--- title: "Unexpected food delivery war, Pinduoduo insists on providing a safety net for small and medium-sized merchants." type: "Topics" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/topics/31913988.md" description: "The "food delivery war" initiated by Meituan, Alibaba, and JD.com is undoubtedly the hottest topic this summer. For a time, debates around instant retail have been endless. Among them, will Douyin become the next disruptor? Will Pinduoduo quietly complete the final piece of the food delivery group-buying puzzle? These have become the focus of market attention. Amid this clamor, Pinduoduo, which has remained silent, appears exceptionally calm. It seems to be sending a clear message to the market: Pinduoduo has no intention of joining this food delivery melee. In other words, Pinduoduo is not incapable of doing food delivery..." datetime: "2025-07-17T10:27:05.000Z" locales: - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/topics/31913988.md) - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/topics/31913988.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/topics/31913988.md) author: "[港股研究社](https://longbridge.com/en/profiles/3199113.md)" --- # Unexpected food delivery war, Pinduoduo insists on providing a safety net for small and medium-sized merchants. The "food delivery war" initiated by Meituan, Alibaba, and JD.com has undoubtedly been the hottest topic this summer. For a time, debates around instant retail have been endless. Among them, will Douyin become the next disruptor? Will Pinduoduo quietly complete the final piece of the puzzle for group-buying food delivery? These questions have become the focus of market attention. Amid this frenzy, Pinduoduo has remained silent, appearing exceptionally calm. It seems to be sending a clear message to the market: Pinduoduo has no intention of joining this food delivery free-for-all. **In other words, Pinduoduo isn't incapable of doing food delivery—it simply has no interest in this "cash-burning yet hard-to-profit" business.** Pinduoduo understands clearly that the core of platform competition isn't about diversifying into every sector but prioritizing initiatives with the highest multiplier effect for the platform. So, what is Pinduoduo busy with? The answer is: providing a safety net for consumers and small-to-medium businesses (SMBs). _**From Farmland to Community Group Buying: Four Safety Nets in a Decade**_ Looking back at Pinduoduo's key milestones over the years, it has chosen to "provide a safety net" four times when others retreated. **First, it supported agriculture, rural areas, and farmers (the "three rurals") in the uphill battle of agricultural product distribution.** In China's e-commerce landscape, agricultural products are the toughest nut to crack. With long supply chains, high spoilage rates, low standardization, and lagging rural information infrastructure, almost all e-commerce platforms avoided "bringing farm goods to cities." But Pinduoduo took the opposite approach, making agricultural product distribution a core strategy early on. Through its asset-light model of "cloud farming + direct-from-origin shipping" and zero-commission initiatives to aid farmers, Pinduoduo bypassed layers of middlemen, broke the "middleman monopoly" in agricultural distribution, and pushed orders directly to farms. This drastically shortened supply chains and catalyzed the restructuring of agricultural infrastructure and value chains. By 2020, Pinduoduo had become China's largest platform for upstream agricultural (and sideline) products, linking consumers' basic survival needs on one end and "lifting up" countless farmers' futures on the other. This safety net also allowed Pinduoduo to penetrate China's last e-commerce frontier—rural areas—via the shortest path. Since then, Pinduoduo has expanded its support for SMBs and users beyond agriculture. Around 2019, as traffic on traditional e-commerce platforms concentrated toward top brands, many SMBs were gradually marginalized. Under the spotlight of big brands, traffic costs rose, platform rules grew more complex, and SMBs faced shrinking survival space, struggling with "difficulty opening stores, high customer acquisition costs, and poor ROI." **Amid worsening "Matthew effects," Pinduoduo stepped in a second time to provide a safety net for SMBs, offering them a new path forward.** With lower entry barriers, simplified operations, and a traffic distribution mechanism that didn’t rely on brand influence, Pinduoduo built a flatter, decentralized traffic system, enabling SMBs to transact with users more widely at lower costs. Thousands of SMBs flocked to Pinduoduo, and this safety net also facilitated a redistribution of social resources under healthy competition, matching underserved low-purchasing-power markets with marginalized SMBs to maximize resource allocation. **The third safety net came in 2022, as shrinking external demand, currency fluctuations, and order losses plunged traditional OEM factories into unprecedented crisis.