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

Chapter 250 There are no winners, yet everyone is a winner!
Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park, Building 8, Balcony Rest Area.

Chen Yansen leaned back in his rattan chair, gazing at the distant night sky, and pressed the answer button.

"Mr. Chen, that's about enough. Shall we all wrap this up together tomorrow?"

Liu Qiangdong got straight to the point, making a suggestion with a smile.

"You can start whenever you want and end whenever you want? So Pinbei is a wholly-owned subsidiary of JD.com, Mr. Liu!"

Chen Yansen smiled slightly and replied slowly.

In terms of financial reserves, he is dozens of times better than Dongguan, and he doesn't care whether the price goes from 418 to 618.

Of course, this is contingent on withstanding losses of billions of dollars.

"Everyone's traffic and output should be good today. We've achieved our goal, so there's no need to keep pushing. The potential consumption demand from users is limited."

Liu Qiangdong sat in his office, offering words of advice with a smile.

He didn't take Chen Yansen's sarcastic remarks to heart at all.

JD lost 200 million. Given investors' patience, they can only endure it for two or three days. Since the desired effect has been achieved, they should cut their losses in time.

"Let's hold on for one more day," Chen Yansen said calmly.

Fuck!
Two hundred million a day, you better come up with the money!

Liu Qiangdong looked helpless and subconsciously rubbed his temples. He hadn't expected Chen Yansen to be more difficult to deal with than he had imagined; money really does give you power.

One wanted to fight, and the other wanted to end things, so naturally they couldn't reach an agreement.

According to the original plan, the 418 promotion was only scheduled for one day, but since Pinduoduo started earlier, it may be extended.

Suning was also afraid of this situation, and after consulting with Zhang Jindong, they only received one instruction: Keep fighting! Eliminate Suning in one fell swoop!
Zhang Jindong had just successfully issued bonds and was not short of money at all. He knew where Liu Qiangdong's weakness lay. As a veteran in the business world, he certainly understood the principle of striking at the heart of the problem.

If this drags on for a few more days, Liu Qiangdong definitely won't be able to afford it.

In his view, Suning, with its thousands of chain stores, is an adult, while JD.com is like a child. Hitting JD.com is like hitting a child.

However, the ambition revealed by Pinbei made him more vigilant.

The next morning, Weibo was flooded with promotional articles, all reporting on JD.com's 418 sales performance. The content seemed objective and fair, but after reading through it, it gave people the impression that "if you want to buy home appliances, go to JD.com".

Ali wasn't going to tolerate JD.com. It immediately released a survey report on the 418 Home Appliance Festival under the name of FoxTao, using a combination of text and images to imply to users that "Gome has the lowest prices, followed by Pinduoduo and Suning, and JD.com is the most expensive."

The PPT included numerous screenshots of hundreds of products, ranging from black goods to white goods, with JD.com being the most expensive sales channel on the price list.

Liu Qiangdong glanced at it and cursed it as shameless.

For example, there is a Shanxing i9100 smartphone that sells for 3069 yuan on JD.com, 2999 yuan on Suning, 2989 yuan on Gome, and 2979 yuan on Pinduoduo.

Each website's price is accompanied by a high-resolution screenshot!
Liu Qiangdong clearly remembered that the price of this product dropped to 2969 yuan after 4 pm yesterday, but the editor of FoxTao ignored this and instead took a screenshot of the product's main image before the price drop.

Is this fair?

Liu Qiangdong immediately responded on Weibo, questioning FoxTao's stance.

"How much money did Ahri receive from Gome? Why is she working so hard?"

Chen Yansen entered the conference room, first reviewed the data from yesterday's major promotion, and then turned his attention to Hu Yun.

"Gome has the highest commission rate, after all, FoxTao is a shopping guide e-commerce website," Hu Yun chuckled.

This information came from two sources: data comparison and private inquiries with several former colleagues from FoxTao.

"Remember to coordinate with Liang Bo. We can't let the money be spent without the users even knowing."

Chen Yansen gave Hu Yun some instructions.

Unlike Liu Qiangdong, Pinbei has its own promotional strategy. Although Toutiao only has over ten million users, it's still much better than Liu Qiangdong.

“Okay, boss.” Hu Yun grinned.

Pinbei's data, design, and marketing departments, along with Toutiao's operations department, communicated yesterday and agreed to fully promote Pinbei's 418 home appliance festival achievements on Weibo, Sina, NetEase, Tencent, Sohu, and the Toutiao homepage today.

