challenges such as high investment cost and difficult operation. Under the "full trusteeship mode", businesses that join many cross-border businesses can settle at zero commission and zero yuan, without the need for businesses to pay traffic costs to the platform. At the same time, the supply of goods by merchants only needs to go through five links, namely, the seller's quotation, the review of sending samples, the seller's supply, the platform sales, and the signing and settlement of payments, and is free from the costs of investment and flow.

The so-called "flexible supply" mode is to identify and collect the consumption demand of different countries' markets through a small number of cross-border quick responses, so as to provide long-term and stable orders for platform merchants.

In 2022, in order to reduce the pressure on the factory to prepare goods, Duoduo cross-border launched the JIT (Just In Time) pre-sale mode. In this mode, the merchant does not need to prepare goods in advance to the warehouse, but can ship after seeing the order. For merchants, the popular and potential models in the market can be returned boldly; If unfortunately, there is no hot unsalable money, merchants can also grasp the market feedback when measuring the money, stop loss in time, so there is no inventory pressure to stock up.

For merchants, two modes of goods preparation are supported on Duoduo cross-border: JIT "shipping after shipping" and VMI "shipping before shipping". Compared with traditional overseas e-commerce, Duoduo cross-border merchants need to prepare goods for 45 days, and Duoduo cross-border merchants generally only need to prepare goods for 15 days.

Moreover, the inventory of traditional cross-border e-commerce is stored overseas, and the overstocked inventory returned to China needs to pay import tariffs. Domestic businesses usually choose not to return it, but to reduce prices and promote sales, or even pay a large amount of additional destruction costs; While many cross-border inventories are in China, there is no import tax or destruction fee.

At present, due to the continuous expansion of new regional sites across many borders, the overseas traffic growth is strong, and the settled businesses usually need to maintain a high frequency of new launches, screen the products needed by the market in the way of small orders and quick reaction, and then carry out mass production; Of course, under JIT mode, the platform also requires merchants to deliver goods within 24 hours after the order is issued, so as to ensure the performance experience of consumers.

Li Mingtao, president of the Research Institute of China International Electronic Commerce Center, has witnessed the changes of cross-border e-commerce platforms in the past decade. He deeply felt that with the increase of advertising flow fees, warehousing and distribution fees, product certification, patent application and other compliance fees in Amazon and other cross-border platforms, the operating costs of businesses are also rising, and the profit space is being compressed to lower and lower.

Li Mingtao agrees with Duoduo's new cross-border model: "It is through the 'full trusteeship model' plus the shopping model outside Shanghai, which not only draws on the growth path of Pinduoduo in China, but also breaks a new path in cross-border e-commerce, a relatively competitive market."

A new solution to the factory

Start with inventory clearing and end with brand building

More than 10000 Chinese manufacturers have gathered in Duoduo cross-border business, but many businesses try to do more cross-border business mostly from a simple just need - clearing inventory.

After graduating from Yale University with a master's degree in 2020, Wang Bowen returned to his hometown of Wuyi, Zhejiang, to take over the Zhejiang Maibo Industrial Co., Ltd. founded by his parents 20 years ago. In March 2023, with the recommendation of his friends, he entered Duoduo cross-border with the attitude of trying. At the beginning, he only put one ice-cream cup with a large inventory on the shelves. Unexpectedly, the more than 300 ice-cream cups were sold out soon. Wang Bowen's first reaction was that "this platform is very promising". More importantly, he saw the possibility of building his own brand.

For Wang Bowen, the last thing he needs is production and supply capacity. In the past decades, Maple Industrial has been focusing on R&D, production and sales of thermos cups, and has become an important OEM of famous brands such as magicians, Starbucks, Porsche, Mijia, Huawei, etc. In the past three years, its foreign trade orders have not been affected, even rising.

Six years of overseas study experience has given Wang Bowen a deeper understanding of the "smile curve". He realized that if he was only a OEM, the profit would always be at the bottom. "We have supported a lot of Amazon's big sales. We do research and development, design, and production. They just come to our factory to get goods and operate on their own, and they sell very well." Wang Bowen told China Entrepreneur.

Wang Bowen's parents can't help but understand their frustration. However, because of business stability, I dare not be too aggressive, and I have not dared to try hard. After all, brand building requires a new team, and the design, operation and even delivery of products need to be rebuilt. What's more, few enterprises in Zhejiang have brand building, and few have done particularly well in brand building.

But in Wang Bowen's opinion, every generation has something to do. After taking over the factory, Wang Bowen decided to take the responsibility of building a brand.

Zhejiang Maibo Industrial Co., Ltd. Wang Bowen.

When Wang Bowen first settled in Duoduo Cross border, his factory had no C-end team, no artists, and no operation. But in half a year, he has built a team of six people in Hangzhou, including four cross-border operations, one artist and one designer.

