Radar Finance Articles|Edited by Zhang Kaijing|Deep Sea
The furthest distance in the world is not between life and death, but I "slashed a knife" on Pinduoduo, and it was 0.9% short of success .
Recently, Shanghai lawyer Liu Yuhang, who defrauded consumers, disclosed more details of the case on social platforms.
related screenshots show that Liu Yuhang spent a lot of energy at the beginning, and the price was always 0.9% short of success. Pinduoduo explained during the trial that it was because of the limited number of percentages displayed on the page, 0.9996427% was omitted and displayed as 0.9 %. In fact, after Liu Yuhang bargained, the result was not unchanged, but the change was to six decimal places.
Liu Yuhang said that within 3 months after he sued Pinduoduo, he was complained to 4 different competent authorities 4 times, of which 2 were anonymous complaints in April. It also stated that the case will not be mediated or withdrawn.
What is the current progress of the case, and what is the probability of winning the case? Radar Finance contacted Liu Yuhang, who told Radar Finance that because he himself was complained, it was inconvenient to disclose more information before the end of the case.
"The longest way is the way of Pinduoduo." Some netizens sighed.
Radar Finance noticed that on the black cat complaint platform, Pinduoduo had nearly 400,000 complaints. In addition to "slashing a knife", similar situations also occurred in activities such as the cash wheel. Netizens reported that no matter whether No matter how many friends you pull for help, you can't change the "nearly" situation of success.
Some analysts believe that the new method of "slashing a knife" was once an artifact of Pinduoduo's siege in the sinking market, but now that users have peaked and competitors are around, the value of "slashing a knife" needs to be revalued. estimate.
Lawyer "deadly fights" Pinduoduo, saying that it will not mediate or withdraw the case
March 2021,Liu Yuhang participated in the Pinduoduo "Hold for Free" event. After receiving a "super single-free card", he followed the instructions on the platform and chose a mobile phone for bargaining.
Immediately afterwards, the system showed that Liu Yuhang had reached the "No. 1 in the bargaining progress" and "has exceeded 99% of users". Just invite a few more friends to get the goods for free.
In Liu Yuhang's view, he was very close to success at this time, so he immediately invited his colleagues to help haggle the price, and also purchased the "acceleration package" service of 9.9 yuan in the Pinduoduo app.
But Liu Yuhang soon discovered that no matter how many friends he invited, the final progress remained at only 0.9%, and after he clicked on other bargained products, the system "has the first place in bargaining" and "over 99% of users" The displayed information is the same as before.
So far, Liu Yuhang believes that Pinduoduo is suspected of violating the principle of good faith, using false data, and concealing rules when providing online services, which has constituted fraud and seriously affected the social atmosphere. Dream Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as " Xunmeng Company") prosecution materials for the Internet infringement liability dispute.
"The cause of this case is an infringement lawsuit, not a contract lawsuit. The lawsuit is for infringement of consumers' right to know. In theory, everyone who uses Pinduoduo's haggling and free service is a consumer, and has the opportunity to become a lawsuit. The right holder." Liu Yuhang said that he also said that the case will not be mediated or withdrawn.
In response, Tang Jiangrong, the senior director of Pinduoduo's legal department, responded immediately that more than 1,200 items of products have participated in the ongoing "Hold for Free" campaign, and more than 7.09 million items have been given away for free. For the "always 0.9% difference" reflected by consumers, it is because some of the "free cut" products have a large amount, and the amount cut by a small number of users is not enough to change the percentage, so consumers think that the price has not changed.
Today, nearly a year has passed since Liu Yuhang sued Pinduoduo, but he is still updating the progress of this incident on social platforms.
As Liu Yuhang said,Within 3 months after I sued Pinduoduo, I was complained to 4 different competent authorities 4 times, of which two were anonymous complaints in April and two in June were active real-name complaints by Pinduoduo . "Every time I get a complaint, I have to write a description and be interviewed, which has seriously affected my normal work and life."
In addition, Liu Yuhang also shared the opinions that Pinduoduo used to defend the case during the trial: the The total amount of goods was 2,799 yuan. When the plaintiff started the group, the amount cut off was 2,771.01 yuan. The percentage of the remaining amount of 27.99 yuan in the amount of the goods was 1%, so the activity interface will display "the remaining 1% is free". Afterwards, the plaintiff obtained an amount of 0.01 yuan by "completing the one-click task", and the remaining amount was 27.98 yuan. The proportion of the remaining amount in the commodity amount was about 0.009996427. Due to the limited number of percentage digits displayed on the page, it was only displayed as "only 00.9 percent difference.”