"Meeting adjourned!" Chen Yansen waved his hand and said.

Regardless of whether JD.com, Suning, and Gome accept the challenge, Pinduoduo's promotional activities will proceed as planned.

At 11:00 AM, Pinduoduo's 418 sales report was released.

Sales of large home appliances reached 3.9 million yuan!
Digital home appliance brands achieved sales of 8.4 million yuan!
Total sales across all categories reached 19.7 billion!
Furthermore, the report included a price comparison table for the same product across various platforms, with Pinduoduo's price highlighted in red, making it immediately clear that Pinduoduo offered the lowest price among e-commerce websites.

"I bought an Orange C2 phone on Pinduoduo yesterday for only 2599 yuan, which is 100 yuan cheaper than when it was first released."

"I managed to snag a three-door refrigerator for 999 yuan."

"Dong is dishonest; he only knows how to play tricks. I wanted to buy a TV after get off work, but they're all out of stock. He's just trying to fool me!"

"Suning is even more ruthless; their website is inaccessible, and payments cannot be made!"

"From now on, I'll have to rely on Pinduoduo when buying things. The prices are really cheap, and they don't use the trick of raising prices first and then lowering them during big sales."

After being 'selected', the comment section of Toutiao easily guides netizens to form a positive impression of 'buying home appliances through Pinduoduo, Pinduoduo offers preferential prices, and it is sincere to users'.

That's what it means to capture the user's mind!
Soon, news reports and promotional materials about Pinbei appeared on Weibo, the three major portal websites, and Tencent News. The content was detailed and well-founded. In addition, a group of Pinbei users shared their shopping experiences in the comments section, which further deepened netizens' impression of Pinbei.

It turns out that Pinduoduo doesn't just sell fruits, vegetables, clothing, and general merchandise; it also has its own central warehouse and works with Yunsu Express to deliver goods faster than Gome and Suning.

Upon learning of this situation, Zhang Jindong quickly instructed the brand department to release Suning's 418 sales report to the public.

Yesterday it was about grabbing users; today it's about grabbing traffic.

"Boss, JD.com and Pinduoduo's 418 promotional activities are still featured on the website's homepage," Han Pengde reported solemnly as he entered the boss's office.

"Okay, I understand," Zhang Jindong nodded in response.

Competition in e-commerce is very different from offline competition. There are fewer underhanded tactics and dirty tricks; whoever has the money has the loudest voice.

The battle of a thousand groups is just like this. The players who can survive to the end either have abundant funds or excellent trading skills. If they have both, their chances of winning are 70% to 80%.

Zhang Jindong didn't want it to end so quickly. At least until Liu Qiangdong conceded defeat, Suning would keep pressing Liu Qiangdong and beating him relentlessly.

He wanted to show them that even online, JD.com couldn't mess with Suning. Seeing that neither Dangdang nor Yixun was willing to back down, they had no choice but to grit their teeth and continue the fight.

Around noon, Liu Qiangdong hung up the phone, his face extremely grim. Both DST and Sequoia Capital refused to make any further investment.

Fortunately, Xu Xin of Capital Today promised to raise another 100 million yuan for him, willing to give Dong a helping hand.

This filled Liu Qiangdong with gratitude, and he kept calling her "Sister Xu".

"If we can get through today, JD.com will have won this 418 home appliance festival promotion."

Liu Qiangdong clenched his fists, thinking to himself.

From a financial perspective, there were no winners in this battle; everyone lost a lot of money.

But in reality, everyone is a winner.

According to statistics from a third-party data platform, Pinduoduo saw a significant increase in traffic of 57%, ranking first; JD.com ranked second with 31%; and Suning ranked third with 22.7%.

Gome, Dangdang, and Yixun followed closely behind.

Everyone has gained a lot of traffic; as for reputation, that depends on the subsequent marketing strategies of each brand department.

Until the early hours of the 19th, Pinduoduo voluntarily took the activity page offline, and JD.com, Suning, and Gome followed suit.

This three-day e-commerce battle, which resulted in a total loss of 20 billion yuan, has finally come to an end.

Pinbei's outstanding performance naturally attracted the attention of venture capital firms.

For a time, Gao Weilin's phone kept ringing.

It includes domestic venture capital firms such as Huake, Dachen, Jiuding and Cornerstone, as well as overseas capital firms such as IDG, DST, GGV Capital and Morgan Stanley Asia.

"Mr. Zhou, it seems DST wants to invest in all the e-commerce platforms in China!"

