When Pinduoduo, the Chinese discount shopping app, debuted nearly a decade ago, the tech giants Alibaba and JD.com dominated China’s e-commerce business.

将近十年前，中国打折购物应用程序拼多多首次亮相时，主导中国电子商务的是科技公司巨头阿里巴巴和京东。

Pinduoduo felt more like a gimmick than a future rival. It was a combination of a game arcade, a shopping mall and a social network. Its main selling point was lower prices for shoppers who recruited other buyers to make group purchases. Customers could pass the time by playing video games or earn money by logging in daily to browse the app.

那时，拼多多给人的感觉更像是个噱头，而不是未来竞争对手。该应用把游戏厅、购物平台和社交网络结合起来，主要卖点是为“拼团”的购物者提供更低的价格。用户在上面玩视频游戏来打发时间，或通过每天登录应用程序浏览内容赚点钱。

Now, no one is taking the company lightly.

现在，人们不再轻视这家公司。

Pinduoduo is the sister company of Temu, the bargain shopping app that has amassed tens of millions of users outside China, including in the United States, where it is spending billions of dollars on promotion. Americans who haven’t used Temu yet have probably seen its Super Bowl ads or Instagram posts.

拼多多是Temu的姊妹公司。购买便宜货的应用程序Temu已在中国境外（包括在美国）拥有数千万用户，并正在美国投入数十亿美元提高知名度。尚未用过Temu的美国人可能已看过它在超级碗上打的广告，或Instagram帖子。

Like TikTok, Temu is the foreign version of a highly successful Chinese company. As its popularity has grown in the United States, its business practices have also come under scrutiny. Members of Congress have questioned whether it is providing a U.S. channel for products that are made in China using forced labor. It has encountered criticism for its labor practices and failure to enforce intellectual property laws.

和TikTok一样，Temu也是一家非常成功的中国公司在国外的版本。随着Temu在美国越来越受欢迎，其商业行为也受到了仔细审查。国会议员们质疑该应用是否在为使用强迫劳动的中国产品提供一条美国销售渠道。它因其劳工做法和未能执行知识产权法而受到批评。

Inside China, Pinduoduo has also been gaining more attention. As a popular destination for inexpensive groceries and household items, it is now closing in on JD, China’s second-biggest online retailer, in terms of market share. And when it briefly overtook Alibaba as the country’s most valuable e-commerce firm last year, Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma, sent an internal memo imploring his company to “change and adapt” to keep up.

在中国国内，拼多多也已受到越来越多的关注。作为受欢迎的廉价食品杂货和日用品购物平台，从市场份额来看，拼多多现在正在接近中国第二大在线零售商京东。去年，拼多多市值曾一度超过阿里巴巴，短暂成为中国市值最高的电子商务公司。之后，阿里巴巴创始人马云曾在公司内网发文，称他“坚信阿里会变，阿里会改”，以迎接挑战。

中国电商巨头京东在北京的一个配送中心，摄于2020年。

Last month, PDD Holdings, the parent company of Pinduoduo and Temu, reported that its annual revenue nearly doubled in 2023, while Alibaba’s and JD’s revenue grew less than 10 percent. The company called the result a “pivotal chapter” in its history.

上个月，拼多多和Temu的母公司拼多多控股在公司财报中表示，其年度营收在2023年几乎翻了一番，而阿里巴巴和京东的增幅不到10%。公司称这一结果是其历史上的一个“关键篇章”。

Pinduoduo has successfully capitalized on one of China’s biggest economic challenges: sluggish consumer spending and falling prices for food and other items. As the country’s growth has slowed, consumers are embracing a lifestyle of so-called downgraded spending centered on Pinduoduo purchases.

拼多多成功地利用了中国最大的经济挑战之一：消费者不愿花钱，以及食品和其他商品的价格下降。随着中国经济增长放缓，消费者正在欣然接受“消费降级”，这种生活方式以在拼多多上购物为中心。

It was different when Pinduoduo emerged in 2015. China’s rapid growth over the preceding decades had instilled confidence that an expanding middle class would continue to flex its newfound wealth with lavish spending.

这与拼多多2015年出现时的情况大不一样。那时，中国经济在过去几十年的快速增长让人信心十足地认为，不断壮大的中产阶级将继续通过慷慨消费来展示新获得的财富。

Around that time, Alibaba opened a chain of supermarkets, selling king crab legs, 30-year-old single malt Scotch whisky and other luxury items. JD started an e-commerce portal called Toplife for premium brands.

大约在那时，阿里巴巴开了连锁超市，销售帝王蟹腿、30年单一麦芽苏格兰威士忌和其他奢侈品。京东推出了名为Toplife的高端品牌电子商务门户网站。

“The biggest mistake at the time was this belief that China had become filled with middle-class consumers, and that it would just go up and up into the future,” said Robert Wu, editor of the Baiguan newsletter, which is focused on investment and business in China.

