In February 2023, Cotti Coffee put more than 70 of its best-selling drinks on sale from 9.9 yuan a cup. On June 5, 2023, when it opened its 10,000th store, Luckin started a weekly 9.9 yuan offer in all its stores.
pricing
The Pinduoduo of AI
In early 2025, Chinese media reported that the total training cost of DeepSeek’s V3 model was 5.576 million dollars. They called DeepSeek “the Pinduoduo of the AI world,” after the group-buying platform known for low prices.
The gaming and tech site Gamersky noted that DeepSeek had already priced its earlier V2 model very cheaply.
A Car for 28,800 Yuan
In July 2020, SAIC-GM-Wuling launched the Hongguang Mini EV at a starting price of 28,800 yuan. By October 2026, its cumulative sales had passed 2 million.
Price Increase Letters
Chinese suppliers announce price rises to their customers with a 涨价函, a price increase letter. When chip prices rose at the end of 2020, the chip maker Huiding (Goodix) raised its dollar prices by 30 percent from January 1, 2021. Xinjieneng (NCE Power) told customers that the new prices would also apply to unpaid orders already in its system.
The Vocabulary of Bargaining
讨价还价 To ask a price and return a price. To bargain. Also to argue over terms when negotiating or accepting a task.
杀价 To kill the price. To push a price down hard.
变卦 To change the hexagram. To go back on a decision already made. The word comes from divination, where a second reading gave a different result from the first.
Ms. Hu and Ctrip
In July 2020, Ms. Hu, a diamond-level member of the travel platform Ctrip, booked a room at a hotel in Zhoushan through Ctrip for 2,889 yuan. The hotel’s own listed rate for the room was 1,377.63 yuan. In 2021, the Keqiao District Court in Shaoxing ordered Ctrip to pay her 4,777.48 yuan: the part of the difference it had not yet refunded, plus three times the price difference.
Chinese media described it as the first court judgment that made a company using big data against its familiar customers refund the difference and pay three times as much. The Personal Information Protection Law, adopted in August 2021, forbids “unreasonable differential treatment” of individuals “in transaction prices and other trading terms” in automated decisions.
One Rupee a Sachet
C.K. Ranganathan made his name “selling the now famous Chik Shampoo at Rs. 1/- a sachet,” Madras Musings recalls. “The name ‘Chik’ was coined using letters from his father’s name Chinni Krishnan.”
Washing Powder Nirma
Karsanbhai Patel, a laboratory technician, founded Nirma in 1969 as a one-man operation. His yellow washing powder “was priced at ₹3.50 per kg, at a time when HUL’s Surf was priced at ₹13,” Wikipedia notes.
How Much Does It Give?
Kitna deti hai? How much does it give? The question is about mileage. Maruti Suzuki and the agency Publicis Capital built an advertising series on it. The first films appeared on Maruti Suzuki’s YouTube channel in December 2011.
“The question brilliantly sums up the obsession for mileage among Indian consumers,” Business Standard wrote. “Mileage has become an extremely important criterion when it comes to car buying.”
The Five-Rupee Pack
“Back in the day, a Rs 5 pack gave you a hearty 100 grams of biscuit goodness,” YourStory wrote of Parle-G in 2023. “Fast forward to today, and you’re looking at around 55 grams.”
The price stayed the same. In 2022 Hindustan Times reported the approach: “We reduce the weight of the pack till it’s feasible.”