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

Chapter 269 Sales Fall Short of Expectations? Cumulative Total Reaches 27.9 Billion! Liu Qiangdong: I Really Want to Win This Time!

At 1 a.m., Chen Yansen posted a group photo on Weibo of himself participating in Pinduoduo's 618 promotion.

The scene shows a full range of outdoor barbecue, hot pot, and beer.

In addition to 1.5 times the overtime pay, there are also lucky red envelopes ranging from 1000 to 10000 yuan, which everyone receives.

In the last photo, Chen Yansen stands among more than 30 employees who won the grand prize of 10,000 yuan, his face beaming with a bright smile, and the atmosphere at the scene is lively and extraordinary.

at the same time.

Hangzhou Ali Headquarters

Looking at the photos, Xu Kun, Li Bin, Du Yaoyao, Tang Qin, and others couldn't help but feel regret.

They knew that Pinbei's salary and benefits system were exactly the same as the original FoxTao, and the overtime pay alone was a considerable income every month.

Ahri's treatment is not bad, but what about overtime pay?
Of course, there wasn't a single penny.

After all, everyone is working overtime voluntarily, so talking about money is not appropriate.

……

……

8:30 a.m., Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park.

With just over an hour to go before the release of the Moss smart speaker, Chen Yansen also felt that setting the price at 799 yuan in the domestic market would inevitably fail to achieve satisfactory sales.

However, from the company's strategic perspective, the Moss smart speaker is ultimately a major product for Orange Technology.

Therefore, after parking his car, he went straight into Building No. 9.

Arriving at the office, I checked the data and processed work emails as usual. After finishing my work, I stood by the window with a straw in my mouth and looked downstairs.

Employees from Pinduoduo, Orange Technology, Orange Pay, and Toutiao walked into the building one after another.

Before its release, Moss smart speaker partnered with hundreds of influential bloggers in the digital and tech circles to promote it through text, images, and videos on platforms such as Weibo, Toutiao, Youku, and Sohu Video.

Wang Teng even targeted Smzdm and FoxTao, placing advertorials on their product sharing channels to promote products.

We'll find out exactly how many units we can sell soon.

As for overseas markets, Wang Teng, with the help of Zhou Shouzhi's connections and the gimmick of the world's first smart speaker, easily resolved the copyright issues for Amazon Music, Pandora, Sirui, and Wolfram Alpha.

Recently, Wang Teng has been busy expanding overseas sales channels, contacting Amazon and eBay online, and Best Buy and Lowe's offline.

Negotiations between Ye Qiuping and Paramount are ongoing. Paramount wants a 15% commission rate in exchange for sharing Star Trek merchandise sales channels with Orange Technology.

However, Ye Qiuping was only willing to offer 7%, and the two sides had a significant difference of opinion, so they could not reach an agreement for a long time.

Generally speaking, 5% to 20% is within a reasonable range, but the key issue is that Alexa is not a core character in Star Trek.

Ye Qiuping only offered a 7% commission, which was actually fine.

Chen Yansen wasn't in a hurry, letting Ye Qiuping slowly negotiate with the Paramount Pictures liaison.

Anyway, he's already got the lifetime license for Alexa's character, so whether Paramount likes it or not, the release date in overseas markets won't change. He's determined to ride the wave of Star Trek's popularity and traffic.

At 10:00 AM, the sale began simultaneously on seven channels: Orange Mall, Taobao, Gome, Suning, Dangdang, Yi Xun, and Amazon.

Chen Yansen glanced at his watch but didn't rush back to his seat to check the real-time data.

the other side.

At JD.com headquarters, Liu Qiangdong finished his morning meeting with the purchasing and sales managers of each product category and then returned to his office.

This 618 shopping festival is of paramount importance to him.

Brokerages in Hong Kong and the United States have very low valuation expectations for TD, only a paltry 60 billion US dollars.

This infuriated Dong, who first rejected Hong Kong stocks and then Nasdaq, declaring that Dong would never go public without a valuation of 120 billion US dollars.

He may appear tough, but only he knows the bitterness in his heart.

Investors such as IDG, Sequoia Capital, iResearch, DST, and Tiger Global Management have long harbored resentment towards him.

"Mr. Liu, I don't expect you to make a profit, but you can't keep losing money, can you? Let's get JD.com listed first."

Neil Shen of Sequoia Capital urged Liu Qiangdong to launch an IPO plan as soon as possible so that they, as investors, could realize their profits sooner.

But a valuation of $60 billion? Isn't that an insult?

Domestic investment institutions have valued Pinduoduo at 100 billion US dollars. In comparison, JD.com's efforts over the past ten years seem like a joke.

To boost sales, Liu Qiangdong had the operations department organize a series of promotions: computers and digital products at 50% off and home appliances at 4.8% off.

Grab headphones for 1% off, and computers for 5% off.

