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

Chapter 213 Zhou Hongyi: Where Did 360's 400 Million Users Go? A Breakup, a War of Words!
No. 335 Guoding Road, Ele.me headquarters.

"As of 7:30, there were 713 delivery orders in Xuhui District. Currently, there are only 29 riders still online, accounting for 30% of the area."

Wang Yuan, who was in charge of the marketing department, frowned and reported the details one by one.

Compared to yesterday's order data, Ele.me's market share in Xuhui District has plummeted by 90%, and even 70% of its delivery riders have left.

The atmosphere in the meeting room became extremely tense.

Zhang Xuhao took off his black-rimmed glasses, lit a cigarette, and took a deep drag. The smoke churned in his chest, and his tense nerves finally relaxed a little.

He looked at Kang Jia beside him and asked, "You are the head of the logistics department. Now, most of the riders in Xuhui District have switched to Kuai Pao. What do you think we should do?"

As one of the founders of Ele.me, Kang Jia was mainly responsible for merchant cooperation, on-the-ground expansion, and delivery business.

In the early stages of the project, he delivered food during the day and wrote code with Zhang Xuhao at night. Among the delivery riders who ran away in Xuhui District, there were many old buddies who had worked with him for three or four years.

However, when faced with the generous offer of a monthly base salary of 1600 yuan, five social insurances and one housing fund, accident insurance, quarterly bonuses, and severe weather allowances, these people wavered instantly.

In just one afternoon, more than 60 people left, and the remaining 20 or so were just observing the attitude of Ele.me headquarters.

“The only way out is to raise salaries. Otherwise, the market we have worked so hard to build in Yangpu, Hongkou, Jing'an and Xuhui districts will probably be taken away by Kuaipao in less than two weeks.”

Kang Jia shrugged, looking helpless.

Deng Ye, who is in charge of administration and finance, spoke up at the right time: "Given Ele.me's current order volume, if we bring rider salaries up to the same level as Kuaipao, the monthly labor costs of the logistics department will have to increase by an additional 30%."

"If Kuaipao has it, Eleme should have it too! Kang Jia, notify all the managers of the rider stations that starting in February, all Eleme delivery riders will have their social insurance, housing fund, and accident insurance paid."

After a long pause, Zhang Xuhao suddenly stood up and gave instructions to Kang Jia.

He understood that if he didn't act quickly, all the Ele.me riders would switch to Kuaipao within a week.

"I will draft a new employment contract as soon as possible."

Deng Ye nodded, and seeing that Zhang Xuhao had made up his mind, he immediately responded.

"No problem, I'll make a call right away and reassure the rider team first."

Kang Jia nodded slightly.

The first encounter between Kuaipao and Eleme ended in a complete defeat for Eleme.

at the same time.

The news of two food delivery platforms vying for customers quickly climbed into the top 20 of the trending topics list after being reported and reposted by self-media bloggers.

"I envy netizens in Shanghai. They can order a free milk tea on Eleme in the morning and a free fried chicken cutlet on Kuai Pao in the afternoon. Life is so comfortable!"

"@KuaipaoWaimai @ChenYansenJinling When will KuaipaoWaimai be available? I can't wait!"

"Although Ele.me is a local Shanghai company, to be fair, in terms of service quality, Kuaipao is still better!"

"The CEO of Kuaipao is also a local of Shanghai. Besides, do I need to check the owner's household registration when I order takeout?"

"The first time I ordered takeout from Kuaishou, the rider called to tell me that my takeout had been stolen. Luckily, the platform gave me a 12 yuan no-minimum-spend coupon."

Netizens gathered in the comments section, discussing the topic animatedly.

The feedback, especially from local Shanghai residents, was varied and disorganized, but most users who had ordered from Kuai Pao shared a common impression: timely delivery, neatly dressed riders with smiles on their faces, and polite manners.

This prompted many Shanghai residents who needed food delivery but had never downloaded KuaiPao to search for "KuaiPao" on app stores like Orange App Store, Wandoujia, and Tencent App Store, and then install and try it out.

An hour later, even more comments from Shanghai netizens appeared on Weibo.

"Eleme's delivery speed is really bad. I usually only dare to order milk tea and braised snacks, and I don't dare to order hot food or soup at all. It is often cold when it is delivered. Kuaipao is completely different. It was delivered in less than half an hour."

"The app's homepage has a description promising that the food will be delivered within 29 minutes after the merchant prepares it. In terms of speed, Ele.me should really learn from Kuaipao."