After receiving Zhou Shouzhi's call, Chen Yansen jokingly said.

“I only invest in projects with potential,” Zhou Shouzhi replied.

As a seasoned investor, he understands a fundamental truth: no single company can dominate any industry.

While the return on investment for the top-ranked investment is undoubtedly impressive, investing in the second or third-ranked investments can also yield substantial returns, which Zhou Shouzhi is unlikely to pass up.

"What is DST's, or rather Mr. Yuri's, valuation offer for Pinduoduo?"

Chen Yansen asked directly.

Given the current market size of Pinduoduo, the amount of investment involved is clearly not something that Zhou Shouzhi can decide on his own.

He was certain that he had reported to Yuri and obtained the necessary authorization to negotiate before Zhou Shouzhi made the call.

“60 billion US dollars.” Zhou Shouzhi paused for a few seconds before slowly announcing a number.

“Pinbei’s daily sales are almost the same as JD.com’s. I heard that when Liu Qiangdong was on a roadshow in Hong Kong last month, he announced a valuation of 120 billion US dollars, but DST only gave him 60 billion US dollars. Does this mean they don’t have a positive outlook on Pinbei?”

Chen Yansen wasn't angry; he calmly questioned him.

“That’s true, but the Hong Kong brokerage firms only gave it a valuation of less than HK$60 billion,” Zhou Shouzhi explained.

"So, Liu Qiangdong gave up on listing in Hong Kong," Chen Yansen said with a smile.

His subtext was that DST's offer was too low.

"Mr. Chen, I'll contact you again later." Zhou Shouzhi needed to continue communicating with his boss.

Pinbei's rapid growth has made it unable to demonstrate the stability of its performance, resulting in high risks that have deterred investment institutions from offering high prices.

After a moment's thought, Chen Yansen decided to abandon the idea of ​​opening up financing channels.

Unless it's a venture capital firm invested by Tencent or a state-owned enterprise, the former can provide Pinbei with free traffic support, while the latter can provide Pinbei with compliant policy support.

The reason Chen Yansen didn't move Pinbei's headquarters to Hangzhou, Shanghai, or Nanjing was because he had connections in Xucheng or Luzhou to protect him.

Otherwise, if Pinduoduo used the same user acquisition methods in a different city where there were no connections or influence, the fines issued by the market supervision association would fill an entire building.

While 0-yuan price cuts, cash lucky draws, and money printing machines are effective at attracting new customers, if there aren't hundreds of complaints every day, it indicates a problem with the daily increase in new customers.

Before leaving get off work, Liu Zhiping called. After confirming that Chen Yansen had no plans to raise funds, they exchanged a few pleasantries and then hung up.

Anyway, Tencent isn't in a hurry. It already has a 15% stake in Pinduoduo and has made a fortune.

at the same time.

The phone lines of local market supervision associations have been ringing off the hook with complaints about JD.com, Suning, and Gome's false marketing.

Many users who failed to purchase discounted products felt that the 418 Home Appliance Festival was nothing more than a publicity stunt by e-commerce platforms.

Screenshots of products that were first raised in price and then lowered in price have also started circulating wildly on social media platforms.

At 5 p.m., the China General Chamber of Commerce announced that it had launched an investigation and would severely punish any instances of price fraud found.

However, after the person in charge of the investigation learned about the situation, he was dumbfounded. From his perspective, none of these bastards were innocent.

If punishment is truly necessary, no one will be spared.

It's worth noting that at the beginning of the year, the bigwigs at the top held a meeting and set a total target of 10 trillion yuan for the e-commerce market in 2012.

He feared that the announcement of the penalty would have too many negative impacts on the e-commerce market.

Therefore, this matter seems to have a big impact, with well-known lawyers analyzing it every day, suggesting that platforms participating in the 418 e-commerce promotion may be fined between 5 and 50 yuan.

However, all talk and no action resulted in virtually no impact on JD.com, Suning, and Gome, aside from being summoned for talks.

Pinduoduo also achieved the second-highest ranking in the industry in this competition, second only to JD.com in sales output in the home appliance sector.

That evening, Chen Yansen announced that all employees of Pinbei Technology, including part-time customer service staff, would have their Q2 bonus multiplier increased by 1.3. Immediately, cheers erupted from Building 8.

at the same time.

Cheng Wei, who was far away in Yanjing, finally got the outsourcing company to complete the development task ahead of schedule at 4 p.m. on April 20. After testing, Didi Chuxing 1.0 was finally ready to be launched to the market.

(End of this chapter)