Wang Bowen was very lucky to meet many cross-border customers after taking over the factory. Although he is ambitious, he also knows that the traditional cross-border e-commerce platform usually requires merchants to have comprehensive overseas cross-border e-commerce operation capabilities, which excludes most high-quality production plants in China. Not only that, the previous model also determines that the business operation threshold is very high. Businesses need to make heavy investment in investment and logistics, and the stock pressure and business risk are great.

"We don't need to worry about the front-end traffic now. As long as we get the goods ready, we can also have some new designs. After they are put on the shelf, the buyers and operators of the platform will help us operate and complete the rest of the work. Under this mode, manufacturing enterprises like us have the advantage of going to sea." Wang Bowen said.

The emergence of many cross-border buyers has brought new possibilities to all this. This is a newly added position in Duoduo cross-border enterprises under the "full trusteeship mode", which is used to connect and serve businesses. Liu Hang joined Pinduoduo at the end of 2020. Now he is a buyer of kitchen restaurant and household cleaning. Before that, he participated in the investment attraction and operation of book business at Pinduoduo main station.

As a buyer, Liu Hang's main responsibilities are: to invite suitable businesses to open stores in Temu by means of industrial belt visits; After the merchants reach the entry threshold, help them open the shop; Comprehensive testing of products of merchants to ensure quality, cost performance and supply; Through multi-channel market research, catch the market trend, and provide suggestions for merchants to change; Undertake the daily operation of the store, as well as the usual questions and answers.

Businesses and buyers can sometimes get unexpected opportunities by working together.

He Jiayang is the person in charge of a ceramic factory in Chaozhou, Guangdong. He runs ceramic shops in Duoduo cross-border. After the goods are sold, buyers will regularly check consumer comments and feedback. In the comment area of a vase, Liu Hang noticed that after one consumer inserted dried flowers on the vase, other consumers praised it.

In the past, most domestic consumers like to insert flowers, even in home buyers' shops, dried flowers are relatively rare. Therefore, Liu Hang suggested that He Jiayang pay more attention to the changes in the comment area. After that, He Jiayang tried to sell vases and dried flowers together, and found that the sales were better. Later, He Jiayang flew to Yunnan to contact with suppliers, developed new products matching dried flowers, and started to create household decoration brands.

Liu Hang doesn't care whether merchants regard Duoduo cross-border as a platform for clearing inventory or a new place for brand building. "The marketable products are the key link for businesses to enter the cross-border e-commerce market. If these stocks are just what overseas local users need, they are likely to become the best sellers in many cross-border markets." Liu Hang told China Entrepreneurs.

Even some businesses engaged in cross-border clothing business have begun to transfer from Shein to Duoduo, and Li Muzi is one of them. He has been engaged in cross-border trade since 2012, mainly OEM for cross-border enterprises in Shenzhen, Fujian, Zhejiang, Shanghai and other places. In 2021, it will become a Shein ODM manufacturer.

In September 2022, Li Muzi began to try to open stores on Duoduo cross-border platforms, mainly selling fashion, large women's clothing and jeans. In December 2022, Li Muzi decided to switch strategies after observing that the single volume of the platform increased significantly, and the human efficiency and profit margin were higher than that of Shein. Today, the production capacity for Duoduo cross-border accounts for 85% of the company's overall production capacity, and it can grow 2-3 times at the peak of sales.

When asked about the reasons for the strategic transformation, Li Muzi told the Chinese Entrepreneur: "Duoduo cross-border can give us more space for development. It will not restrict the company's development and design, but will give different directions to businesses at different stages to develop freely. But if we are just ODM manufacturers, we are only processing according to the requirements, so it is difficult to reflect the ability of everyone in the team. "

Zhang Jianping, Deputy Director of the Academic Committee of the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, Ministry of Commerce, is happy to see the awakening of brand awareness of Chinese manufacturers. In the past decades, he has witnessed the rise and fall of too many OEM enterprises. Why didn't the former OEM make brand transformation?

In Zhang Jianping's opinion, "In the past, the foundry had a good life, with a large number of orders and good profits. If you let me make innovations myself, from brand to R&D design, to logistics marketing, and then to production and manufacturing, if I lose the chain, I will die, and no one is willing to do it."

However, in the past few years, with the influence of global economy and geopolitics, foreign trade orders have not been stable. In addition, OEM means that there is no brand premium, and the value of OEM is greatly discounted, which makes it particularly difficult to operate.

Zhang Jianping encouraged the OEM to get a high premium of the brand. "Only when you have independent innovation ability and independent intellectual property rights, and you can control your marketing network, can you develop with high added value and high quality".

