China Post and Pinduoduo Form Strategic Collaboration

Chinese e-commerce player Pinduoduo has formed a strategic cooperation with state-owned China Post Group Co., Ltd. The two parties will give full play to their respective advantages in the fields of agricultural products promotion and poverty alleviation.

China Post said it will establish 150 agricultural production bases within three years, which will provide products for Pinduoduo to reach its nearly 700 million users.

Pinduoduo formed a strategic cooperation with state-owned China Post
Pinduoduo formed a strategic cooperation with state-owned China Post (Photo by Zhong You)

As early as 2016, the local branches of China Post started the first wave of e-commerce pilot projects of agricultural production on Pinduoduo, and over the next 4 years, they gradually expanded the pilot projects from north to south, from west to east, and to many provinces and cities.

Back in August 2016, China Post in the city of Weinan in Shaanxi Province took the lead in poverty alleviation efforts on Pinduoduo. One year later, local apples, persimmons, melons, pears, and sweet potatoes from Weinan were all sold on Pinduoduo.

The villagers not only sold fruit to make money, but also participated in packing and transporting to earn extra wages. Nearly 50,000 boxes of persimmons were sold in 10 days, bringing direct income of more than 50,000 yuan to the villagers.

Starting from this year, some local branches of China Post have further developed in-depth cooperation with Pinduoduo, inviting the city mayor or county head to the live broadcast to sell agricultural products.

Since August, Gansu Post alone has opened Pinduoduo stores in Wuwei, Jiuquan, Tianshui, Linxia and other branches. With the help of the live broadcast of the city and county magistrate, the sales of agricultural products in these stores ranged from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan.

The e-commerce staff are packaging for Pinduoduo consumers, and the conveyor belt is directly connected to the China Post’s logistics vehicle. (Photo by Hu Wei)

“The best e-commerce experience for agricultural products is Pinduoduo,” said Hong Tao, a professor from the Institute of Business Economics of Beijing Technology and Business University at an agricultural products conference.

Pinduoduo has been leading the socialization and development of agricultural e-commerce. The penetration rate of live agricultural products and the e-commerce transaction volume of agricultural products has continued to rise.”

In 2019, Pinduoduo‘s agricultural trade volume reached 136.4 billion yuan and is expected to exceed 250 billion yuan in 2020.

China is developing and promoting modern agriculture, aiming to combine technology and farming, with the help of e-commerce platforms.

SEE ALSO: China Aims to Develop Smart Agriculture

In early September, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Peking University signed a strategic cooperation agreement, in which the two parties will strengthen scientific and technological collaborative innovation, work together to build a national rural high-end think tank, and jointly explore a new model of deep integration of agricultural science and education.

Founded in 2015, the Shanghai-based leading Chinese e-commerce player is one of the fastest growing internet companies in the world. It launched its IPO on Nasdaq on July 26, 2018. In its unaudited financial report for the second quarter ending June 30 released in August, Pinduoduo continued to add more active users and saw the smallest net loss since its IPO.