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

Chapter 337 No suckers? Then I'll do it myself! Another 8 million in funding! Where's the car?
On November 4th, Dangdang.com simultaneously launched on Pinbei and Yaomao Mall.

Liu Qiangdong's sarcastic remarks on Weibo about Li Guoqing "marrying a rich man" were harsh but hit the nail on the head.

Li Guoqing didn't tolerate him either, saying bluntly, "When Daqiangzi joined Pinbei Mall last year, I didn't scold him at all."

The implication is that Liu Qiangdong is not generous enough.

If JD.com can do the same thing, why can't Dangdang?

This shows that the e-commerce landscape was quietly changing in 2012, with vertical e-commerce platforms facing increasing pressure to survive under the pressure from comprehensive e-commerce platforms.

Li Guoqing's move to "rely on" Pinduoduo and Yaomao Mall was also a last resort.

That afternoon, news broke that JD.com had signed an 8 million yuan procurement contract with Meizu.

Liu Qiangdong and Huang Zhang joined forces to subsidize the price of the Meizu MX quad-core 32GB version down to 2499 yuan. In just six hours, the Meizu MX topped the JD.com real-time mobile phone best-selling list, second only to the Apple 5, Samsung Galaxy S III and Apple 4S.

After Orange Mobile left JD.com, Liu Qiangdong found a new partner.

An hour later, Wowo announced that due to failed financing, it would cease operations on December 31, and the company's life was entering its final countdown.

The top five group-buying companies have suddenly lost one, leaving only Dianping, Lashou, Meituan, and Kuaipao still battling it out.

The subsidy war raged for two months, resulting in the deaths of countless group-buying websites. Wowo was just the most well-known one; when other competitors went bankrupt, nobody cared.

……

……

Virtual City, Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park, Office Building No. 9.

Chen Yansen leaned back in his chair, propped his feet up on the table, played Subway Surfers for three minutes, then put his phone down in boredom.

With his current reaction speed, the game is like playing in slow motion, utterly unenjoyable.

Mr. Chen glanced out the window and saw several birds flying across the sky towards the distant dense forest, leaving behind their clear chirping.

Just then, Pei Yi called.

"Boss, Meituan Waimai has expanded beyond Beijing and launched its delivery service in eleven cities, including Tianjin, Anci, and Tangcheng."

Pei Yi reported in a calm tone.

“Sequoia Capital gave Wang Xin a sum of money, and it seems his confidence has returned. Keep an eye on Meituan and beat it to a pulp.”

Chen Yansen sat up straight and gave instructions to the person on the other end of the phone.

In his eyes, Wang Xin was like a troublemaker.

The delivery capacity model for food delivery riders should ideally be based primarily on full-time employees, supplemented by part-time employees, to both guarantee the monthly income of full-time employees and flexibly supplement delivery resources.

However, Wang Xin immediately replicated the outsourcing model in the food delivery industry. While this solved Meituan's delivery capacity problem, it brought a lot of trouble to Kuai Pao.

Meituan's numerous penalty policies have significantly increased the delivery pressure on riders, leading to frequent verbal and even physical altercations with customers. This has made users reluctant to order takeout, fearing they might get beaten up before even getting a bite of their food.

Negative news has been constant, and even Kuai Pao has been affected. Some users who have never ordered takeout have a stereotype of the industry as having frequent late deliveries, high food spoilage rates, and poor service.

They attack customers above and merchants below.

In addition, after the number of part-time riders online exceeded 50,000, Wang Xin kept testing the lower limit of delivery fees, reducing the price per order from 8 yuan to 5 yuan.

Logically speaking, Meituan offers no base salary, no social security, no insurance, and low unit prices, so no one should be willing to work there. However, there are too many coupon kings, and even after the price was reduced by three yuan, it did not affect the delivery efficiency at all.

Therefore, Wang Xin is considering whether to lower the price by another 0.5 yuan to match the unit price of Kuai Pao.

