46: Section 46

Their Taobao fundamentally doesn’t allow such low-quality goods to appear, yet Pinduoduo directly made it onto the trending searches because of them.

In his opinion, this trending search might even increase some Taobao users.

However, just at this moment, the two noticed the secretary standing at the door who hadn't left.

“Didn’t I tell you to leave? Why are you still here?”

“Do you have something else?” Old Ma was a bit confused.

The secretary couldn't help but bite her lip and said, “Mr. Ma, I suggest you click on this trending search first and take a look.”

Old Ma waved his hand directly, “What’s there to see? It’s just a negative trending search about Pinduoduo.”

“The content of this trending search might be a bit different from what you imagine,” the secretary insisted.

“How could it be different?” Old Ma smiled.

“After this trending search appears, Pinduoduo will probably have hundreds of thousands of uninstalls in a short period.”

“Maybe it will even increase our Taobao installations because of it.”

Listening to Old Ma’s words, the secretary shook her head again.

“Mr. Ma, this trending search not only did not reduce Pinduoduo’s user count, but on the contrary…”

The secretary paused, “it even increased Pinduoduo’s downloads by two million in just a few hours!”

Listening to the secretary’s words, Old Ma’s smile instantly froze on his face.

Chapter 48: The Potential of the Lower-Tier Market, Taobao Takes Action!

“What did you say?”

After swallowing a mouthful of saliva, Old Ma spoke again.

Evidently, he couldn’t quite believe what the secretary had just said.

It would be good enough if this trending search didn't decrease Pinduoduo's user base; how could it possibly increase downloads, and so many at that!

The secretary reiterated, “I said, this trending search increased Pinduoduo’s downloads by two million in just a few hours.”

Seeing the secretary confirm, Old Ma’s expression grew even more unpleasant.

“How is that possible?”

This time, the secretary didn’t explain; she directly opened the video and placed her phone in front of the two.

“You’ll understand after watching this video.”

As the secretary’s words fell, Old Ma and the Taobao Manager both looked towards the video.

The video wasn’t long, so the two quickly finished watching it.

The secretary also opened the comments section of the trending search and let them glance at it.

When they clearly saw the content of this video, the two already understood that this trending search was indeed not a negative one as they had thought; instead, it was a trending search that would bring a huge positive impact to Pinduoduo.

In other words, it was indeed possible for Pinduoduo to increase its downloads by two million in a short period.

“I didn’t expect it to be this kind of video.”

“They’re playing this game.”

“Triggering discussion through empathy, huh?”

After watching the video, Old Ma’s expression was a bit unsightly.

Because he knew very well that the user base of Weibo and Taobao highly overlapped.

They were basically young and middle-aged people from first and second-tier cities.

Therefore, Weibo users who downloaded Pinduoduo after seeing this trending search were basically also Taobao users.

In other words, this trending search directly caused two million Taobao users to switch to Pinduoduo.

This was a result Old Ma was very unwilling to see.

Although two million users might not seem like a lot for Taobao, which has hundreds of millions of users, the revenue these two million users could bring was actually not low.

“What is Pinduoduo’s total user count now?”

Old Ma looked at the secretary beside him.

The secretary, after glancing at the document in her hand, replied, “Adding the two million new users today, Pinduoduo’s total user count has already reached seven million.”

“However, the majority of these seven million users are from the Lower-Tier Market that Taobao abandoned.”

Listening to the secretary’s words, Old Ma murmured twice, “Seven million in one month, huh?”

“Aside from the online shopping software launched by Penguin back then, this is the first time a new shopping software has reached so many users in one month.”

“I truly underestimated you a bit.”

“However, these small tricks won’t allow Pinduoduo to go too far.”

Speaking of this, Old Ma once again looked at the video on his phone.

“But how could this hundred-yuan television really have such high sales?”

“It has already sold over a hundred thousand units in just one month.”

After speaking, Old Ma looked at the secretary, “Do you have sales information for other Pinduoduo products?”

The secretary nodded, “I’ve compiled a portion; these are some daily necessities and electrical appliances sold on Pinduoduo at prices lower than the market price.”

“The sales volume of these products is basically between over a hundred thousand and several hundred thousand units.”

The secretary handed a stack of documents in her hand to Old Ma.

After Old Ma carefully reviewed the information recorded inside, his brows couldn't help but furrow slightly.

“The Lower-Tier Market actually still has such great shopping potential.”

“Could it be that there are really still so many people struggling on the edge of survival?”

Old Ma, who had long become the richest man in Yan Country, had already become somewhat detached from the general populace.

That’s why he was so surprised by this data.

The Taobao Manager beside him, after flipping through the data, also couldn’t help but take a deep breath.

“It seems Pinduoduo’s choice was not wrong; there are still a large number of potential online shopping users in third and fourth-tier cities and rural towns.”

The Taobao Manager looked up at Old Ma, “Mr. Ma.”