** Many export-focused manufacturers faced overcapacity, plummeting orders, and even shutdown risks. Pinduoduo became a lifeline for SMB factories "going global" with its innovative "full-trusteeship" model. Factories only needed to focus on supplying goods, while Pinduoduo handled overseas operations, logistics, and warehousing, drastically lowering barriers to entry. This time, Pinduoduo wasn’t just following rules—it became a key player in reshaping global cross-border e-commerce norms. **The most recent safety net emerged alongside the "food delivery war," as community group-buying saw widespread store closures.** Platforms like Meituan Preferred, Taobao Grocery, and Xingxing Preferred sharply scaled back or nearly exited the sector. But while capital can retreat overnight, the fallout from the shakeout lingers. Data shows China's community group-buying market surpassed 800 billion yuan by 2024, meaning countless "group leaders" and neighborhood partners were involved. Many turned to Duoduo Grocery, which extended a helping hand. For these "group leaders," Pinduoduo’s steadfastness "lifted them up." **Examining these moves reveals that Pinduoduo’s seemingly reactive responses to industry crises were actually precise strikes at SMBs' and consumers' core needs, securing more benefits for them.** These actions have also quietly fortified Pinduoduo’s ecosystem moat. _**Why is Pinduoduo So Committed to Supporting SMBs and Consumers?**_ Ultimately, its "helping businesses, benefiting people" philosophy embodies a win-win dynamic of altruism and self-interest. SMBs, the direct beneficiaries of Pinduoduo’s safety nets, are the bedrock of e-commerce ecosystems. Per MIIT data, China had 61.226 million registered enterprises by end-2024, 98% of which were SMBs—a base still expanding steadily. In the first five months of this year, industrial SMBs above designated size saw output value grow 8.0% YoY. With their "vast numbers and wide reach," SMBs are key to economic resilience. But individually, they’re fragile—high reproductive capacity but weak risk resistance. First, SMBs typically have low registered capital and long inventory cycles. Data shows China’s SMBs averaged 128.42-day cash conversion cycles in 2024’s first three quarters. A sudden drop in orders, logistics disruptions, or platform rule changes could break their cash flow, even forcing closures within months. In e-commerce ecosystems, "platforms make rules; SMBs comply" inherently leaves SMBs powerless. Giants’ traffic wars inevitably squeeze SMB profits. From a PR perspective, SMB struggles rarely gain traction. Consumers care about "delivery speed" and "value"; media focus on "giants’ strategies," "market cap swings," and "earnings." SMB "closure waves" and "losses" drown in sector data. **Pinduoduo has done its utmost to support these economic units within its domain.** China’s agricultural digitization rate is still low, leaving ample room for farm product distribution. Pinduoduo continues investing in agri-tech and has developed a comprehensive methodology to empower agriculture, cultivating a new generation of "new new farmers"—95% of whom are under 35. By October 2021, over 126,000 "new new farmers" accounted for 13%+ of Pinduoduo’s agri-businesses. After 2024’s "100 Billion Relief," "E-Commerce Westward," and "New-Quality Merchant Support" programs boosted SMBs’ products, marketing, ops, and supply chains, Pinduoduo launched the "Merchant Protection Council" ("MPC") in early 2025, introducing four upgrades (e.g., "regular communication," "violation alerts") to better protect SMB rights. Its safety nets extend beyond direct profits. **Maximizing SMB benefits hinges on consumers.** While reaching consumers is the final, hardest, yet most critical step in commerce, individual consumers have even less risk resilience, voice, and attention than SMBs. By eschewing the "food delivery war" for community group-buying, Pinduoduo ensures stable supplies for households—practicing "consumer sovereignty" and its "consumer-first" strategy. Conversely, supporting SMBs and consumers is a differentiated way to strengthen Pinduoduo’s core. The "merchant-user" flywheel has let Pinduoduo actively build a "safety net" ethos, fostering a vibrant ecosystem. Today, Pinduoduo has largely locked in "merchant-platform-consumer" bonds. By March 2025, its annual active buyers hit 920 million—nearing China’s 1.108 billion internet users—with industry-leading repurchase rates. In April 2025, the MPC announced "1 Trillion Support," pledging 100B+ yuan over three years to upgrade e-commerce ecosystems, empower SMBs, and build win-win commerce. From an industry lens, chasing trends is strategic—but which trends, and when? It depends on a company’s DNA. **Rather than fight for food delivery traffic, Pinduoduo is rationally laying a "long-termism" foundation in SMB and consumer minds.** While markets buzz about "the next instant retail player," Pinduoduo’s silence isn’t absence—it’s disciplined restraint. 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