Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: Zhu Siqi

This is not just a question of poor people wanting to buy grain, nor is it a shopping platform for pinduoduo. This is a problem in which many people are in an inexplicable predicament, taking millet as an opportunity to vent and torture each other.

The unseen buyer sits in front of the computer at 9 o'clock every morning and begins to reply to the message.

This is the time stipulated by pinduoduo, and customer service must begin to respond to the buyer's request every day. Just like clocking in at work, if the message accumulated the night before is not answered at 9: 00, the system will judge the seller to violate the rules and impose a deduction penalty.

When tapping the keyboard, eggplant can see the calm streets of a small county in the northeast outside the window. Eggplant says the place where she lives is "relatively remote" even in the northeast. She will use express fees to measure the distance from her home to all parts of the country: if a piece of free delivery is sent to Yunnan, Ningxia and other places, the profit is only a few cents; if it is sent to Guangzhou and Shanghai, you can still earn two or three yuan. This is not consistent with the geographical concept, only when the seller can understand.

The condition of the small town is in line with all the stereotyped imaginations of the northeast by outsiders over the years: there are many old people, few young people, and fewer job opportunities. "We have almost no place to recruit people, not even the factory in the stereotype. The best way out is to take the public entrance examination, enter the system, and nothing else."

Eggplant grew up here. She said that her family was not well-off and her education was average. After graduating from a design school, she took over a period of art outsourcing to help draw the background of the game. Since the beginning of this year, AI has developed rapidly, many manufacturers no longer need the most basic painters, and similar jobs are difficult to receive. So she simply doesn't think of anything else and specializes in taking care of pinduoduo's store. Although there is a manager in the store, eggplant is mainly used as customer service, but the shop is very small, in the specific work, the line between the clerk and the manager is very blurred.

This is the third year that eggplant, the pinduoduo store, has opened, moving from selling hand-made items such as stickers and tape to "millet", which is the same product of comics, games and animations. Compared with other popular online shopping platforms such as Taobao and WeShop, pinduoduo has the lowest threshold. Other platforms require a deposit of two or three thousand yuan, as well as various other identity and guarantee requirements. As long as pinduoduo has an ID card and no deposit, even underage students can open a shop. The drainage rules of the platform are also simple and rough: there is no need to make extra efforts to promote and buy quantity, as long as someone buys things and gives them good reviews, things can be seen naturally.

Pinduoduo himself also stressed that the advantage of opening a shop with a low threshold corresponds to the simplicity and low threshold of opening a shop. Pinduoduo is famous for cheap goods and a sinking market. The eggplant shop mainly sells small items such as key chains, badges and badges. The store does not make millet related to popular works and popular characters, because they are often linked to high prices and exquisite, so they can't compete. It is the main policy of the store to choose a few evergreen roles to operate in the "temperature circle".

Eggplant sold in the valley, handle pictures (printed patterns) are painted by themselves, or make an appointment with the painter online, the painter is not necessarily famous, the manuscript fee is affordable. The surrounding process is not complex, often using domestic iron sheet, no emergency flasher, quicksand, laser and other advanced effects. The shop takes the road of small profits and quick sales, most things are 9.9 yuan free delivery, seven or eight yuan gadgets are also many, 12.8 yuan package is expensive. However, the business in the store is "very mediocre". Strictly speaking, the sale of homemade peripheral products needs to be reported to the copyright owners, as they did at the beginning. But then they found that the sales in the store were far from the initial number of reports, so they were "embarrassed to talk about it" and omitted this link.

"our kind of millet is called 'Pugu' on Weibo, but it is not very popular among the people who buy it." Eggplant explains that people who buy grain like to put the millet in formation and take pictures. When some people pose for more expensive millet or more exquisite "Guangu" (official perimeter), if the edges of the shape need to be filled or decorated, they will buy this kind of "Pugu" in large quantities.

But more often, eggplant customers can only buy the grain at this "price". Spending a few yuan or more than ten yuan, holding your favorite character in the palm of your hand, eating and going out with you is the daily routine of many children. "most of the millet in our store are 'single tweet' and 'Dream Valley' around a particular role. Some little girls are in a bad state of life, so they fantasize about having a favorite character or fall in love with them." Eggplant said, "solid millet is such spiritual sustenance."

Some girls will take customer service as a person to chat with, grabbing eggplant and talking for hours. A buyer bought a key chain and sent pictures to eggplant in the chat window every now and then: "Today I went to the canteen with the role of so-and-so."saved a lot of money, bought a small cake and had a very happy meal."Today is the birthday of the character. Reward him for sharing a piece of chocolate with me."