“Okay, boss. I’ve sent Shan Jiawei to North China. He knows Meituan’s operating model inside and out. Let him take the lead, and Wang Xin will have a lot of trouble.” Pei Yi replied immediately.

In fact, without Shan Jiawei joining and bringing the business expansion model of Chinese suppliers to Meituan, Wang Xin's abilities alone would have made it impossible for him to stand out in the group-buying war.

Wang Xin founded two social networking sites, Xiaonei.com and Fanfou.com. Which one is related to offline activities?

Wang Xin doesn't know anything about sales!
Pei Yi was full of confidence, with two key generals, Shan Jiawei and Zhang Xuhao, at his disposal. If he couldn't beat Meituan, he might as well find a block of tofu and smash his head against it.

"Shan Jiawei? I trust his abilities. By the way, what about Zhang Xuhao?" Chen Yansen asked casually with a slight smile.

"I went to Yanjing with Lao Dan," Pei Yi grinned.

"Pinbei 3.0 is about to be released. At that time, the entrance to Kuaipao will be moved from the icon area to the first level of the homepage. Users can see the food delivery channel by swiping left," Chen Yansen reminded.

“President Huang mentioned it to me, and I have no objection,” Pei Yi immediately stated.

Pinbei has over 6000 million daily active users, but its e-commerce users place orders relatively frequently; Kuaipao has 600 million daily active users, but it has the advantage of high-frequency orders. Combining the two can form a business ecosystem of 'high frequency driving low frequency'.

Currently, Pinbei provides greater support to Kuaipao, therefore Kuaipao needs to pay Pinbei an advertising fee as a CPS commission.

Pei Yi said he had no objection, meaning he was willing to pay Huang Zheng the "toll".

After all, both companies belong to Senlian Capital, and Huang Zheng's fees are not high.

"What about Baidu Takeout? Still holed up in Beijing like a turtle?" Chen Yansen asked again.

"Yes, but I think that since Baidu has established an LBS business unit, it will definitely not stay in Beijing forever. I guess Li Yanhong and Wang Zhongpu are preparing a big move."

Pei Yi thought for a moment and then said.

Baidu's market value of over 500 billion US dollars is undeniable. Although Robin Li is currently at a disadvantage in the ride-hailing market, it does not mean that Baidu will ultimately lose.

If Li Yanhong continues to increase his bets, Cheng Weixing will have no choice but to continue fighting.

"Then speed up the expansion, use speed to defeat slowness, don't be afraid of losing money. Cheng Weixing loses 12 billion a month and I haven't said anything, what are you afraid of?"

Chen Yansen smiled and joked.

Pei Yi smiled knowingly and quickly nodded in agreement. Kuaidi Dache's valuation within the group wasn't even in the top tier, but its monthly marketing expenses were the highest.

Even Orange Technology and Pinduoduo Mall don't spend money like this!

After hanging up the phone, Chen Yansen pondered for a moment, then called Wang Teng over and asked him to contact Daniel Eck to introduce Spotify's music data source into the Moss smart speaker and add music libraries such as Penguin Music, Kugou, and Kuwo to the Alexa smart speaker.

There are overseas Chinese and foreigners in China. Although this group of users accounts for a small percentage, it is not something to be ignored.

Moreover, there are quite a few users in China who like Western music. Although it's uncertain how much this move will bring to smart speaker sales, doing something is better than doing nothing.

the other side.

Li Yanhong, whose negotiations were rejected, has been busy these past few days looking for investors (big shots). As soon as Didi Chuxing stopped its subsidies, its daily order volume began to decline, and has now fallen to 60 orders per day.

However, Li Yanhong felt that the risk was too high to invest on his own.

Among the BAT giants, Tencent and Alibaba have both sided with Kuaidi Dache.

Among state-owned institutions, Huake and Huaxin contributed money and effort to Kuaidi Dache.

