When Lin Yunyun started selling diapers two years ago on Pinduoduo, China’s fast-growing e-commerce site, she was not prepared for the relentless nagging about prices.

两年前，当林云云（音）在中国快速发展的电子商务网站拼多多上开始卖尿布时，她对该平台在价格上的纠缠不休毫无准备。

Pinduoduo, popular among Chinese consumers for its discounts, sent “reminders” whenever other sellers dropped their prices below hers. When Ms. Lin cut her prices, the site would temporarily promote her products — only to warn her a few days later that more reductions were needed for the site to continue driving customers to her goods.

拼多多因提供折扣而深受中国消费者的欢迎，每当其他商家将价格降到低于她的售价时，平台就会给她发“警报”。林女士降价后，网站会在短时间里促销她的产品，但仅仅几天后又会警告她，需要进一步降价，才能继续将她的商品推荐给顾客。

“The platform keeps reminding me to lower prices,” said Ms. Lin, 28, who lives in Zhangzhou, a city in southeastern China. “If I cut my price any more, I won’t make any money.”

“这个平台一直提醒我降价，”现年28岁的林女士说，她住在中国东南部城市漳州。“如果我再降价的话，就赚不到钱了。”

No company embodies China’s deflationary moment quite like Pinduoduo. Shoppers flock to the app for its staggering discounts, the result of its unyielding push to lower prices. As the country’s second-largest online retailer, it is the shopping destination of choice for those who embrace so-called downgraded spending — a social-media fueled maxim of Chinese consumers’ penny-pinching ways.

没有哪家公司比拼多多更能体现中国目前的通货紧缩问题。人们纷纷到这个网站购物，是因为这里能提供惊人的折扣，该网站坚定不移地推行低价政策。拼多多是中国第二大在线零售商，也是那些推崇所谓“降级消费”的人的首选购物目的地，那是社交媒体描述中国消费者节俭生活方式的说法。

Rattled by a real estate crisis with no end in sight and a faltering labor market, Chinese consumers are spending less and saving more. Prices are falling, and profits are shrinking. Companies are hesitant to hire more workers or invest in the future, fueling even more concerns about the economy.

受看不到尽头的房地产危机和劳动力市场衰退的影响，中国的消费者们正在减少支出，增加储蓄。物价正在下跌，利润也在缩水。企业不愿雇佣更多员工或投资未来，这进一步加剧了人们对经济的担忧。

尽管政府已暗示将增加财政支出，让中国消费者手中有更多的钱，但尚未透露任何具体打算。

After a series of half-measures that have failed to reinvigorate the economy, Beijing has finally signaled that it is ready to take more aggressive action, although it’s unclear how far it is willing to go. Late last month, the government announced interest rate cuts and other initiatives to revive the property market, as well as steps to prop up stock markets.

在一系列不彻底的行动计划未能提振经济之后，中国政府终于发出信号表示正准备采取更积极的行动，尽管目前尚不清楚政府愿意走多远。上个月底，政府宣布了降息和其他重振房地产市场的措施，还采取了支撑股市的步骤。

And despite hints of additional fiscal spending to put more money into the hands of Chinese consumers, the government has not revealed any specific plans. Rhodium Group, a research firm, said in a note that policymakers had demonstrated more willingness to act on the economy, but deflationary pressures were among several important issues that remained unresolved.

尽管政府暗示将增加财政支出，让中国消费者手中有更多资金，但尚未披露任何具体打算。研究公司荣鼎咨询在一份简报中写道，虽然政策制定者们已表现出在经济上采取行动的更大意愿，但通货紧缩压力仍是有待解决的几个重要问题之一。

China’s gross domestic product deflator, an economic indicator that measures prices broadly across the economy, has contracted for five straight quarters, the longest downturn in a quarter century. Ultimately, this means that the economy may not be growing as fast as the main G.D.P. figure — targeted by Beijing to increase by about five percent this year — would suggest.

GDP平减指数是衡量全社会经济活动价格变化的经济指标，中国的该指数已连续五个季度下降，这是25年来最长的连续下降。从根本上说，这意味着中国的经济增长速度可能不如主要的GDP数据显示的那么快，中国政府今年的GDP增长目标是5%左右。

The government had directed most of its policy focus on supporting production and investment. While this has kept Chinese factories humming, it has left the country and its global trading partners awash in excess goods. An abundance of supply is helping to keep prices low.