Girls obviously do not belong to the rich type, every memorable moment has to save a long time of money, chocolates and cakes are like luxuries. A millet in hand for several years, grinded, degummed, she still carried it as always. In fact, eggplant doesn't like to chat like this, and I don't know why the girl is looking for her instead of looking for friends and "sharing the burden" (lovers who love the same role). Although the shop is not very busy, she sometimes receives seven or eight guests at the same time. Having finally got some free time, she would rather go downstairs for a walk. But the little girl's attitude was very modest and polite, so that eggplant had a heartfelt patience with her. But in the final analysis, she is only a customer service, can only use pale language to positively evaluate the feelings she shared: "what a lovely picture."

The situation of some buyers caught eggplant by surprise. She once sold a key chain and picked it up at a village factory in a southern province. The first time to send a message to the other party, the courier tried to deliver 3 times failed, the mail was returned. Then the other party took a second shot, exactly the same product, exactly the same address. Eggplant asked the buyer several times with private messages, whether it can successfully receive express delivery, because back and forth express delivery is also expensive, but also by the seller to bear. But the buyer did not reply, and the privacy restrictions of the platform made it impossible for eggplant to ask further questions.

She called the other party and was answered by a man with a strong accent who claimed to be the buyer's father. The eggplant was too embarrassed to mention the millet, saying that their child had bought a key chain, but last time the courier had already delivered it to the door, but no one received the goods. Eggplant asked the other side if there was a convenient time to pick it up, and then send it back.

"the father asked how much it was." Eggplant recalled, "I said 16.88 yuan, free delivery. As a result, he turned his head and shouted angrily in the dialect: 'what do you buy? my legs are gone, what do you buy?'"

Ten minutes later, the order was refunded and the matter was over. The shopping child didn't say a word all the way, as if he didn't exist at all.

It is not uncommon for children to have complete aphasia as a buyer. Eggplant store in the most conspicuous place written "underage shopping must be approved by parents" and "parents are prohibited from shooting", but to no avail. After all, eggplant could not see the specific information of the other party when she paid, and there was a dispute over a lot of things. Only when the other party called, did she know the details.

Some parents patted millet and chose the badge between the 8 yuan badge and the 18 yuan badge. When the child didn't like it, the parents called and said that the eggplant was delivered the wrong goods, and the picture clearly showed a sign, but the badge was issued. "first of all, she said that I lied to my children and made them feel that society was dark," eggplant said. "I told this parent that you chose a badge, and then she started moral kidnapping. Do you know it's hard for us to make money? isn't our money money?" Many people will use similar reasons to force a refund but leave the goods.

Some parents feel that their children's academic performance is not good, so they particularly hate the matter of buying grain. After a parent confiscated their child's cell phone, he found the store's QQ group and sent messages to the employees in the store one by one. Eggplant didn't know why, so she passed her friend request, and was immediately called and scolded, saying that the store was selling things to children. "cursing is terrible, in a variety of ways, greeting your family and so on." Eggplant said, "in fact, this child is not young, the college entrance examination is coming, but she still thinks that we sell things to hurt her children."

Whether as friends or imaginary enemies, children and parents will regard customer service as a channel to pour out and vent, allowing strangers to bear the emotions they have nowhere to put. These emotions may be caused by money, but they can not be entirely attributed to money. After going around, the price always falls on one person-either on the buyer's child or on the eggplant. What they have in common is that they can't resist.

Eggplant, which can not be separated from the platform, submitted its own information as customer service of pinduoduo to a Bot account several times, which was quickly forwarded out of the circle. Because many families in difficulties are mentioned, many people express their sympathy for the situation of the buyers, and some people want to support them. Eggplant felt a little surprised and then felt "very irritable". Because she wrote many examples of beating and scolding her children, or forcibly refunding them because of poor financial conditions. "these people withhold the goods, which means that I have supported them."

"for every non-refundable person, I have to sell almost five or even 10 badges to recover the loss. So I try very hard to recover every refund request. I will send them a message or call them for a long time. Can you please not refund? is there any reason you can tell me …"

Pinduoduo is characterized by an unconditional preference for buyers. If the other party must ask for a refund, it is useless for eggplant to say anything, and the forced plea will be fined by the platform. There are more reasons for fines that are hard to say to be reasonable. The signal was suddenly cut off in the middle of the conversation. Because eggplant received the message of Pinduoduo, a package was fined 5 yuan because it did not update logistics information in 24 hours. As a matter of fact, the express delivery has been sent out, but it has been delayed by the heavy rain. Of course, eggplant can't control this kind of thing, but it's still on her.