Among foreign companies, Goldman Sachs and DST chose to align with the fast-paced ride-hailing service.

There were very few opportunities left for Baidu. After a series of communications, only PingAn and IDG Capital showed interest in investing. However, what angered Li Yanhong was that the representatives from these two companies did not agree with the valuation of 80 billion yuan.

They'll only offer a maximum of 60 billion! In other words, the 12 billion in Series E funding for Qiandu.com will shrink by a quarter in less than a month.

Li Yanhong, of course, refused!
The negotiations between the two sides reached a stalemate, with neither side willing to concede.

Unexpectedly, Legend Capital, with its priority exit clause, proactively approached IDG Capital and sold its 8.1% stake in Didi Chuxing for 5 million yuan, valuing the company at just over 60 billion yuan.

Zhu Nanli's motives for investing in Didi Chuxing were never pure. After Liu Yiqing took over as Managing Director of Goldman Sachs Asia, he immediately lost interest in the CEO position of Didi Chuxing.

In one round trip, Legend Capital made 100 million yuan and successfully cashed out and ran away.

Upon learning this news, Li Yanhong almost contacted Xiong Xiaoge of IDG Capital, wanting to sell Qiandu's shares to him as well.

At least Xiong Xiaoge's offer was more sincere than Chen Yansen's!
But after thinking about Baidu's LBS business unit and O2O strategic layout, he sighed and forcibly suppressed his negative emotions.

Temporary success or failure is nothing; Didi Chuxing has not yet reached the point of admitting defeat.

Baidu has plenty of money!

After careful consideration, Li Yanhong decided to increase his investment.

The following morning, under his strong push, Qiandu.com invested another 8 million yuan in Didi Chuxing, bringing its valuation to the same level as its Series E round.

This time, Li Yanhong didn't dare to provoke Cheng Weixing. Instead, he called Xiang Hailong over for a three- or four-hour talk. The core strategy was to avoid direct competition with Kuaidi Dache, reduce subsidies, and use the funds to improve product features and expand operations.

“Boss, I don’t want to go head-to-head with Cheng Weixing either, but every time Didi Chuxing expands its business to a new city, Kuaidi Chuxing follows closely behind and attacks us.”

Xiang Hailong said with a wry smile.

"We'll focus on improving the user experience for both passengers and drivers. The promotional subsidies are suspended until Didi Chuxing has accumulated a sufficient order volume and fulfillment capacity," Li Yanhong stated ambiguously.

In short, reduce subsidies and expand service areas.

Seeing Li Yanhong's resolute attitude, Xiang Hailong knew he couldn't persuade him any further. He understood that his boss was already dissatisfied with him, and if he said a few more words, he might lose his job.

In the headquarters building of Baidu, there may be someone more suitable to be the CEO of Didi Chuxing than him, but so what?

Prioritizing personal interests is far more important than company interests!
He won't move unless Li Yanhong gives the order.

After leaving the office, Xiang Hailong returned to Digital Valley and convened the heads of various departments and regions to redeploy Didi Chuxing's Q4 development plan.

At the same time, after securing 3 million yuan in Series A funding, Cheng Wei did not hesitate to embark on a period of rapid expansion.

Didi Bikes quickly increased its total number of bikes deployed in Yanjing from 1000 to 3000, and shared bikes can be seen everywhere in subway exits and commercial areas with the highest traffic.

Upon seeing this, the locals couldn't help but exclaim, "Wow! Good heavens, we haven't seen so many bicycles in years! This is truly amazing!"

Didi Bike's pricing is: 1 yuan for the first 30 minutes, and 1 yuan for every 15 minutes thereafter, with no upper limit.

To Cheng Wei's surprise, as the number of Didi bikes deployed increased, the number of stolen bikes also rose sharply.

There were a total of 3000 vehicles. After counting them yesterday, there are still about 2860 vehicles left.