“Learn? How do I learn? I talked to a delivery guy from Kuaipao today. He has a base salary, five social insurances and one housing fund, and quarterly bonuses. His electric bike, work clothes, helmet, and delivery box are all provided free of charge by the company. His monthly salary is guaranteed to be seven or eight thousand.”

"How much? Seven or eight thousand? Brother upstairs, could you please delete this comment? I have a friend who was upset after reading it."

In Shanghai in 2012, many recent graduates from junior colleges and low-level universities received starting salaries of less than 4000 yuan for their first jobs.

Just as it was being hotly discussed online.

Pei Yi, Kou Zhen, and others were also in the office, watching the real-time data for the day.

"2.1 orders! Sales of 67.9 yuan! As expected of Shanghai, the average order value is much higher than that of Luzhou."

Kou Zhen said with a smile.

"The first step went more smoothly than I expected. Fortunately, we had the support of the Yunsu team. Otherwise, order delays and order surges would have caused the loss of both merchants and users."

Pei Yi leaned against the table and responded.

"More than 60 Ele.me riders in Xuhui District have joined KuaiRun, which will greatly alleviate the delivery pressure tomorrow."

Kou Zhen chuckled.

He didn't expect that before Kuaipao even started to focus on merchants and users, it would first dismantle Ele.me's rider team.

To put it bluntly, even if Ele.me has orders in Xuhui District tomorrow, not many delivery drivers will be there to deliver them.

"It's not that easy to defeat Ele.me. After all, Zhang Xuhao is a graduate of Jiaotong University. The company was small before and just lacked funds. Now that it has received 5000 million yuan in financing from Ali, I think they will make significant adjustments to the riders' treatment tomorrow."

Pei Yi shook his head; he wasn't as optimistic as Kou Zhen.

"President Pei, do you mean that Ele.me will also provide its riders with a base salary and social insurance and housing fund benefits?"

Kou Zhen suppressed his smile and subconsciously asked.

"As long as he doesn't do anything stupid, he will definitely do it! So, whether we can win this battle depends on our hard power."

Pei Yi calmly analyzed the situation.

The core of Kuaipao's success lies in its efficient delivery algorithms, stable order system, vast merchant resources, and strong execution capabilities.

From the user's perspective, the first priority is affordability, and the second is fast delivery. If Kuaipao focuses on these two points, it's hard for them to lose. As for traffic issues, Pei Yi doesn't need to worry about them at all.

Firstly, there's Pinduoduo and Orange App Store; secondly, there's Tencent.

the other side.

Chen Yansen opened the 360 ​​Mall, searched for Haier W910, and then entered the product page.

With a pre-sale inventory of 10000 units, surprisingly, only 926 units were sold from morning until 8 pm.

"Just as I guessed, Zhou Hongyi really treats users like fools. If he had sought cooperation with Huawei or ZTE, there might have been a chance of success, but he chose Haier instead."

Chen Yansen chuckled and couldn't help but complain.

360 and Haier are collaborating to sell mobile phones. What's the difference between this and Gree manufacturing mobile phones?
In fact, Lei Yijun was also paying attention to the sales of Haier W910 at this time, but after learning that the sales had not exceeded 1000 units in a day, he breathed a sigh of relief and a cold smile appeared on his face.

Faced with such dismal sales, Haier was stunned, and so was Zhou Hongyi.

Where did 360's 400 million users go?
Zhou Hongyi couldn't figure out the problem, so he opened Weibo, found the promotional ad for Haier W910, and then clicked on the comments section.

"Real-time sales of 926 units? Seriously, are there really any idiots buying these?"

"Qualcomm 8260A dual-core 1.5GHz processor, 4.5-inch HD Retina screen, supports 1080P video recording, 1GB RAM, 8GB ROM storage, only 1888 yuan, feels like a great deal!"

"Haier phones, just hearing the name makes them seem unreliable. If it were Huawei, ZTE, OPPO, or Orange, I might consider them."

"Anyway, I wouldn't dare buy it. What if they crammed a 500MB adware program into your phone that you can't uninstall?"

Zhou Hongyi casually flipped through a few articles and immediately burst into a tirade of curses.

What's wrong with Haier mobile phones?
It's at least better than Xiaomi and Orange phones, right?
They are all fools!
Zhou Hongyi was so angry that his liver hurt. In his opinion, Xiaomi and Orange phones had neither brand awareness nor a complete offline after-sales network when they were launched.

Although Haier's main business is home appliances, is its brand influence really inferior to that of Xiaomi and Orange?
Zhou Hongyi was very dissatisfied. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw two more comments: "Xiaomi phones sell for 1999 yuan, claiming only 5% gross profit, while Haier W910 sells for 1888 yuan, but the configurations are almost the same. Isn't that cutting corners?"