政府把大部分的政策重点都放在支持生产和投资上。虽然这让中国的工厂保持运转，但也让中国及其全球贸易伙伴淹没在商品过剩之中。充足的供应正在帮助维持低价格。

约60%的中国消费者在拼多多等电商平台上购物。

And that’s where Pinduoduo comes in. Because a growing portion of spending in China is happening online, the price reductions by the app and other e-commerce platforms copying its success have contributed to a deflationary downturn. About 60 percent of the country’s consumers buy through e-commerce, accounting for more than one-third of all retail spending, according to HSBC.

这让拼多多大有可为。由于中国人花在网上的钱越来越多，拼多多和其他效仿其成功经验的电商平台上的降价已为通货紧缩性经济下行做了贡献。据汇丰银行统计，中国约60%的消费者购物发生在电子商务平台上，占所有零售支出的三分之一以上。

“Pinduoduo is both the consequence and cause of deflation,” said Donald Low, a professor of practice in public policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

“拼多多既是通货紧缩的后果，也是通货紧缩的原因，”香港科技大学公共研究学部实践教授刘浩典说。

Founded in 2015, Pinduoduo has grown more quickly than its more established rivals, recently expanding abroad with its Temu brand. In its most recent quarter, Pinduoduo said revenue had risen 86 percent. It warned, however, that future profits might take a hit because it planned to invest heavily to support “high-quality” merchants.

拼多多成立于2015年，该平台的增长速度比其更成熟的竞争对手快，最近还以Temu这个品牌向海外市场扩张。拼多多称收入在最近的一个季度增长了86%。但公司警告说，未来的利润可能会减少，因为它已打算投入巨资，以支持“高质量”的商家。

Colin Huang, Pinduoduo’s founder and one of China’s richest men, has said that one of the company’s core values is not to sell cheap products, but to offer goods that customers will feel are less expensive than they should be.

拼多多创始人黄峥是中国最富有的人之一，他曾表示，拼多多的核心不是便宜，而是满足用户心里觉得占便宜的感觉。

Earlier this year, Ms. Lin, the seller in Zhangzhou, said Pinduoduo had enrolled her in an “automated price tracking system” to allow the company to lower the price of her diapers whenever it detected similar products available for less. A few months after she opted out of the program, she discovered that the setting had been turned on again.

漳州的商家林女士说，今年早些时候，拼多多让她加入了一个“自动价格跟踪系统”，每当拼多多发现有更低价格的类似商品时，平台会自动降低她销售的尿布的价格。她退出了这个系统几个月后发现，平台又给她重新启用了自动跟踪设置。

拼多多创始人黄峥说，该公司的核心不是便宜，而是满足用户心里觉得占便宜的感觉。

Pinduoduo, which did not respond to requests for comment for this article, has said that this feature helps to improve the “operating efficiency” of merchants, while providing customers with more competitively priced products.

拼多多没有回复对本文置评的请求，公司曾表示，自动跟踪的功能有助于提高商家的“运营效率”，同时向顾客提供价格更具竞争力的商品。

Economists have studied the consequences of e-commerce on pricing for years.

多年来，经济学家们一直在研究电商对定价的影响。

In the mid-2010s, economists started citing something called the Amazon Effect, for the influence wielded by the dominant online retailer Amazon.com to drive down prices across the web and at brick-and-mortar stores. Almost all retailers, including Amazon, track each other’s prices and then adjust their own using so-called dynamic pricing, when prices move according to market conditions.

2010年代中期，经济学家们开始提出被称为“亚马逊效应”的现象，即占主导地位的网上零售商亚马逊有压低其他网上商店和实体店价格的影响力。包括亚马逊在内的几乎所有零售商都会跟踪彼此的价格，然后在价格根据市场情况变动时，用所谓的动态定价来调整自己的价格。

The conventional thinking was that the Amazon Effect helped to keep prices down. But Alberto Cavallo, a professor at Harvard Business School, argued in 2018 that e-commerce was making prices more sensitive to economic shocks, such as higher energy costs. He noted that prices could rise sharply if the shocks were inflationary.

传统观念认为“亚马逊效应”对压低价格有帮助。但哈佛商学院的教授阿尔贝托·卡瓦洛在2018年提出理由说，电子商务正在让价格对经济冲击（如能源价格上涨）变得更敏感。他指出，如果冲击是通货膨胀性的，价格会大幅上涨。

Prof. Cavallo said China might be experiencing something similar but in the opposite direction. The economic shock of a slumping economy is applying downward pricing pressure, and the effect is being accelerated by e-commerce platforms.