And this statement of defense is also the key to the recent heated discussion among netizens about Pinduoduo's "slashing a knife" campaign.
However, the prospect of lawyer Liu's prosecution is still controversial.
"When Pinduoduo designed the rules of bargaining activities, it should fully consider the probability of successful bargaining. This probability must exist and is extremely low. The last amount of money will inevitably be split into N parts, as for N, it will be determined according to the spelling. A lot of mood to set, this situation is difficult to identify as fraud." A netizen who described himself as a lawyer of a law firm said.
Beijing Zhongwen Law Firm Yan Chuang believes that the prosecution is reasonable. "Because the circle of friends and family members are often invited to cut a knife for Pinduoduo, according to the principle of good faith stipulated in the " Civil Code", e-commerce platforms should operate in compliance with laws and regulations."
Yan Chuang also said , Pinduoduo's explanation is more one-sided, it did not clearly inform consumers when bargaining, how many 9s are after the number, which will lead to consumers' misunderstanding. The purpose of Pinduoduo is to make consumers think that the inviter can get corresponding rewards by bargaining, thereby increasing the downloads and activity of their App. This behavior is suspected of constituting fraud, and the market supervision and management department should file a case against these behaviors according to law. investigation,and deal with accordingly.
"The litigation request is more of a public interest nature." Yan Chuang said. This means that Liu Yuhang is suing for the common interests of society to a greater extent, rather than completely pursuing his own claims.
As of press time, Pinduoduo has not publicly responded to this.
"Chop with a knife" and a derivative version
In essence, "Chop with a knife" is a new method used by Pinduoduo to promote activities, and similar gameplay can be found in various activities of Pinduoduo figure.
is another cash-receiving activity called "Cash Carousel", which is also the main object of complaints from netizens in black cat complaints.
Radar Finance experience found that after downloading the Pinduoduo app, you can click to enter the "Cash Carousel" activity in the personal center, and the system will display "only 3 yuan to withdraw 500 yuan" for the first time, and the progress of the activity has reached 99.4% , the user only needs to find enough friends to help in the next 24 hours to successfully receive the cash.
However, according to the descriptions posted by netizens, the closer the withdrawal amount is to 500 yuan, the more difficult it will be to obtain. When the amount becomes 499.99 yuan, the reward for inviting friends will change from the amount to gold coins, and when there is 0.01 gold coins left, the reward for inviting friends will become diamonds, and there is a blessing scroll under the diamonds...
at After harassing more than 80 friends and slashing nearly 100 knives, the netizen still failed to withdraw cash, and finally he chose to give up.
It is worth mentioning that some netizens reported to Radar Finance that when they participated in Pinduoduo’s “mouse-cutting” on January 18, they also encountered “routines” ranging from amount to gold coins to diamonds .
"I pulled about 60 people for this product, and it took two hours. I almost drove home to give my grandma the real-name verification. I dreamed of haggling the price that day." The netizen immediately chose to uninstall the app.
In addition to this,Receiving cash every day, Duoduo Orchard , and even Duoduo Shopping, which provides users with social fission gameplay such as a point system and full distribution, are all effective means for Pinduoduo to use similar gameplay to acquire new users.
However, "slashing a knife" is not really endless. A netizen once revealed that after pulling hundreds of friends, he finally got a two-wheeled somatosensory scooter for 0 yuan.
A senior buyer of Pinduoduo said that the final price haggling is so difficult because Pinduoduo’s algorithm tends to favor new users. "A long time ago, several of my colleagues and I were successful. Because we were all newcomers, we succeeded without attracting a few people. But if you are an old user, there is almost no hope."
Rise
In fact, these seemingly similar activities are the traffic passwords that have allowed Pinduoduo to achieve crazy growth in the past.
In 2015, under the background of consumption upgrade, Huang Zheng, who has experienced many entrepreneurial ventures such as ouku. E-commerce is testing the idea of sinking the market.
In the same year, Pinhaohuo was officially launched. It started with the game of ordering, and invited friends to join the group through social platforms such as WeChat Moments. When the number of people reached the specified number, the ordering would take effect. Huang Zheng believes that Pinhaohuo is essentially a fresh self-operated platform. But if that is the case, it will be difficult for the company to stand out in a market filled with giants such as Taobao, , JD.com and .
