Chinese e-commerce company Pinduoduo (NASDAQ: PDD) has formed a strategic cooperation with state-owned China Post to sell more fresh groceries via its platform, Pinduoduo confirmed with KrASIA on Monday.
China Post, which has the largest postal network in the country, with a capability to reach any village, will seek to establish 150 agricultural production bases in three years, which will produce products to be listed on Pinduoduo to reach its nearly 700 million users, said Pinduoduo.
Before this strategic cooperation, China Post’s branch in Weinan city, Northwest China’s Shaanxi province, had already set an e-commerce store on Pinduoduo to sell various products from apples to yak meat in 2016. Employees from this branch source products from farmers and sell them to buyers nationwide. A branch in Guigang city, Southwest China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, followed up in 2017, to sell passion fruits.
“This collaboration means that even the most remote areas can tap onto the combined resources of the postal service and Pinduoduo to increase market access for farmers, cut down delivery times and widen the choices for consumers,” a spokesperson from Pinduoduo told KrASIA on Monday.
Pinduoduo, which first launched as a groceries-buying platform in 2015 to grow into one of China’s largest all-around e-commerce companies, predicted annual gross merchandise volume on its platform from agriculture to exceed RMB 1 trillion (USD 146 billion) in annual GMV in five years starting 2020, up from RMB 136.4 billion (USD 19.3 billion) in 2019, according to a newsletter the company sent to KrASIA on August 27.
Pinduoduo is among a slew of companies, including e-commerce platform Alibaba, short video platforms ByteDance’s Douyin and Kuaishou, which are leveraged by farmers and fresh food distributors, to reach a wide network of buyers beyond geographical barriers in China.
Nearly 20 officials from rural counties in China, along with three well-known actors, used livestreaming to sell fruits, vegetables, and other fresh foods from farm to home via Tencent Weishi, a short video and livestreaming platform, KrASIA reported earlier this month.