E-commerce app creates online shopping social experience

A Chinese company has created a way for shoppers to save money by buying together.

At Springwise, we have covered a number of innovative uses for social media. These include a blockchain-based social app that promotes friendship and an app that rewards shoppers for social media posts. Now, a Chinese company has found a way to combine social media with online shopping to deliver big savings. The company, Pinduoduo (‘shop more together’) is already China’s third-most popular shopping app, with 195 million monthly users.

Pinduoduo’s e-commerce platform allows shoppers to join together to buy products at a discount rate. It turns shopping into entertainment. Founder Colin Huang told Chinese media that he thinks of the company as “a combination of Costco and Disneyland”.

Pinduoduo users can share product information on social networks such as WeChat, and invite their contacts to form a shopping team. Users can also form and join groups of buyers that are already established. Manufacturers can save on advertising and marketing costs as users are already sharing the product information with friends who are likely to have similar incomes and preferences. As the platform can generate huge sales numbers, businesses can cut prices drastically. Discounts on the site can be as high as 90 percent. Deals include computers and luxury items, but the bestsellers are everyday items such as umbrellas and garlic. The viral sales mechanism keeps the users motivated and provides a dynamic, and addictive, shopping experience.