I can become stronger by paying salaries. I have one billion employees!

Chapter 159: 4 jin (2 catties) for 5.9 yuan (shipping included)! DST Investment Group visits (Seeking monthly votes)
"6.9 yuan with free shipping? I wouldn't dare ask Brother Sen for that, I might get beaten up."

Upon learning of Chen Yansen's request, Li Hui waved his hands repeatedly, plopped down on the bluestone slab next to the orchard, and instantly lost all motivation.

Three kilograms of navel oranges, plus the costs of picking, packaging, cardboard boxes, and express delivery, only cost 6.9 yuan, which is simply not enough to cover the cost.

Merchants selling fruit on Taobao and JD.com only offer the 9.9 yuan three-jin (1.5 kg) product with free shipping when they are trying to boost sales volume, and they also strictly limit their inventory.

But Pinduoduo wants to sell everything!
Zhang Yifeng and Yuan Wei exchanged a glance, both equally perplexed. The price of 9.9 yuan was only negotiated thanks to Yunsu's express delivery discount.

"Yifeng, can you make a decision?" Yuan Wei frowned, his mind a complete mess.

"I'll go talk to Boss Wei about it." Zhang Yifeng gritted his teeth and quickly made up his mind.

When the boss makes a request, they have to find a way to fulfill it.

Wei Yucheng is the largest fruit agent in the area, with his own fruit washing factory, fruit crate factory and cannery, and he also contracts thousands of acres of orchards.

After Zhang Yifeng communicated with the agricultural association, they introduced him to Wei Yucheng.

This kind of e-commerce collaboration that goes deep into the place of origin is not the first of its kind.

Juhuasuan had already partnered with orchards and vegetable farmers in Shandong Province in the first half of the year, but due to unstable supply quality and constant negative reviews, they had to give up in the end.

Zhang Yifeng and his team learned from Ali's experience and directly partnered with the biggest local "big shot." The advantages were obvious: a sufficient supply of goods and the ability to restrain fruit farmers who wanted to sell inferior products.

Zhang Yifeng knew that people's hearts were unpredictable. He was fine keeping an eye on the three of them while they were packing and shipping, but they didn't have the ability to actually collect the fruit.

“I’ll go with you,” Yuan Wei said to Zhang Yifeng after a moment’s thought.

"Brother Feng, Brother Wei, wait for me." Li Hui, who was sitting on the ground, saw the two get on their motorcycle and head towards town, so he quickly chased after them.

The three of them bumped along the mountain road, rounded the hilltop, and drove into Jiaguo Food Company.

Hearing the commotion downstairs, Wei Yucheng came down to greet him warmly.

Upon their first meeting, Wei Yucheng looked down on Zhang Yifeng and his group, since all three were only in their early twenties and seemed unreliable.

Upon learning that the other party was a business development manager from Pinduoduo, their attitude immediately changed.

With the rapid development of the internet and e-commerce, Chen Yansen sold FoxTao and cashed out over 10 billion yuan, which also made Pinbei famous in the industry.

Wei Yucheng opened a fruit flagship store on Taobao, but business has been lukewarm due to seasonality, costs, and operational limitations.

Through the introduction of the agricultural association, he took the initiative to connect with Pinbei.

Although Pinbei hasn't launched yet, it's been said online that Tencent will open a primary entry point on QQ and WeChat, generating hundreds of millions of exposures every day.

Wei Yucheng couldn't even imagine how many tons of navel oranges he could sell in a day as one of the first sellers to join Pinduoduo.

If the cooperation goes smoothly, we can also sell mandarin oranges later.

Therefore, Wei Yucheng took special care of Zhang Yifeng and the other two.

Hearing that they were staying in a poor hotel in town, he immediately invited the three of them to his home and treated them to good food and drink.

"Manager Zhang, the navel oranges are of good quality this year, aren't they?" Wei Yucheng said with a smile, leading the three of them upstairs for tea.

Zhang Yifeng sat down, looked at Wei Yucheng, and sighed, "Boss Wei, the goods are indeed good, but when I reported the specifications and prices of the navel oranges, the company asked for a further reduction of 3 yuan per specification."

"How much? Three yuan!"

Wei Yucheng's smile vanished instantly.

He was able to offer three jin (1.5 kg) for 9.9 yuan with free shipping thanks to his influence in the local fruit industry.

If the price is reduced to 6.9 yuan, not only will we not make any money, but we will also have to pay 80 or 90 cents for labor costs per order.

After all, oranges don't just fall from the tree on their own; picking, sorting, washing, and packaging all cost money.

"Manager Zhang, we already agreed that I shouldn't do business that doesn't make money."

Wei Yucheng shrugged and refused outright.

"Mr. Wei, you can't say that. Look at our product display page. All the different sizes of navel oranges are on one link, which is different from Taobao. Users will choose the size, not just buy the lowest price."

"Attract customers with low prices, increase profits with high prices. Trust me, you definitely won't lose money."

Zhang Yifeng turned on his computer and showed Wei Yucheng the UI design draft of Pinbei, hoping to persuade him with the tiered profit margin.

"I'm sorry, Manager Zhang, I'm a traditional businessman. I won't do business that doesn't make money. However, if you change the requirement for fruit diameter to under 6 centimeters, I can agree to that."

Wei Yucheng shook his head and said.

Fruits smaller than 6 centimeters are not necessarily bad in taste, but they are too small for even fruit vendors to bother buying.

This fruit is usually used for juicing, canning, or left to rot in the orchard as fertilizer.

The cost is only 0.2-0.3 yuan, which is less than the price of a cardboard box.