On pinduoduo, buyers can report customer service without actual consumption, and Pinduoduo will impose an unconditional fine of 20 yuan on customer service and return it to the buyer in the form of coupons. "to put it another way, you spend money in my store, feel it's not worth it, you scold me and ask for a refund, which may be inconsistent with values, and we can communicate well. but some people do not buy things in the store, just for the 20 yuan coupons, deliberately to provoke." Eggplant told me, "even if the customer service has a slight emotion, such as replying to 'please stop talking', you will be punished." that's what they're waiting for. "

She knows some people who also open a shop in pinduoduo, but not a few of them have psychological problems and give up their business because they can't stand the pressure. "A lot of people in the group who are bipolar and self-harm have seen a lot."

Even if it is not the seller's problem, the buyer's complaint will be accepted, but eggplant still stays with pinduoduo, and even her family does business on pinduoduo. "We really don't need workers here." Eggplant said, "there are not many serious entrepreneurs and businessmen." Pinduoduo is a good place for buyers to buy wool and an accessible way out for sellers like eggplant.

Pinduoduo does have a huge, very price-sensitive user group, small profits and quick turnover of this road can go through. According to the financial results for the fourth quarter of 2020, the number of active buyers for many years reached 788.4 million, making it the largest e-commerce platform in China. In the fourth quarter of 2022, that number reached 840 million. In order to expand its business, eggplant also opened a store on Taobao. Taobao store rules are much more reasonable, at least will not indiscriminately punish sellers, Taobao also has a large number of users, but the turnover is only a fraction.

"if you have to say, when Taobao is better, the daily sales can be about 120 yuan, and when it is close, it may be 30 or 40 yuan, or even none." Eggplant, tell me. On pinduoduo, if there are many orders on weekends, they can sell for five or six hundred, or even six or seven hundred. However, Pinduoduo's turnover includes postage, and after deducting it, the average daily revenue is NT $200 to NT $300, which is just enough to maintain a living.

"fortunately, the manager's family is well-off," said eggplant, "otherwise the store would not have made it to the present."

In addition to no drainage, advertising, on Taobao, there is no lack of a large number of exquisite millet, the competition is very fierce, eggplant shops do not have any advantage. "our handle is really not pretty." Eggplant is very calm about this. "even if you post a picture on the Internet, everyone praises it, but when it is printed, it still speaks for sales."

There are also very polite buyers on pinduoduo, but they may be more silent than ordinary people and are not sympathized because they are not known because of their silence.

Although people who contribute to that Bot will call themselves "poor" and talk about "things about the poor", in eggplant's view, as long as they have a smartphone and can post Weibo, they are no longer poor, because they can be seen. "the people I wrote on Weibo, those who are seen because they can cry and make noise, are far from the worst." Eggplant said, "isn't it difficult for parents who silently received the goods and didn't say anything, or came to apologize gently, saying, 'the child stole the money to buy it,' and then returned the goods in a decent manner? just because they have a better temper and obey the rules, they go unnoticed."

Among the most polite buyers, there is a girl whose receiving place is almost opposite to the eggplant on the map, remote and poor, and the profit of free delivery used to be only a few cents. After knowing this, the girl said to the eggplant, "I'm sorry, sister, but the postage here is too expensive. Next time I'll buy more and share it."

In the face of disputes, eggplant will be soft at first. "the money will be returned to you, and the goods will be left to you, so don't cry." But then she became numb. "I met too much, too much, and my heart was covered with shells." "and a little bit of positive feedback from helping others is suddenly eroded by those annoying things," she says. "

Unknown sympathy and kindness can even cause trouble. In the interview, eggplant repeatedly stressed, "Don't decode my store." At first, she did not expect that her contribution would be popular, and her identity security measures were insufficient. Many people found her shop, and a large number of people poured into her shop in a short period of time, which made it difficult for the shop to bear.

"on the one hand, if sales suddenly rise, the store may be asked to pay a deposit for ladder counting; on the other hand, some people simply come to chat with the customer service and say, 'that's very kind of you, sister. thank you for your hard work.'" Eggplant must reply to every word, and must reply in time. "(when Weibo became popular) that night, I kept giving people back, 'Thank you, thank you, dear', back to 4: 00 in the morning!" Eggplant still feels quite devastated when it comes to this point. Another manager in charge of Taobao, who had no Weibo and had no idea what was going on, was caught off guard by the flood of news that day and "fell asleep tired in the middle of the night".

