How Meituan and Pinduoduo are transforming remote Chinese towns with community group buying

Meituan, Pinduoduo and others are counting on China’s burgeoning community group-buying business to penetrate fast-developing rural areas. Reliable mobile Internet connection allows residents in remote towns to embrace online grocery shopping. — SCMP

Xiang Meiling used to have only one job working at a small local hospital in Lichuan, a remote county on the border between central China’s Hubei province and the megapolis of Chongqing. Nowadays, when she is not attending her duties as a nurse, she runs a WeChat group of 157 members, all of them customers that she introduced to a community group-buying platform from on-demand service giant Meituan.

It all started in December, when Xiang began using Meituan Youxuan, which pools together residents of the same community to purchase groceries and other daily essentials in bulk at a discount. The 27-year-old single mother was so impressed by the selection, price and convenience that she signed up to be a community leader. Now, she spends her two-and-a-half-hour lunch break packing arriving goods at her home nearby and taking care of orders and inquiries from members.