USB flash drive for 9 yuan, printer for 99 yuan.

Large appliances: get 618 yuan back for every 1,000 yuan spent; small appliances: get 61.8 yuan back for every 100 yuan spent.

There's also a flash sale event for the iPhone 4S, with prices starting from just 2999 yuan.

"Huh? Orange Technology's Moss smart speaker seems to be on sale now!"

Liu Qiangdong sat in his seat and suddenly remembered.

He skillfully opened his browser, found the official website link of Orange Mall in the bookmark bar called "Little Brother", and then clicked on it.

Sales volume: 1694?

This is a complete disaster, isn't it?

Liu Qiangdong wanted to laugh, but the next second he burst out laughing, thinking to himself: I thought you could succeed every time!
Looking back on Chen Yansen's career, it seems there's no project he couldn't succeed at, whether it's e-commerce or manufacturing.

They have won many battles and their record is verifiable.

Liu Qiangdong understood that the reason investors valued Chen Yansen and were willing to give Pinbei a valuation premium of over 20% was simply because Chen's operational capabilities were too formidable.

FoxTao, Orange Technology, Pinbei, Kuaipao, and Kuaidi Dache have all been thriving under Chen Yansen's management. In the eyes of any investor, Chen Yansen is a figure comparable to the God of Wealth.

Unexpectedly, even the God of Wealth has his moments of misfortune.

But when he caught a glimpse of the words "little brother" out of the corner of his eye, he couldn't help but sigh slightly. Dong and Pinbei had also had their honeymoon period.

He and Chen Yansen used to call each other "Big Brother" and "Little Brother".

I was too impulsive last time on April 418th. I shouldn't have provoked Chen Yansen and Pinbei.

Thinking of this, he took out his phone and called Zhou Shouzhi. After the call was connected, the two exchanged pleasantries.

Zhou Shouzhi asked about the sales situation of JD.com's big promotion in a formulaic manner, while Liu Qiangdong added a little embellishment and reported the real-time data.

"President Zhou, you have a good relationship with Chen Yansen. Next time he comes to Yanjing, could you invite me along?" After beating around the bush for a while, Liu Qiangdong finally revealed his purpose.

"Want to ease tensions with Pinduoduo? No problem, I'll arrange it," Zhou Shouzhi readily agreed.

"Thank you, Mr. Zhou. I'll treat you to drinks sometime when I have time," Liu Qiangdong replied warmly, relieved.

Zhou Shouzhi replied with 'OK' and then hung up the phone.

Reminded by Liu Qiangdong, he couldn't help but open the Orange Mall website. 1847 units sold?
The Moss smart speaker was sold simultaneously through seven channels, and the total sales are estimated to be over 10,000 units.

However, by this time, more than four hours had passed since the product was released.

Clearly, the sales performance of the Moss smart speaker is too weak compared to other products from Orange Technology.

In pursuit of traffic, self-media outlets eagerly published their opinions on the Moss smart speaker on Weibo and Toutiao, even before the daily sales figures were released.

Why did Orange Technology's new product fall out of favor? Three real reasons revealed, which make people think deeply.

"The Moss smart speaker, priced at 799 yuan, has sold fewer than 2000 units. Has Chen Yansen's marketing strategy failed?"

"The world's first smart speaker has met with lukewarm sales, and this may become Orange Technology's most unsuccessful product!"

The related content is mostly pessimistic.

However, this content quickly aroused dissatisfaction among influential figures in the industry. On the one hand, they received "promotion fees" from Orange Technology; on the other hand, in their view, the Moss smart speaker was definitely a groundbreaking product.

For the sake of money, and out of a sense of conscience, I absolutely cannot allow this product to be smeared as 'garbage' by self-media.

Zealer's boss, Wang Ziru, angrily retorted: "A bunch of bullshit self-media! Do you even know what a voice interaction engine is? Do you understand the industrial design aesthetics of the Moss smart speaker? I'll put it this way: ten years from now, Moss will definitely be a masterpiece!"

Gao Fei from Fengchao Review Lab reposted his review video, adding the caption: "I don't believe anyone can watch this video in its entirety and remain unmoved by the Moss smart speaker."

Luo Yonghao, who was rejected by Chen Yansen, also shared his experience on Weibo, praising the feedback efficiency of the Moss intelligent voice assistant.

It wasn't until 3 p.m. that the total sales across the entire network barely exceeded 20,000 units.

"Boss, how about I do a live stream and demonstrate the features of the Moss smart speaker to users?"

Wang Teng knocked on Chen Yansen's office door and made a serious suggestion.

No one knows better than him how much effort the boss has put into the Moss smart speaker.

From system development to supporting application ecosystem, and then to the product's appearance and hardware design, Chen Yansen oversaw the entire process.

"No need," Chen Yansen waved his hand, refusing directly.

