1. Introduction

With the rapid development of China's economy, China's e-commerce platforms have sprung up like mushrooms [1]. Compared with foreign countries, China's e-commerce platform is in the early stage of development, and there is no relevant and perfect system and mechanism, nor a more general marketing system [2]. Nowadays, most of China’s e-commerce platforms are traditional marketing models with short survival time. If researchers want to achieve the best marketing methods, they must optimize and upgrade the marketing model. This paper takes the "Pinduoduo" platform as a research case, and analyzes its shortcomings in development from multiple dimensions by analyzing the risks, challenges and existing problems faced by the current Pinduoduo e-commerce platform. Mainly from the perspective of marketing strategy, and put forward the corresponding integrated marketing strategy, providing a new direction for the future development of China’s e-commerce platform. Using the keywords e-commerce platform, integrated marketing, and Pinduoduo, they searched CNKI, Baidu, Wenku, and so on, and analyzed and researched the relevant integrated marketing theories. With the help of the currently integrated literature and theoretical basis, from the perspective of integrated marketing, analyze the current problems and challenges of Pinduoduo e-commerce platform. At the same time, actively respond to the party's nineteenth major call, implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Characteristics for a New Era, and firmly implement the new concept of economic development [3]. Break the traditional marketing model of the current e-commerce market, and make the e-commerce industry advance in a better, more stable and more lasting direction. In terms of practical significance, this paper studies and analyzes the current marketing strategies of e-commerce platforms, and provides corresponding enlightenment for the integrated marketing of e-commerce platforms in China.

2. The Current Problems of Pinduoduo Integrated Marketing

With the continuous improvement of China’s economic level, the development of China’s e-commerce platform has opened a new chapter. However, at present, Pinduoduo has overdrafted consumer contacts, which has caused disgust among WeChat users, mature e-commerce platforms, increasing fierce competition in the marketing market, major variety shows, excessive cost, copycat phenomenon, and insufficient after-sales service. The development of Pinduoduo brings enormous challenges.

2.1. Excessive Overdraft of Consumer Contacts, Causing Disgust Among WeChat Users

The group sharing model currently created by "Pinduoduo" has been imitated by major e-commerce companies, but it also has certain drawbacks and hidden dangers [4]. Although sharing and downloading through WeChat can generate a huge amount of traffic and this business model also makes the development more and more rapid, this short-lived business model cannot maintain the momentum of steady development all the time. Once the number of WeChat users if the channels for reduction or development are limited, then Pinduoduo will soon be in trouble. In addition, relying on the business model of group grouping and bargaining to obtain cheap products or discounts for users also has a certain impact on the trust and base of users [5]. When launching related evaluation and order-cutting activities, it often causes certain life and work troubles in the circle of friends, WeChat groups and individual users by means of information bombardment, which invisibly causes many people to talk about Pinduoduo and even change colors. There was a lot of resistance. This new marketing model makes Pinduoduo's information ubiquitous, and in the long run, users will lose their goodwill and trust in Pinduoduo.

2.2. The E-commerce Platform is Mature, and the Marketing Market Competition is Becoming More and More Intense

At present, China's e-commerce market has formed a relatively complete market scale. All major e-commerce companies have their own unique products, and each platform has its own unique advantages [6]. Pinduoduo's unique grouping method has gained a good popularity in a short period of time and is deeply loved by the public. Many e-commerce platforms are also rushing to follow suit and imitate its novel marketing model, forming huge competition in the market. For example, Taobao launched the “Taobao Special Edition” in 2018 to attract customers’ attention through some low-priced brand products. In the same year, JD.com competed for market share and rewarded each merchant who stayed on the platform with related commission rewards [7]. This series of marketing models has made the competition in the marketing market more and more fierce, which not only brought great pressure to the Pinduoduo platform, but also brought more challenges to the growth of the platform.

2.3. Sponsoring Major Variety Shows and Spending Too Much

From 2019 to 2022, Pinduoduo has basically contracted the prime advertising period of some local satellite TVs and some popular variety shows. Its fundamental purpose is to target some popular and high-traffic variety shows to gain more market and Popularity, achieve user growth by acquiring better traffic [8]. In recent years, Pinduoduo has been only tied to Hunan Satellite TV, and has also appeared on more than a dozen popular satellite TVs such as Zhejiang Satellite TV, CCTV, and Jiangsu Satellite TV. It also brings difficulties to the operation of the company [9]. The large investment has not exchanged for higher process and brand benefits. The high cost in the long run will slowly bring down the company. At the same time, the audience's long-term attention to the brand from the variety show has formed visual fatigue, which did not bring the expected. Therefore, the capital cost of sponsoring variety shows and the benefits of revenue should be paid attention to by the platform.

2.4. There is a Phenomenon of Copycats, and the After - Sales Service is not Perfect

According to recent survey data, in the first half of 2022, there were more than 9,000 complaints about products on the “Pinduoduo” platform [10]. Through specific analysis and relevant feedback from users, it is known that most of them are complaints about some low-priced fake and shoddy products. Shanzhai products will only arouse consumer resistance and consumer users' sense of trust, greatly reduce the favorable impression of the platform, and also reduce the brand effect of the platform, which will lead to a reputation crisis to a certain extent. If the problems of related users are not properly resolved in a timely manner, such a cycle will cause the platform to lose a large number of consumer groups. Users will also look for new e-commerce platforms to buy goods because of such problems [11]. Most of Pinduoduo's operating income comes from advertising, and this profit-making method also brings great drawbacks to the platform [12]. Often, consumers will find Pinduoduo for after-sales rights protection after buying fake products, but once they cannot be properly disposed of or it is difficult to refund and exchange, it will lead to conflicts between consumers and the platform, greatly reducing the reputation of the platform.