"Platforms like Duoduo Cross border provide Chinese enterprises with paths and development space. This is not only an important path for high-quality development of foreign trade, but also I am particularly looking forward to cultivating a large number of Chinese brand enterprises and leading enterprises to participate in global competition in the future." Zhang Jianping said.

Speed and human effects

Business focus+flat organization

Less than half a year ago, Temu went on the American "Super Bowl" advertisement. You should know that the "Super Bowl", known as the American Spring Festival Gala, has a high commercial value. It not only attracts hundreds of millions of viewers, but also is known as the "most important day in the advertising industry in the United States", which has accelerated its overseas expansion.

If you sort out the rhythm of cross-border expansion, you will find it incredibly fast.

After the launch of Duoduo Cross Border in September 2022, it immediately expanded to the United States, Canada and other North American countries; In the first quarter of this year, Australia and New Zealand were expanded; Since April, European countries such as Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Finland have been successively expanded; In the future, it will also expand its business in other European countries, South America, the Middle East, Africa and other regions.

The attitude of merchants to settle in is also changing quietly. Liu Hang remembers that in the early days, when Duoduo's cross-border business team went to investigate together, the merchants did not know what Duoduo's cross-border business was, and even felt that "this is not a liar". Even though the other party decided to try it after persuading them, many factories only gave interns to operate in the early days.

Nowadays, many factories have set up special operation teams, and even some manufacturers have started to register for classes to learn English in order to avoid the annoyance caused by the misuse of English.

People who are in it often feel like they are separated from each other. In October this year, on the 8th anniversary of Pinduoduo, an employee sighed, "This company is only 8 years old, and always thinks it should be bigger."

But when you are confused about the speed and push such a question to Chen Lei, the answer is "restraint".

"Pinduoduo is actually a very restrained company in business. Since its establishment in 2015, it has only done one thing - e-commerce. Because of enough focus and restraint, we have formed our own cognition and judgment on this track, and are more accurate in grasping the general direction." Chen Lei said.

Chen Lei summarized the development of Pinduoduo in the past as three start-ups: the first is Pinduoduo main station, the second is Duoduo shopping, and the current Duoduo cross-border is the third. In his view, the first two start-ups were just two big training and screening of talent echelons.

"After several years of tempering, our team has entered a new stage of development. Most of the young managers who grew up from it have remarkable characteristics of multi skills. For example, a strong desire to learn and excellent learning ability are essential qualities for expanding new business; secondly, diligence; thirdly, in the face of change, good attitude and strong execution." Chen Lei told China Entrepreneurs.

These abilities and characteristics are also becoming the standards that Pinduoduo values in the process of talent training and selection.

After working in Pinduoduo for more than two years, Liu Hang's greatest feeling is that leaders dare to delegate power and give employees more room for discretion. "When we communicate with the seller, we have great discretion over the comprehensive situation of the seller. There is no need to report at all levels, and there is no need to analyze and make decisions with multiple people. In order to be efficient, our employees have certain opportunities for trial and error," Liu Hang said.

In addition, Pinduoduo has maintained a flat management mode so far, which is embodied in the work of an employee. Knock, the internal collaborative office software, does not have the logo of big leaders, supervisors, and ordinary employees. Everyone uses a uniform flower name, and employees can directly contact whoever they need. There is no need to report at all levels, but to find employees directly, even leaders.

In Chen Lei's opinion, the advantage of this organizational structure is that we don't need to think about P or L, but focus more on front-line business. Every manager can hear the voice of the market, and only when they are close enough to consumers and clear enough about business data can they better judge whether their strategies are logical and practical.

In the workplace, most people still focus on promotion and financial returns. The way of Pinduoduo is to first encourage everyone to pursue the goal unremittingly. Of course, if you get a good result, the company will give employees a very direct reflection in the evaluation and return.

In addition, the flat organization is also intended to give more opportunities to young people. Employees who perform exceptionally well will soon become team leaders and even business leaders, taking the lead. In Pinduoduo, excellent students have more business options, especially opportunities to join new businesses.

The super high human efficiency caused by the advantage of flattening is also reflected in the financial report. With the growth of the company's revenue and the rapid expansion of Duoduo's cross-border business, the R&D and management expenses of Pinduoduo in the second quarter of 2023 will be only 3.33 billion yuan, far less than the expected 3.98 billion yuan. It has proved once again that Duoduo's cross-border scale has multiplied, but it has not dragged down the company's profits as the market feared.

Although the fast running Duoduo cross-border business is about to land in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and other Southeast Asian markets, in Chen Lei's view, the journey of cross-border e-commerce is still far away.

"If we look at the future ten years, even if we now add all domestic cross-border e-commerce businesses together, and then add all the goods sold by all domestic cross-border e-commerce businesses in the past ten years, these can be ignored. The development of overseas cross-border markets is just the beginning," Chen Lei said.

Article | Chinese Entrepreneur reporter Zhao Dongshan