"Just came from Lei Jun's comment section. It turns out that Haier has reduced the specifications of the battery, camera and screen in the W910. Especially the screen supplier, which also supplied the Big Banana last year, has an extremely high black screen rate."

Mr. Lei?
Lei Yijun?

Zhou Hongyi has always had a fiery temper. He doesn't even respect Shencheng Ma, let alone Lei Yijun, whose net worth is lower than his own.

Thinking of this, he clicked on Lei Yijun's Weibo homepage and quickly found a comment in the comment section of the first Weibo post that exposed his past.

While seemingly stating the facts objectively, Zhou Hongyi narrowed his eyes and couldn't help but overthink when it appeared in Lei Yijun's comment section.

Perhaps the Haier W910 did not meet expectations, or perhaps he felt that Lei Yijun had someone deliberately smear him.

Zhou Hongyi snorted coldly and posted a sarcastic Weibo post.

The gist is that people shouldn't treat users like fools. A certain brand of phone has poor performance, overheats, and lags severely, yet it's more expensive than the Haier W910.

Although no names are mentioned, netizens often joke about Xiaomi phones: "You can fry an egg with a Xiaomi phone," "Looking forward to its winter warmth," "Was it born to overheat? The phone is about to burn out."

This is clearly an attack on Xiaomi!

After seeing Zhou Hongyi's Weibo post, netizens immediately seized the opportunity to stir up trouble, frantically tagging Lei Yijun, each one a master at fanning the flames.

At Li Wanqiang's prompting, Lei Yijun logged into Weibo and read through Zhou Hongyi's latest post. He immediately frowned and felt a surge of anger.

You, Zhou Hongyi!

They kept calling me "Big Brother" and inviting me to dinner, but they stole a lot of experience and solutions for manufacturing mobile phones from me, and then they went and made special edition phones for special customers!

Now that Haier's W910 isn't selling well, they're trying to ride the wave of popularity by deliberately smearing Xiaomi's product quality.

Since they had already fallen out, Lei Yijun was no longer going to give him any face.

He directly mocked, naming names: "Can your phone's quality compare to Xiaomi's? You should take a look at the screen you're using!"

"I use a domestic screen, so what? Do you feel proud to use cheap products, and think that domestic screens are garbage? Don't forget, Orange phones also use domestic screens."

Zhou Hongyi responded online, speaking passionately.

Last year, the two were sitting together, calling each other brothers and best friends. Now, they disregard everything and start pointing out the flaws in each other's products.

Zhou Hongyi's response is actually misleading. The Orange C2 uses an AMOLED screen that costs 260 yuan, which is a high-end configuration on a global scale.

Everyone uses domestically produced screens, but the differences between domestically produced screens are huge.

Lei Yijun was furious. He first announced Xiaomi's mobile phone procurement plan, confirming that they had indeed purchased domestic screens from Dongfang. He then pointed out the quality differences between different suppliers.

The Pineapple phone, which uses the same screen as the Haier W910, has been repeatedly criticized by netizens.

Many users who bought the Pineapple phone said, "Whoever buys it will regret it; time will tell."

“I bought one for my wife, and it went black after 13 days. The after-sales service sent me a new one, but it went black after 3 days.”

Zhou Hongyi and Lei Yijun argued until 10 p.m. When they finally stopped, he glanced at the sales figures on the page again. Originally 926 units, now 901 units, and there were even 25 users who had requested refunds!

After learning that the Haier W910's screen had a problem, who would still dare to place an order?
After all, the price of 1888 yuan is not cheap. You can either grit your teeth and get the Orange C2, or choose a Xiaomi phone.

After months of back and forth, not even 1000 units were sold on the day of launch. After this, which mobile phone manufacturer would dare to cooperate with 360 on a special edition phone?
Old Zhou was dumbfounded and immediately blamed Lei Yijun for the incident.

They then unleashed their full firepower, criticizing all the fatal flaws of Xiaomi phones.

This scene left those in the industry dumbfounded, thinking: There are no wrong nicknames, only wrong names; no wonder he's called the "Red Cannon."

At 11 p.m., Chen Nian from Vancl arrived and angrily criticized Haier W910 as a garbage product on Weibo.

"Mr. Chen, Vancl aimed for 100 billion yuan in sales last year. Now, tell me, can you achieve half of that next year?"

Zhou Hongyi directly hit Chen Nian's weak spot, infuriating him.

The first day of February was quite eventful for netizens, who spent the entire day gossiping.

(End of this chapter)