“当时最大的错误是，认为中国到处都是中产阶级消费者，而且未来只会越来越好，”关注中国投资和商务的百观科技简讯的主编吴格说。

In a 2018 interview, Pinduoduo’s founder, Colin Huang, who is now China’s second-richest person, said it was trying to satisfy not just China’s nouveau riche but also people outside of “Beijing’s fifth ring,” a colloquialism for financially struggling people who live far from China’s main cities.

在2018年的一次采访中，拼多多创始人、中国目前排名第二的富豪黄峥说，拼多多不仅要试图满足中国暴发户的需求，也要试图满足北京“五环外”的需求，他指的是住在远离大城市中心的生活困难者。

Pinduoduo, which did not respond to requests for comment, grew by word of mouth because it offered steep discounts. Sharing the bargains online was easy because Pinduoduo was deeply intertwined with Tencent’s WeChat, a ubiquitous messaging service in China. Within one year, Pinduoduo had 100 million users. After five years, it surpassed Alibaba with 788 million users.

拼多多靠口头传开的大幅折扣实现了增长。因为拼多多与中国无处不在的短信平台——腾讯的微信紧密相联，用户在网上分享特价商品很容易。拼多多成立不到一年，用户就达到了1亿。成立五年后，拼多多用户已达到7.88亿，超过了阿里巴巴。拼多多没有回复记者的置评请求。

拼多多创始人黄峥是中国第二富有的人。

In a 2023 report, Goldman Sachs estimated that Pinduoduo accounted for 19 percent of China’s e-commerce market by value of products sold, compared with 20 percent for JD and 41 percent for Alibaba.

高盛在2023年的一份报告中估计，以产品销售额计算，拼多多占中国电子商务市场的19%，京东占20%，阿里巴巴占41%。

Shoppers on Pinduoduo deal directly with suppliers, farmers and manufacturers to get low prices. The company keeps its fees to users and sellers low, and has avoided heavy investments by outsourcing its logistics to other companies. Mr. Huang once said he wanted Pinduoduo to be like Facebook for shopping, a destination where people gathered without necessarily intending to shop.

拼多多上的购物者直接与供应商、农民和制造商打交道，因此能得到更低的价格。拼多多把对用户和卖家收取的费用保持在低水平，并通过将物流外包给其他公司来避免大量投资。黄峥曾说，他想让拼多多成为电商版的Facebook，成为人们在网上聚集的地方，不一定是为了购物。

After Pinduoduo’s success, social commerce is now the norm in China. Every e-commerce app features live shopping with influencers testing new products and responding to user questions. Some of China’s biggest social networks are shopping destinations. These include Xiaohongshu, the country’s version of Instagram, and Douyin, the app owned by ByteDance, which runs TikTok outside China.

拼多多成功之后，社交电商现已成为中国的常态。每个电子商务应用程序都有直播带货，网红们在上面测试新产品、回答用户提问。中国一些最大的社交网络都已成为购物目的地。其中包括相当于中国版Instagram的小红书和字节跳动旗下的应用程序、在中国境外叫TikTok的抖音。

The main appeal of Pinduoduo is its shockingly low prices. A 5.5-pound box of cherry tomatoes costs about $4.50, but the price per box is cut in half if another person joins to make a “team purchase.” A dozen rolls of five-ply toilet paper cost 80 cents. Both are delivered free.

拼多多的主要吸引力在于平台上的价格低得惊人。一盒五斤的樱桃西红柿售价不到35元，但如果另一个人加入“团购”的话，每盒的价格将减半。卷纸五层的12卷卫生纸售价不到六元。而且都是免费送货。

In its early days, Pinduoduo was overrun with knockoffs. It took aggressive steps to address the issue. Buyers who receive counterfeit goods are eligible for a refund of up to 10 times their money from the seller. Sellers provide a refund with no questions asked if a customer is dissatisfied with a purchase.

早期的拼多多平台上曾充斥着假货。公司采取了积极的措施来解决这个问题。收到假货的买家有资格从卖家那里获得最高10倍的退款。如果顾客对买来的东西不满意，可以退货，卖家不问任何问题就会退款。

Rainbow Wang, an English teacher in Beijing, said she was a devoted Pinduoduo shopper for daily items such as fruit, vegetables, rice and yogurt. She gets even bigger discounts by paying for a $1.50 monthly membership.

王虹（音）是北京的一名英语老师。她自称是拼多多忠实的消费者，在上面购买水果、蔬菜、大米和酸奶等日常用品。她通过每月交10元会员费来获得更大的价格折扣。

Ms. Wang said she loved the low prices, free shipping and generous return policy. There used to be more discounts, she said, but she will continue to shop there because “its stuff is still cheap.”