"6 centimeters? Won't the fruit be too small and affect the taste?" Li Hui's family is not well-off, so he is not picky about food. He thinks that as long as the taste is the same, it would be good to keep the price down.

"Come on, I'll take you to the workshop to have a look. The fruit tastes great, but it's small and doesn't look very appealing."

Seeing that Li Hui was interested, Wei Yucheng led the three of them to the fruit sorting workshop.

Upon entering, one sees a dense array of navel oranges, which are being sorted into baskets according to their diameter by conveyor belts and fruit sieves. Workers are neatly arranging the sorted oranges on the side.

"Look, these are them," Wei Yucheng said, pointing to the fruit in the corner. Zhang Yifeng, Yuan Wei, and Li Hui stepped forward to examine them, and couldn't help but frown. They picked up the fruit and compared it to their hands; the fruit was only slightly larger than an orange, and its diameter was not even as big as a duck egg.

"Let me taste it." Li Hui was quite decisive, forcefully breaking it open, tearing off a piece and stuffing it into his mouth.

After chewing a couple of times, I didn't feel the expected sourness or astringency. Instead, it was sweet, crisp, and juicy, and the taste was just as good as a navel orange with an 8-centimeter diameter.

"I'll try it," Zhang Yifeng said to Li Hui.

"Here you go! Viagra, you should try it too." Li Hui handed over the navel orange in his hand.

"Hey, you know what, aside from the appearance, the taste is just as good." Yuan Wei said with a smile after taking a bite.

"Boss Wei, how much does it cost to make fruit smaller than 6 centimeters?" Zhang Yifeng took a bite and turned to ask.

"Let's just charge it two cents," Wei Yucheng said casually.

"How about 4 jin for 5.9 yuan with free shipping? Using navel oranges of this size to attract customers will definitely be more effective than selling them for 9.9 yuan."

Zhang Yifeng's eyes lit up, and he sought Wei Yucheng's opinion.

"Then I'm still losing money!" Wei Yucheng calculated in his mind that the cost alone was about 6 yuan.

“Mr. Wei, if you trust me, I can sell out all the navel oranges from these nearby orchards in a single day.”

Zhang Yifeng made up lies through his teeth in order to get Wei Yucheng to agree.

"Manager Zhang, do you know how much these orchards produce? It'll shock you. At least 3 tons. If we calculate it at 4 jin per order, that's 750 million orders."

Wei Yucheng chuckled, not believing Zhang Yifeng's words at all.

The most popular fruit items on Juhuasuan only sell tens of thousands of orders a day at most!

Wei Yucheng wasn't a complete novice when it came to e-commerce, so he simply couldn't believe it.

Zhang Yifeng remained expressionless and said matter-of-factly, "It's only 3 tons. If you can't sell them all, I'll keep them for you to grow oranges for a year."

"Damn! Manager Zhang, are you playing this hard?" Wei Yucheng was shocked by this momentum.

Although it was just a joke, it showed him Zhang Yifeng's confidence.

"Boss Wei, give me a straight answer, are you going to do it or not?" Zhang Yifeng urged him to make a decision.

"Okay, let's get this straight: I'll only do 10 orders at the 5.9 yuan price. If the gross profit doesn't increase, I won't continue."

Wei Yucheng thought for a moment and then gave his reply.

The fruit itself doesn't lose much money; the main problem is the high labor costs.

Zhang Yifeng breathed a sigh of relief, then lowered the price of navel oranges with a diameter of 6-7 centimeters by 1 yuan, and the price of other sizes by 2 yuan.

Although he didn't meet Chen Yansen's requirements, he did try his best.

That evening.

After receiving Zhang Yifeng's message, Chen Yansen hesitated for a few seconds before agreeing.

Since we have navel oranges of different sizes, we should just give the choice to the users.

If navel oranges sell well on Pinduoduo, he can then expand from fruit to fruits and vegetables, and even the entire food category.

With the addition of apparel, department store items, small appliances, and cosmetics, Chen Yansen is confident that he can fill in the mainstream best-selling categories before Pinduoduo goes live.

He and Huang Zheng started from different points. He had no shortage of funds, traffic, or merchant resources.

Just 20 days after the project was launched, more than 400 merchants joined the first batch, nearly 90% of whom were factories and brands.

If they can't offer a satisfactory price, they're not even qualified to join.

He knew very well that as long as Pinduoduo could make money, these merchants would flock to it as soon as they smelled it, without him having to shout it out.

Just like when he founded FoxTao, he had to create a benchmark to let the industry know that you can make money on Pinduoduo!

Metersbonwe is an alternative, but fruit merchants in western Guangdong are the preferred choice.

Because fruits and vegetables have low unit prices and high order volumes, Yunsu Express has been able to expand rapidly.

Currently, his 4300 deliverymen contribute more than 2000 acts of humanitarianism to him each month!

If this number rises to 10, that would be 60 acts of humanitarianism per year!

In this way, in less than two years, you can improve your physical and mental fitness to over 100!

After replying to Zhang Yifeng, Chen Yansen left the science park.

Representatives from DST Capital will be visiting tomorrow, ostensibly for a tour, but actually to conduct an investment investigation.

While ensuring controlling stake, Chen Yansen is not opposed to financing cooperation, especially with investors like DST who control a large amount of resources in the supply chain.

Furthermore, DST has partnerships with both Qualcomm and Microsoft, which allows for greater room for negotiation regarding the licensing prices of its communication patents.

In Chen Yansen's view, the value of Orange Mobile's factory far exceeds that of Orange Technology. Selling a portion of the equity in exchange for abundant supply chain and patent resources is definitely worth the money.

(End of this chapter)