140 vehicles have disappeared out of nowhere!
Cheng Wei couldn't help but think of the old man with an angle grinder on the first day Didi Bike was launched.

It's not hard to imagine who owns these bicycles.

"We must install GPS tracking devices on the vehicles, otherwise finding the vehicles will be a problem once the number of vehicles reaches 10000."

Cheng Wei pondered to himself.

Furthermore, the first-generation mechanical lock had too many bugs, which was no different from burying one's head in the sand, because the password for each bicycle was fixed, and users only needed to remember the password to ride for free.

So how will Didi Bike make money?

With this in mind, Cheng Wei made up his mind to replace the mechanical lock with a smart lock.

In fact, a third-party company had already provided a technical solution, but he found the cost too high and put it aside.

Now, if no changes are made, it will be no use no matter how many more car lookouts he hires.

Without GPS location, how are we supposed to find it?
……

……

Headquarters of Fanzhou Technology, Hangzhou.

This is a bicycle factory with an annual output of up to 8 million bicycles. It has four independent bicycle production lines and painting lines, and mainly manufactures bicycles for European and American brands.

"Mr. Hu, it's a pleasure to meet you! And this gentleman is..."

In the lobby on the first floor, Yuan Zhen, the boss of Fanzhou Technology, shook Hu Weiyi's right hand and greeted her warmly.

The other party was the CEO of OFO Bikes, and that alone was enough to make him show him the utmost respect.

The business model of bike sharing has long been known within the industry; whoever gets a purchase order from a bike sharing company will make a fortune.

Who wouldn't be tempted by production contracts involving millions of vehicles?
"Hello Mr. Yuan, I am Wang Zihao, COO of OFO Bikes."

Wang Zihao, dressed in a sharp suit, calmly gave his introduction.

Although he is only twenty years old this year, he has a dark complexion and a strong build, and looks rather old, appearing to be in his late twenties.

"Hello, Mr. Wang, welcome, welcome. Let's go upstairs and talk properly," Yuan Zhen said with a beaming smile.

He had to be cautious when dealing with major clients.

"Mr. Wang, please." Hu Weiyi nodded in response.

Behind the two were several colleagues from the business department and two legal counsel, to ensure the smooth progress of the upcoming cooperation.

Unlike Didi Bike's low-cost strategy, Hu Weiyi's requirements for OFO Bikes are: the frame, tires, seat, brakes and other components must be sturdy and durable, and the cost must be controlled below 400 yuan.

Because once equipped with electronic devices such as smart locks, solar panels, embedded chips, GPS modules, and SIM cards, the cost would soar to over 500 yuan.

Yuan Zhen looked troubled after hearing Hu Weiyi's request.

The adage "you get what you pay for" is perfectly exemplified in the manufacturing industry.

To meet OFO's manufacturing requirements, the material cost alone would be no less than 500 yuan. The cost of each component, such as the aluminum alloy frame, thickened tires, and rust-proof chain, cannot be reduced.

The two sides discussed it intensely all morning, but no conclusion was reached.

Yuan Zhen glanced at the time and then invited Hu Weiyi, Wang Zihao, and the others to have lunch at the restaurant first, and they would talk again in the afternoon.

"No, Mr. Yuan, we have other things to do this afternoon," Hu Weiyi politely declined.

Yuan Zhen understood her meaning, so after a moment's consideration, he said, "President Hu, I'll reduce the cost of some parts for you, and the lowest price is 460 yuan per vehicle."

"I'm sorry, but frankly, this price doesn't meet our company's cost control bottom line," Hu Weiyi shook her head.

"Mr. Hu, to be honest, you can't find a lower price even if you search all over East China," Yuan Zhen said.

“Then I’ll go to North China again.” Hu Weiyi smiled faintly, waved goodbye to Yuan Zhen, and then got into a Mercedes-Benz E350, asking the driver to take her to the next bicycle factory.

(End of this chapter)