Eggplant thinks the conditions she describes are too common. "I am in every small shop on pinduoduo." She wrote in the comments section of the contribution.

In depth, this extra cost and philanthropy should not have been borne by normal sellers. " The saying behind the saying that a crying child has milk to eat is often a more essential disorder, a lack of undercover mechanism and basic fairness. " If those families are better off financially, will the children be nervous about buying things for a few yuan? If parents have a better life, such as a father with a broken leg can find a way out, will they beat their children and yell at them like that? If there were more job opportunities in the past few years and the platform rules were more reasonable, would I still be so angry at pinduoduo? "

A series of "as for Mo" questions of eggplant can not be answered in the current situation. In fact, there has always been a saying in the grain circle, "eat before you eat", which means to advocate rational consumption and not to waste too much unnecessary money on surrounding products. But this sentence looks particularly pale on those pinduoduo buyers. It is not only that some children may be too poor to get spiritual satisfaction only through a cheap perimeter, when a family can have conflicts around a few yuan or more than ten yuan free delivery products, or even involve strangers in beating and scolding, the point may not really be about money.

This is not just a question of poor people wanting to buy grain, nor is it a shopping platform for pinduoduo. This is a problem in which many people are in an inexplicable predicament, taking millet as an opportunity to vent and torture each other. No one is happy, and no one has the ability to be responsible for other people's lives. And on top of all this, there is a twinkling ideal place hanging high, beautiful, ethereal and hard to touch.

The high ideal township "the second dimension also has a threshold." This sentence was mentioned repeatedly in the retweets and comments of the eggplant article.

Subcultures such as two-dimensional and ACG are often regarded as ideal places to be isolated from reality and a place where dreams come true. The convenience of online communication can also temporarily smooth out differences in reality, regardless of class, education, age, or type of job. When people come together with a love for a work or character, they seem to be able to achieve an idealized absolute equality.

But this equality, like the whole bubble-like two-dimensional world, is fragile. Eggplant has been experiencing it from an early age. She grew up all the way rejected by her parents to buy this and that. This kind of threshold did not pop up all of a sudden, but it was rarely exposed and discussed so intensively.

Whenever economic relations are involved, or any offline activities, the "ideal village" will reveal the reality, and the invisible threshold will appear in front of people with an extremely strong face. Eggplant was accustomed to this and seldom talked about it, but she finally couldn't hold back from the Comicup29 show that had just passed. The exhibition, which has been postponed for three years for various reasons, has special and multiple meanings for all ACG enthusiasts. During the May Day holiday, a record-breaking 350000 people attended the exhibition, including the famous Coser and second creators, who brought countless exquisite works.

Eggplant called the exhibition a "pilgrimage". This is partly because Shanghai Comicup is the largest peer exhibition in the country, and partly because the epidemic has somewhat changed people's attitudes, holding on to the palm of their hands whenever there is an opportunity, instead of waiting for the right or inappropriate time. The long-term online life makes people regard the rare offline communication as significant.

"the idea of many people is that if you don't go to Comicup to meet your favorite author this time, you may never see her again." The eggplant said. She even heard that some people borrowed money to participate in the exhibition.

Comicup29 was given a symbolic meaning beyond the exhibition itself because of too many delays, but eggplant herself did not go to Shanghai, nor did most of the people she knew. "if you go there, the cheapest round trip flight in the middle of the night will cost thousands, plus accommodation." Eggplant is figuring out how many days of sales it will take to earn back these expenses. It is almost impossible to make money by selling things on the Comicup site, and it is another cost to send back the goods that cannot be sold out.

The word "power generation with love", which is often bundled with Erchuang and peer exhibitions, has faded from romance. Throughout May, almost every peer circle has been scanned by a large number of Repo (feedback), return pictures and exhibitors, while eggplant has always been nestled in a small town on the northeast border.

Eggplant itself does not have any other wishes. The best thing she can think of now is that all buyers can order and receive goods normally, even if they can be delayed until they are automatically confirmed. In short, she wants to calmly complete one normal business after another, a few contributions that have been retweeted and read a lot, and those appalling and unfamiliar buyer stories will disappear in the information tide of the Internet in a few days, while more people remain silent, trapped in the underlying logic that makes everyone unhappy.

"I can only say that I hope you can produce more works and post more 'grain' online." Recalling the mood of the contribution at that time, eggplant said, "so that people who can't afford millet can see their favorite characters."

In this way, at least in cyberspace, there will still be a fragile ideal town that hangs high in reality and can be equal just because of love.

(eggplant is an alias at the request of the interviewees. )

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