Pinduoduo on Social Ecommerce & Agriculture with Xinyi Lim

Jun 28, 2020

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In episode 328, Lim Xinyi, senior director for corporate development from Pinduoduo, joined us to discuss the social ecommerce company and its impact on agriculture. Starting from the conversation, Xinyi shared her background and how she came to discover and eventually join Pinduoduo. She discuss Pinduoduo's current mission and vision and how the company pioneered social ecommerce in China. Last but not least she shared Pinduoduo's contributions to the agriculture sector in China and how they are helping farmers to get their agricultural produce to the consumers during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

Lim Xinyi (LinkedIn), Senior Director, Corporate Development at Pinduoduo (@PinduoduoInc, LinkedIn, Medium)
- How did you start your career?
- In your career journey, what are the interesting career lessons you can share with our audience.
Pinduoduo’s Social E-Commerce Model and its impact in agriculture
- Can you briefly introduce us to your company Pinduoduo in China and its mission and vision?
- How do you explain Pinduoduo as a social e-commerce company to the audience out there?
- Before Pinduoduo came into the scene in 2015, the ecommerce industry led by Alibaba and Jingdong (JD) generated a combined revenue of $433B gross merchandise value (GMV), and within 5 years, it skyrocketed from a startup to 57B company with buying base of 585M generating $144B of GMV (reference from Pinduoduo & the rise of Social E-Commerce by YCombinator) and by 2020, it’s the 2nd largest ecommerce platform in China behind Alibaba. Can you talk about how Pinduoduo pioneered the concept of social shopping in China?
- What are the features of social shopping that have been introduced by Pinduoduo? (For example, 1/ creating community via team purchase, 2/ Daily Check ins, 3/ Price Chop, 4/ Card program, 5/ mini games and 6/ personalized recommendations referenced in the YC article)
- What are the misconceptions from the Western world which Pinduoduo has been mis-understood as a company?
- How does Pinduoduo contribute to the agriculture sector in China? (See reference by Parmesh Shah from World Bank)
- Why is Pinduoduo well-suited to help farmers and digitize agriculture?
- What are the benefits for the farmers in China?
- How does Duo Duo Farms help to alleviate poverty and create a sustainable future via the team purchase feature in Pinduoduo?
- Can you elaborate about the Duo Duo Farm project in Yunnan and what are the key learnings there?
- Given the current COVID-19 pandemic, what have been Pinduoduo’s response to the situation and what you have done to help the farmers to tide over this tough period?
- What are the key trends you see in the future of social commerce and does this extend beyond agriculture for Pinduoduo?
Closing
- Can you recommend anything (a book, movie or article) which has inspired you recently?
  - Xinyi's recommendations: understanding the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States.
- How do our audience find you?

Podcast Information:

The show is hosted and produced by Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin) and originally created by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack.

analyseasia · Pinduoduo on Social Ecommerce & Agriculture with Xinyi Lim