So not long after, Huang Zheng transferred more than 20 core employees of Xunmeng Company and began to incubate the e-commerce platform Pinduoduo. Different from the pure e-commerce team that fights good goods, the team of Pinduoduo has done both e-commerce and games. Huang Zheng hopes that Pinduoduo can create a different shopping form.
Later facts proved that Huang Zheng's concept has indeed achieved "miraculous" success. Different from the e-commerce team's consideration of optimizing supply chain, logistics, and product selection,With the blessing of game experience, Pinduoduo's team pays more attention to the interaction of software products, seeking iteration and update of gameplay, and fission of users. So in the eyes of some people in the industry, the essence of "slashing a knife" is a game.
And such a game that uses cheap and free as a gimmick to attract users to spread spontaneously, just hits the pain point that users in the sinking market are price-sensitive and willing to spend more time and cost to get discounts.
Soon, Pinduoduo ushered in an explosion. One year after its establishment, it has grown more than 80 million users under the attack of Taobao and Jingdong, and achieved a monthly GMV of 1 billion. In 2016, Pinduoduo also received $110 million in Series B financing from investment institutions such as , Tencent , Gao Rong, and Xintianyu.
Pinduoduo, which has been skewed by WeChat traffic, has since grown savagely in the WeChat ecosystem, and has even gradually evolved a typical Pinduoduo-style social interaction: "Are you a friend, help me cut a knife!", "All colleagues recommended it. , I’m sorry for not buying it, and it’s not expensive.”
In this context, at the end of 2020, the number of active buyers of Pinduoduo reached 788.4 million, successfully surpassing and Ali became the e-commerce platform with the largest user scale.
And Huang Zheng, who also surpassed Jack Ma and Ma Huateng with a net worth of US$58.6 billion at the end of 2020, became the second richest man in China. At this time, he has just passed the age of confusion.
How much is "slashing a knife" worth?
Some analysts believe that the value of Pinduoduo's "slashing a knife" lies in its links to acquaintances. In WeChat, a matrix that is based on acquaintance relationships, Pinduoduo's marketing strategy is relatively "light", acquaintances do not need to place an order, just tap to achieve fission, which allows the promoters to obtain price dividends while, at the same time, It also creates opportunities for some people who reach out to the information to enjoy the same bonus.
finally,As long as the price is attractive enough, even if many people fail to bargain successfully, they can virtually do free marketing for Pinduoduo, thereby further expanding its reach.
But the marketing method of "slashing a knife" also has its drawbacks.
On the one hand, as the total number of users peaks, the new effect of "slashing a knife" is gradually weakening. Data shows that as of 2020, the number of mobile Internet users in China was 986 million, and as of the third quarter of 2021, the number of annual active buyers of Pinduoduo had reached 867 million.
In the past few quarters, Pinduoduo's user and performance growth has slowed down significantly. According to the financial report, in the first three quarters of 2021, Pinduoduo’s new users in a single quarter were 35.8 million, 21.6 million and 17.4 million respectively. During the same period, Pinduoduo’s revenue was 22.167 billion, 23.046 billion and 21.506 billion respectively, with a year-on-year growth rate of 239%, 89% and 51%, respectively.
According to a report from "Latency", Pinduoduo's "Chop One Knife" project was rated as the lowest in the internal performance score in the first half of 2021, which means that Pinduoduo also believes that relying on "Chop One Knife" to promote new projects is not so effective .
On the other hand, the newly added user groups relying on "slashing a knife" are mainly concentrated in the sinking market, and during the event, in order to ensure the strength of the discount, Pinduoduo mainly undertakes low-priced white-brand products other than Taobao and JD.com .
Over time, users have assumed that Pinduoduo is a low-cost e-commerce platform, which has even affected the brand image of merchants.
In order to improve the user's impression, Pinduoduo once launched tens of billions of subsidies in 2019, striving to achieve brand upgrade, but today, after Pinduoduo has spent a huge amount of money, most consumers are not willing to buy high-priced products on Pinduoduo. Still have concerns.
However, industry insiders believe that although "slashing a knife" has lost its former magic power, this marketing method will not fade out of the arena. sexual change.
Note: This article is original by Radar Finance (ID: leidacj). Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.
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