Ten days before the launch, the marketing and branding departments had already done a lot of promotional work, and hundreds of bloggers in the digital and technology circles had been invited. Users who were willing to spend money to buy the product were already very familiar with the functions of the Moss smart speaker.

Even if Wang Teng praised the Moss smart speaker to the skies during his live stream, users still wouldn't believe him.

We need to let word-of-mouth spread gradually and let the market accept this new product step by step.

Two years later, Amazon launched the Echo smart speaker, which sold 60 units in just two months.

Therefore, Chen Yansen does not think that the sales volume of Moss smart speakers is low. He just thinks that the domestic smart speaker market is too small and needs to be cultivated in order to incubate a market capacity of 4000 million to 5000 million per year.

At the same time, the limited number of broadband users in China also restricts the sales ceiling of the Moss smart speaker.

Wang Teng was slightly taken aback; he hadn't expected his boss to refuse.

"Is there anything else?" Chen Yansen asked casually as he saw him still standing at the door.

"That's all. I'll go back to work now." Wang Teng shook his head and turned to leave.

In contrast to the sales volume of the Moss smart speaker, Pinduoduo's sales revenue has skyrocketed.

Compared to last year's Double Twelve, the number of merchants on Pinbei has soared from two or three thousand to more than 20,000.

The long-tail effect is intensifying!

Before 8 p.m., Pinduoduo's sales volume for the day had already exceeded 15 billion yuan, which, combined with yesterday's 10.6 billion yuan, totaled 25.6 billion yuan.

With four hours remaining, it remains to be seen whether Pinduoduo can break the record of 30 billion yuan in sales.

Midway through, Zhou Shouzhi called Chen Yansen and briefly told him about Liu Qiangdong.

Chen Yansen did not refuse. Since Liu Qiangdong wanted to hold a banquet to apologize, he didn't need to offend him.

In the business world, it's better to have an ally than an opponent.

Moreover, the two share a common rival: Ma Liyun from Hangzhou.

Ahri is the biggest obstacle standing in the way of Pinduoduo and JD.com's progress.

The domestic e-commerce market can accommodate Alibaba, Pinduoduo, and JD.com, as well as Suning, Gome, and Dangdang. With a consumer market of over a billion people, creating several e-commerce giants with market capitalizations of trillions of yuan is not difficult at all.

But everyone wants to be the leader, so conflicts naturally arise.

Clearly, after weighing the pros and cons, Liu Qiangdong decided to target Ali first.

At 10:30 p.m., Chen Yansen sat in the lobby of Pinbei on the first floor with a skewer of barbecue in hand, looking at the large splicing wall in the distance, waiting for the final sales figures of the promotion to be released.

"The growth rate of sales has slowed down, and it seems difficult to reach 30 billion," Song Yuncheng said with a hint of regret.

"Then let's save it for Singles' Day! So what if we reach 30 billion? The higher-ups aren't going to give us an award."

Chen Yansen said lightly.

Zhang Yifeng, Cai Qiming, Yang Pinglun, and others knew that the boss also wanted to achieve a sales target of 30 billion yuan during the promotion.

Firstly, it can demonstrate economies of scale and set industry benchmarks;
Secondly, it attracts capital attention and reduces the difficulty of financing;

Thirdly, it guides the direction in which merchants allocate resources.

There are many deeper meanings behind every time an e-commerce platform releases its sales performance report for a major promotion; it's definitely not just about showing off.

The higher the sales performance, the greater the traffic generated, which can simultaneously convey different potential messages to users, merchants, and investors.

Time passed by, and before we knew it, it was midnight.

Sales figures for June 18th remained at 17.3 billion, and with yesterday's sales, the total reached 27.9 billion.

The sales volume of the Moss smart speaker on its first day of release was 3.1 units.

Chen Yansen stood up, walked straight out, got into the driver's seat of the Bentley, and sped off towards the direction of the Void Academy.

Hundreds of kilometers away in Beijing, Liu Qiangdong took a deep breath and stared intently at the numbers on the big screen—17.4 billion.

"Write tomorrow's battle report at 20 billion!" Liu Qiangdong snapped out of his daze and ordered Xu Lei from the marketing department.

“Then it’s 20.7 billion.” Xu Lei smiled and tactfully added 7000 million to make the data more credible.

"I wonder how much Pinduoduo's sales volume is?"

Liu Qiangdong squinted and muttered to himself.

He knew that JD.com couldn't compete with Ali, but as a rising star in the e-commerce industry, Pinduoduo was one that Liu Qiangdong naturally didn't want to lose to Chen Yansen.

"We'll know tomorrow. Just discount Pinduoduo's sales figures by 20%, and it shouldn't be too different," Xu Lei replied with a smile, putting himself in Pinduoduo's shoes.

What about Ahri?

Liu Qiangdong asked inwardly.

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(End of this chapter)