卡瓦洛说，中国也许正在经历类似的、但方向相反的事情。经济下滑造成的经济冲击正在带来降价的压力，而电子商务平台则在加大这个影响。

Pinduoduo’s success has prompted its two largest rivals, Alibaba and JD.com, to join the low-price competition.

拼多多的成功已促使其两大竞争对手阿里巴巴和京东加入到降价竞争中来。

Last year, Alibaba’s shopping site Taobao started a campaign to rate sellers based on how their prices compared to other e-commerce platforms, according to Chinese media. The sellers with better prices would receive more traffic and exposure for their products. JD.com, once known for selling high-end electronics, has also created a series of low-price campaigns.

据中国媒体报道，去年，阿里巴巴的购物网站淘宝发起了一项活动，让用户将淘宝商家的价格与其他电子商务平台的做比较，并以此来对商家评分。价格更优惠的商家将得到更多的流量和产品曝光度。曾经以销售高端电子产品闻名的京东也推出了一系列低价促销活动。

For its part, Chinese regulators established a new rule in May preventing online platforms from imposing “unreasonable restrictions” on merchants’ prices, transaction rules and traffic.

就中国监管机构而言，它已在今年5月制定了一项新规定，禁止网络平台对商家的定价、交易规则和流量进行“不合理的限制”。

Zhang Zhuo, a Chinese journalist, wrote a post entitled “The Better Pinduoduo Is, the Worse the Times Are.” In the article, which has been removed from WeChat, China’s dominant messaging app, she said that Pinduoduo has conditioned shoppers to ignore brands and look for the cheapest options.

中国记者张卓写了一篇题为《拼多多越好，时代越糟》的文章。这篇文章已被中国主要的短信平台微信删除。她在文章中写道，拼多多已让购物者习惯于忽视品牌，寻找最便宜的商品。

Online merchants, Ms. Zhang wrote, “have only two choices, either lower price or sacrifice sales.”

张卓写道，网络商家“只有两个选择，要么低价，要么牺牲销售规模”。

Lulu Qi started selling clothing accessories, towels, phone cases and charging cables on Pinduoduo in 2018, but she said the platform’s demands had become too much.

2018年，齐璐璐（音）开始在拼多多上销售服装配饰、毛巾、手机壳和充电线等商品，但她说该平台的要求已变得太过分了。

Pinduoduo kept offering to drive potential customers to her products if she would meet the app’s suggested prices. But she couldn’t do that because they were well below the prices she had paid to procure the goods.

拼多多一直表示，如果她能把价格降到该平台的建议价，就能向更多的潜在客户推荐她的商品。但她无法做到这点，因为建议价远低于她采购商品支付的价格。

“It’s impossible to do business at that price,” said Ms. Qi, who lives in Shenzhen, a city in southeastern China.

“以平台的建议价做生意是不可能的，”家住中国东南部城市深圳的齐女士说。

Other Pinduoduo policies also make it difficult for merchants to make money, she said. Buyers who are dissatisfied with a product can demand a refund without returning the item. This happens to Ms. Qi about five times a day, she said.

她说，拼多多的其他政策也让商家很难赚到钱。比如，对产品不满意的买家可以要求退款，而无需退货。齐女士说，这种情况每天大约在她身上发生五次。

在经济不景气的情况下，中国的消费者已减少支出，增加储蓄。

Still, merchants said it was hard to leave Pinduoduo because the customers were loyal.

尽管如此，许多商家表示很难离开拼多多，因为客户忠诚度高。

One shopper on Pinduoduo, Gao Ning, an office administrator in Beijing, said he had initially been wary of using the platform but found it to be a convenient way to buy groceries. Now, he also purchases toilet paper, garbage bags, trash cans, dish soap and cat food from the site.

在北京工作的办公室管理员高宁（音）是拼多多上的一名购物者，他说，虽然他最初对使用该平台持谨慎态度，但发现在上面购买杂货很方便。现在，他也从该网站购买卫生纸、垃圾袋、垃圾桶、洗洁液和猫粮。

“Pinduoduo is still a little cheaper,” he said. He found that the same items were less expensive there than on other sites, because “everyone goes there expecting good value for money.”

“拼多多还是便宜一点，”他说。他发现同样的商品在该平台比其他网站上便宜，因为“所有上拼多多购物的人都希望物有所值”。