3. The Promotion Strategy of Pinduoduo Integrated Marketing

At present, China’s e-commerce is still in its infancy in the development of integrated marketing communication, and the marketing model is not yet mature. Therefore, China’s e-commerce has not fully played the substantive role of integrated marketing communication. Therefore, in response to the above problems, this paper proposes Segment target audiences, improve consumer loyalty, establish industry alliances, achieve rapid resource feedback, innovate marketing models, expand customer groups, combine the comprehensive situation of the enterprise, and optimize marketing strategies such as marketing thinking, so as to further promote the transformation, optimization and upgrading of the enterprise.

3.1. Segment the Target Audience and Enhance Consumer Loyalty

"Pinduoduo" should be evaluated according to the specific user groups and target users' equivalence, and formulate different marketing strategies, and analyze users' needs and objectives through field investigations to meet the actual needs of consumers [13]. The current Pinduoduo e-commerce platform should launch high-quality and inexpensive products for consumers in the low- and mid-range market, and provide more luxurious brands for high-end consumers, so as to effectively open up the market for different consumers. Although some users do not show a strong desire to buy a certain product, they can collect relevant information from the pages they usually browse and search for keywords, so as to further infer their true thoughts. The recommendation on the home page will attract the attention of customers, according to the different preferences of each person.

3.2. Establish Industry Alliances to Achieve Rapid Resource Feedback

With the continuous development of the economy and the progress of the times, the market economy has become more complex. If some e-commerce companies want to continue to survive in the current fierce market competition, they must keep up with the pace of the market economy and adapt to the times, trend and change the current traditional marketing model to meet greater challenges. In terms of integrated marketing, Pinduoduo should strengthen the cooperation between Tencent and Alibaba, further realize the optimization and integration of resources, and effectively realize the sharing of resources. In terms of product sales, Pinduoduo should establish a close cooperative relationship with farmers. While expanding channels and understanding commodity types, it also solves the problem of unsalable agricultural and sideline products and realizes multi-directional cooperation between the two parties. Through cooperation, more resources can be harvested through lower risks, which greatly reduces the process of enterprise integration, and realizes the complementary advantages of various e-commerce platforms, laying an important foundation for the rapid allocation of resources and processes.

3.3. Innovative Marketing Models to Expand Customer Groups

As a typical B2B social e-commerce platform, the audience of "Pinduoduo" is mainly positioned in the consumer groups in third, fourth, and fifth-tier cities [14]. This consumer group prefers "low-cost" products and is willing to exchange "social currency" for more benefits. Relying on social attributes can maintain a low price advantage, but this requires the brand to have a higher viscosity, establish a trustworthy brand image in the hearts of consumers, so that the meaning and products behind the brand symbol can truly meet the physical and psychological needs of users. Therefore, "Pinduoduo" should grasp the psychology of consumers, accurately grasp the market gap, use big data information to accurately classify users' preferences, actively communicate and cooperate with suppliers, expand product sales channels, and provide different levels for different consumer groups; firmly grasp the target consumer groups, tap potential users, and focus on "spell out the benefits, spell out the good products, and spell out the warmth", and return to the psychological demands of consumers.

3.4. Combined with the Comprehensive Situation of the Enterprise, Optimize the Marketing Thinking

At the same time, "Pinduoduo" should create new brands, bring some small and medium-sized enterprises into the scope of cooperation, establish production and demand information flow with them, help some high-quality factories build their own brands, and realize the "consumer-platform" and "Manufacturer-Logistics" integrated supply chain. To produce high-quality and low-cost commodities while reducing costs, it can meet the needs of consumers to the greatest extent and at the same time build the brand effect of the enterprise and promote the enterprise. For example, it can cooperate with emerging brands and old-fashioned products to establish a related logistics system, so that some oversupplied commodities will gradually turn to undersupply under some preferential policies. While enhancing its own brand effect, to achieve mutual benefit and win-win between enterprises. For those newly added brands, with the support of funds and related professionals, the merchants will increase relevant exposure and gradually improve brand building. In the process of product production, a transparent system is also implemented to bring an intuitive production process to consumption, so that each consumer can act as a supervisor and jointly check the quality of the product. The new brand plan is also more conducive to the follow-up development of enterprises and to promote the growth of some small and medium-sized enterprises.

4. Conclusion

For reference value, according to the development status of China’s e-commerce enterprises "Pinduoduo" integrated marketing communication, it is proposed that Pinduoduo's current marketing has excessively overdrawn consumer contacts, which arouses the disgust of WeChat users, the maturity of e-commerce platforms, and the increasingly fierce marketing competition. Large variety shows have problems such as excessive cost, copycat phenomenon, and insufficient after-sales service. We propose corresponding improvement strategies to improve consumer loyalty, realize rapid resource feedback, expand customer groups and optimize marketing thinking, so as to further promote Pinduoduodian business platform development certainly. The integrated marketing communication strategy of China’s e-commerce needs to be improved. For example, according to market changes, analyze the current development of e-commerce. To improve the development situation, strengthen the supervision of e-commerce network security, and focus on the training of talents in e-commerce technology, either business or an organization, the development of integrated marketing communication for e-commerce in China will become an inevitable trend in the future. Only by advancing with the times and promoting the development of integrated marketing communication can we remain invincible in the future market competition.