Have you noticed that on PDD you can buy daily necessities at extremely low prices, like adhesive hooks, towel racks, soap boxes, garbage bags, phone stands, and so on? And it's not mindless shopping—you select a product, compare it by browsing first, then exit the search page and participate in smashing golden eggs. Generally, a product priced at 5 yuan will drop to between 3.5 and 4.5 yuan after cracking open the golden egg. But that's not all. Click the red heart to save it, then continue browsing the 1 yuan raffle section. You'll find the product you hearted appears in the list with the price further reduced to between 3.0 and 3.5 yuan.

Can you place an order now? Not so fast. After selecting payment, click to cruelly exit. Then go back to my account and scroll down. At this point you'll clearly feel that PDD is already begging you to pay. Actually you could hold out even longer, but I usually don't wait that long—you can just place the order and pay directly.

Sometimes I'm even curious how merchants make any profit when the money I spend is basically not even enough to cover shipping. But regardless, this method is incredibly stress-relieving. Sometimes in one evening I can buy a dozen items, check my wallet, and realize I've only spent 20 to 30 yuan. It really gives me the feeling of spending money lavishly.

When batches of goods gradually arrive at the pickup station and I go collect the express packages, I get a little moment of happiness too. I used to like spending 1 yuan to get 7 diamonds on Douyin and then send little hearts in live streams with very few people. You'd find that these streamers act like NPCs—basically thanking me every time I send a little heart. But since discovering Pinduoduo, I don't play on Douyin like that anymore, because after all you get actual products and can enjoy the double happiness of shopping and receiving packages.

#ConsumerValues