Building a healthy market ecology that benefits the platform economy

Pinduoduo, a domestic e-commerce giant, is reportedly planning to invest tens of billions of yuan to support new high-quality retailers next year and implement ecological retailer management to ensure the healthy development of its platform’s ecology through long-term and patient investment.

Given that the Chinese e-commerce market is largely dominated by JD.com and Alibaba, Pinduoduo’s rapid growth is attributed to consumer-friendly measures such as lower prices and convenient refund procedures. In May, Pinduoduo launched a new automatic price matching tool, which allows Pinduoduo to analyze product prices in real time and help sellers automatically adjust prices to attract consumers with lower prices.

However, this model also leads to excessive low-price competition, which encourages retailers to sacrifice quality for cost. A model that relies on low-price competition is not only difficult to sustain, but also creates a lose-lose scenario for retailers and consumers. It is in the interests of consumers and businesses to provide high-quality products at low prices, not just at low prices.

Considering that the law prohibits unfair competition, e-commerce platforms should build a trading environment that ensures the healthy development of enterprises and consumers, meets consumer demand, and promotes high-quality development on the supply side.

As domestic e-commerce shifts to competing for higher-quality products, this will be a test of how major platforms can become more competitive rather than relying solely on lowering product prices.

Such a competitive ecology will create a win-win situation for all: platforms, sellers and consumers, and will ensure the sustainable and qualitative development of the e-commerce industry.

21st CENTURY BUSINESS HERALD