王女士说，她非常喜欢拼多多的低价、免费送货，以及慷慨的退货政策。她说，虽然以前的打折更多，但她会继续在拼多多购物，因为“上面的东西仍很便宜。”

阿里巴巴在中国无锡的仓库，摄于2020年。去年，拼多多市值曾一度超过阿里巴巴，短暂成为中国市值最高的电商公司。

For sellers, the huge traffic to the app is the draw. Marcus Ding, general manager of a sporting goods company, said he made more money on Pinduoduo because of its lower seller fees. But about a fifth of the revenue he generates on Pinduoduo goes back into promoting his products on the platform. Pinduoduo makes most of its money from advertising on the site. Last year, about two-thirds of its revenue came from sellers paying for product listings to appear prominently.

对卖家来说，吸引他们的是拼多多带来的巨大流量。一家体育用品公司的总经理马库斯·丁（音）说，他在拼多多上挣的钱更多，因为平台向卖家收取的费用更低。但他把大约20%的拼多多收入用于在平台打产品广告上。拼多多的大部分收入来自网站上的广告。去年，公司大约三分之二的收入来自卖家为了让自己的产品出现在平台的显着位置所付的费用。

The advertising model was most likely influenced by Google, where Mr. Huang worked as an engineer from 2004 to 2007. Pinduoduo’s ads are sold using a Google-like auction system to bid on keywords.

这种靠广告的模式很可能是受了谷歌的影响，黄峥曾在2004至2007年间在谷歌担任工程师。拼多多的广告是用类似谷歌的拍卖系统对关键词进行竞价销售的。

There are other signs of Google’s influence.

平台上还有其他受谷歌影响的迹象。

In a 2018 filing for an initial public offering on the Nasdaq exchange, Mr. Huang, who left Pinduoduo in 2021 but remains its biggest shareholder, started a letter by declaring that “Pinduoduo is not a conventional company.” Fourteen years earlier, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s founders, famously opened their I.P.O. letter in the same way.

2018年，黄峥在纳斯达克交易所提交了首次公开募股申请。虽然他已于2021年离开了拼多多，但仍是其最大的股东。他在附信的开头写道，“拼多多不是一家传统的公司”。十四年前，谷歌创始人拉里·佩奇和谢尔盖·布林曾有名地用了同样的方式来开启谷歌的首次公开募股。

Google declared that one of its principles was “Don’t be evil.” Mr. Huang echoed that sentiment, too. “We may not always be understood, but we always do things out of good will and do no evil,” he wrote.

谷歌宣称其原则之一是“不作恶”。黄峥也表达了同样的观点。“我们可能不被理解，但我们总是出于善意，不作恶，”他写道。

Such statements of altruism run at odds with some of the company’s tactics, critics say. Last year, the Google Play store suspended Pinduoduo’s app outside China after cybersecurity experts found that it was laced with malware. And Pinduoduo is likely to face more scrutiny because of Temu’s success. It is one of the most downloaded apps in the United States and expanding into dozens of other countries.

批评人士称，这些利他主义言论与公司的一些做法相矛盾。去年，Google Play商店暂停了拼多多应用程序在中国境外的下载，因为网络安全专家发现该应用程序中有大量恶意软件。拼多多也可能会因为Temu的成功而面临更多的审查。Temu是美国下载最多的应用程序之一，并在向几十个其他国家扩展。

Temu does not sell groceries, focusing on clothes, beauty products and gadgets. Much like Pinduoduo’s customers in China, Temu’s shoppers buy products directly from manufacturers and vendors. It is probably losing money on most orders because of its low prices.

Temu销售的东西不包括食品杂货，主要是服装、美容产品和小器具。与拼多多在中国的用户一样，在Temu上买东西的人直接从制造商和供应商那里购买产品。该平台可能因为价格低在大多数订单上赔钱。

With most of Temu’s products originating in China, it costs an estimated $11 per order to ship products to the United States and $9 to $10 per order for shipments to Europe and Australia, according to Robin Zhu, a Chinese internet analyst at Bernstein Research.

由于Temu平台的大部分产品原产地在中国，估计每份订单送货到美国的配送成本为11美元，送货到欧洲和澳大利亚的配送成本为9至10美元，伯恩斯坦研究公司的中国互联网分析师朱镔说。

Last month, Chen Lei, PDD Holdings’ co-chief executive and chairman, told analysts that Temu’s global expansion was at an early stage with many uncertainties. But it is working off a lesson from China: Consumers always want more savings.

上个月，拼多多控股的联席首席执行官兼董事长陈磊告诉分析师们，Temu的全球扩张仍处于早期阶段，存在许多不确定性。但其经营模式是建立在公司中国经验的基础之上的，那就是消费者总想省更多的钱。