多多买菜：挥泪砍大件

This article discloses Duoduomaicai’s (Pinduoduo’s community group buying platform) core business adjustments for summer 2024. The platform is abandoning large-volume wholesale of bulk beverages and bottled water to B-side small vendors, and will instead focus resources on optimizing its product assortment to penetrate deeper into the C-end consumer market. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. New operational rules: This summer, Duoduomaicai has imposed purchase limits on large bulk items such as bottled water and beverages. In non-remote regions, one customer can only purchase one case, drastically squeezing the wholesale space for B-side small vendors. The platform is replacing low-value bulk items with high-value branded goods including grain, cooking oil, milk and low-temperature dairy products.

2. Differentiated regional strategy: Duoduomaicai has temporarily retained B-side wholesale business in remote, lower-tier townships to accumulate order density. Currently, Duoduomaicai’s coverage density in lower-tier and remote markets already outpaces rival Xingsheng Youxuan, enabling it to reach many remote areas that traditional wholesalers refuse to serve.

Duoduomaicai’s latest business adjustment creates new channel opportunities for brand owners. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Unlocked channel growth: As Duoduomaicai overhauls its product assortment by cutting large-volume sales of low-priced unbranded bulk goods for B-side clients, it has freed up substantial shelf space for leading brands. Branded products are expected to fill the order gap left by bulk unbranded goods and capture new growth.

2. Platform advantages for brands: Duoduomaicai is now far more welcoming to leading brands, offering high order volume and fast payment settlement, making it an ideal channel for brands looking to expand into lower-tier markets.

3. Align product strategy with platform direction: C-end consumers targeted by the platform prioritize product quality over low prices. Brand owners should roll out products with clear quality barriers. For example, low-temperature dairy products have already achieved rapid growth on the platform, fitting perfectly with the platform’s new strategic direction.

Duoduomaicai’s purchase limit policy on bulk goods brings distinct impacts, risks and opportunities for sellers on the platform. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Clear policy shift: In non-remote regions with high group point density, wholesale of bulk goods such as bottled water and beverages is now strictly limited to one order per customer. The original business model of sourcing goods via the platform for resale is no longer viable, and sellers need to adjust their strategies promptly.

2. Remaining opportunities for bulk sellers: B-side wholesale is still temporarily allowed in remote lower-tier townships, where most traditional wholesalers refuse to make deliveries. Small vendors can still source goods via Duoduomaicai to leverage its low prices and next-day delivery advantage, maintaining their price competitiveness.

3. Risk warning: Many suppliers and cloud warehouses previously stockpiled large volumes of bottled water and beverages to ramp up sales, but the policy shift has left them with overstocked inventory and weak sales. Bulk beverage and water sellers should be wary of overstock risks, and adjust their business direction as soon as possible if they operate in non-remote regions.

Duoduomaicai’s business adjustment brings new commercial opportunities and transformation insights for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturers. Key insights are as follows:

1. Shifting production demand: The platform has shifted from relying on B-side sales of low-priced bulk goods to catering to C-end demand for high-quality products. Manufacturers need to adjust their product mix, develop more high-quality branded products that fit C-end consumer needs, and reduce production capacity for low-priced unbranded bulk goods to align with the platform’s new assortment strategy.

2. New growth opportunities in lower-tier markets: Duoduomaicai’s coverage density in lower-tier and remote markets already outpaces its competitors, with delivery access reaching even remote townships. Manufacturers can leverage the platform’s channel advantages to distribute products to remote lower-tier C-end markets that are unreachable via traditional channels, unlocking new growth.

3. Insights for transformation: The platform’s adjustment is pushing the entire supply chain to upgrade toward branding and quality improvement. Manufacturers can seize this opportunity to advance their own brand upgrading, meet the platform’s new demand, and expand new sales channels relying on the platform’s large traffic and fast settlement.

Duoduomaicai’s business adjustment brings new changes and opportunities for community group buying-related service providers. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. New industry trend forcing transformation: As the platform shifts from B-side bulk volume sales to C-end branded product operations, the entire supply chain structure is changing. Cloud warehouses that originally relied on bulk beverage and water sales have already seen their bulk order volume drop by nearly one-third, and their original profit model is no longer sustainable, forcing a strategic transformation.

2. Core pain points post-adjustment: After the policy change, top-5 national central warehouses such as the Shunde and Nanning warehouses have experienced extremely volatile order volumes, creating huge pressure on service providers’ inventory scheduling and operational planning. Many suppliers that pre-stocked goods are also facing overstock and slow sales.

3. New opportunity direction: The platform now needs more warehousing and distribution services for leading branded products. Service providers can adjust their focused product categories, transform into warehousing operators for branded goods, seize the opportunity from the platform’s product assortment overhaul, build supply chain services for high-quality goods, and enter this new high-growth market.

Duoduomaicai’s business adjustment offers valuable operational insights and risk warnings for peer community group buying and e-commerce platforms. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Referenceable differentiated lower-tier market operation strategy: Duoduomaicai adopts different strategies for regions with different order densities: it retains B-side wholesale as a transition phase in low-density remote regions to accumulate order volume and help grid warehouses reach break-even, before gradually shifting to C-end penetration. This strategy has allowed Duoduomaicai to achieve broader lower-market coverage than rival Xingsheng Youxuan, and solves the problem of履约亏损 in remote regions.

2. Clear product assortment iteration direction: Once a platform reaches sufficient group point density, it can overhaul its product assortment by cutting low-priced B-end bulk goods and introducing high-quality branded products to increase average order value and user repurchase rate. This offsets order volume decline while optimizing user structure, enabling sustainable healthy growth.

3. Risk to avoid: Abruptly cutting large-scale existing bulk business will cause sharp order volume fluctuations at central warehouses, disrupting the stable operations of upstream and downstream partners. Platforms should reserve a buffer adjustment period for partners in advance to reduce the negative impact of volatility.

This article discloses the latest industry developments in China’s community group buying sector, offering valuable insights for industry research. Key points are as follows:

1. New industry trend: Leading platform Duoduomaicai has shifted from its early growth model of relying on B-side low-priced bulk goods to scale up, to a refined operation model focused on C-end high-quality consumers. It is optimizing user structure and improving profitability through product assortment overhaul. This shift signals that China’s community group buying industry is gradually moving away from land-grabbing scale competition, and entering a new stage of refined competition focused on operational quality.

2. A new lower-tier expansion model worthy of in-depth research: Duoduomaicai adopts a different lower-tier expansion strategy from incumbent Xingsheng Youxuan. Xingsheng Youxuan only expands to new regions when it can reach break-even on履约, and avoids expanding to remote group points prematurely. By contrast, Duoduomaicai uses B-side wholesale as a transition to build order volume, expanding coverage first and optimizing operations later. This new model solves the profitability challenge of expanding into remote regions, making it worthy of further research.

3. Business model iteration: The core logic of community group buying has shifted from pursuing scale growth to focusing on user repurchase and sustainable profitability, and the entire industry is upgrading toward a brand-focused direction. This new shift is of great value for research on the evolution of retail formats.