Approximately 1 million Pinduoduo merchants have established online stores on Alibaba’s Taobao, according to sources familiar with the matter. This figure accounts for nearly 20% of Taobao’s 5 million new merchants this year. To assess new entries on the platform, questionnaires are administered, inquiring about their prior experience operating offline or online stores on other platforms. As the price war intensifies in the Chinese e-commerce industry, small- and medium-sized businesses play a vital role as suppliers of low-priced goods. In order to compete for market share, traditional platforms like JD and the short video app Douyin have also lowered the threshold for individuals to open their own stores this year. [TechNode reporting]