Reborn in 08, Public Enemy of Competitors

April 6th, the Qingming Festival, is a time of drizzling rain.

Chen Nian asked with a hint of amusement, "Old Lei, have you ever used YiTao GO's 'cut a discount' feature?"

"I've been researching the smartphone market lately, so I haven't paid much attention to these things."

Lei Jun rubbed his temples: "What's this 'cut a slice'? What new trick has YiTao GO come up with this time?"

Chen Nian enthusiastically explained, "It's about inviting friends to help cut the price; if you get it down to 0 yuan, you can get the item for free..."

Lei Jun raised an eyebrow: "This tactic is even more cunning than Meizu's hunger marketing strategy with the M8."

"That's right. I had someone try it out. Do you know how many people I had to recruit just to get a Meizu M8 down the price?"

"How many?"

"A total of 117."

Chen Nian exclaimed, "They've brought in almost three-quarters of the company's staff!"

Lei Jun chuckled: "I didn't realize Shen Mo, who seems honest, was so dishonest."

"Not just dishonest, he's downright cunning."

Chen Nian said, "We calculated that just one Meizu M8 can bring at least seventy or eighty new users to YiTao GO."

Lei Jun stroked his chin: "But this is also a good thing for Vancl. YiTao GO is now Vancl's largest traffic channel. The more users and traffic it has, the more orders Vancl can receive."

Chen Nian said, "Do you think Vancl should also hold a 'cut-the-price' promotion?"

Lei Jun said without hesitation: "No, cut it. YiTao GO is okay, but Vancl is absolutely not."

Chen Nian asked, "Why?"

"Although cutting prices may reduce customer acquisition costs and increase efficiency, it comes at the cost of sacrificing long-term trust and reputation for short-term growth."

Lei Jun said, "More importantly, it will lower the brand's image. For a clothing B2C company like Vancl, brand is more valuable than traffic!"

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes!"

Chen Nian said, "To sacrifice the brand image that Vancl has worked so hard to build for such a small profit is not worth it."

"So, if YiTaoGO offers a discount, Vancl can just enjoy the traffic; there's no need for them to get involved."

Lei Jun then changed the subject: "However, I've come to understand from this incident that the future will definitely be the era of smartphones. There are hundreds of millions of counterfeit phones on the market in China, but there isn't a single truly competitive domestic brand. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

"What are your plans next?" Chen Nian asked.

"I've already made plans with Huang Zhang."

Lei Jun stood up, walked to the window and looked at the rain outside: "I'm going to Zhuhai in a few days to visit Meizu's factory for an on-site inspection."

………………

The "zero-yuan price-cutting" event spread like wildfire, from QQ Space to Baidu Tieba, from Baidu Tieba to QQ Groups, and from QQ Groups back to QQ Space.

Now, links to "cut one's way" are everywhere, like locusts swarming across the land, densely packed, almost filling every available space for online advertising.

Opinions online are mixed, with controversy erupting one after another.

"Damn it, I've pulled enough people to hack my way from north to south of Causeway Bay with a watermelon knife, turning the whole area upside down three times over, but I still can't cut that damn 0.1%!"

"What's that compared to what I got? I've already cut it down to 0.01%! Then I don't have enough gold coins, so I need red envelopes; once I get the red envelopes, I need diamonds; and once I have enough diamonds, some stupid luck stat pops up. I just want to know, how many decimal places are there after that 0.01?!"

"Did anyone actually get the item? Or are they all shills?"

"Of course there are! My mom just bought a microwave oven, but it did attract a lot of new customers."

"Does anyone know who the owner of YiTaoGO is? That guy is so despicable, I curse him to have sons without an anus."

"Hahaha, cursing him won't do any good. He's probably counting money until his hands cramp up."

"..."

The internet was filled with insults. Yuan Hua wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, "Brother Mo, the whole internet is cursing us right now."

Shen Mo smiled. "That's right."

"Huh? That's correct?"

"Such negative reviews are the best evaluation of the 'cut-the-price' service. The more fiercely it is criticized, the better the 'zero-yuan cut-the-price' effect is."

Shen Mo snapped his fingers: "If they can't even be bothered to curse, then there's a real problem."

Yuan Hua pressed further, "What's our next step?"

"Increase promotional efforts."

Shen Mo said, "Carefully check the user's ID and IP address to prevent anyone from exploiting loopholes in network transmission and using scripts to artificially inflate the user count."

"Yes, Brother Mo!"

Yuan Hua responded.

Shen Mo turned his gaze to Lu Wenbin: "How many people has Pinduoduo hired so far?"

"As per your requirements, we'd rather have fewer but better candidates, so we've recruited nine so far."

Lu Wenbin flipped through his notebook. "Four of them came from Ali's China Supply Iron Army. There are both grassroots and middle-level managers. I plan to wait until we have recruited them all, and then use them as the core to form a special training class to train our ground sales team."

Shen Mo nodded. "How much of the ginger, garlic, rice, and noodles have you received?"

"We received another million worth of goods, and another million will be used to buy rice, millet, and other grains and oils."

Qin Feng said, "They've all been stored in a nearby warehouse."

"These are the ammunition Pinduoduo needs to fire its first shot, but this alone is not enough."

Shen Mo said, "If Ah Li next door finds out, he'll think we can't afford to burn money."

………………

Late at night, Ali Baba.

Sohu, Xinlang, and NetEase, among other portal websites, have been reporting extensively on YiTaoGO's "cut a price" campaign.

The penguin is the most cunning, subtly stirring up trouble by comparing YiTao and YiTao GO, clearly trying to take a jab at Ali.

"Using such a shameless tactic is truly despicable."

Jack Ma's face turned ashen; after all, Taobao couldn't simply copy such a shameless tactic.

Originally, it was thought that YiTao could leverage Ali's power to directly crush Alibaba, but unexpectedly, YiTao GO used the traffic of Tencent's social network to wage an asymmetric war.

"The speed at which this 'cut a discount' promotion spreads is even faster than the previous group-buying deals on YiTaoGO."

Cai Chongxin said helplessly, "The most crucial point is that this path is simply not feasible for YiTao on QQ."

Jack Ma asked, "What's the situation with Etao right now?"

Cai Chongxin sighed: "Wu Yongming and the others are still thinking of countermeasures, but they haven't come up with any feasible solutions yet."

"Foolish! YiTao isn't without cards to play!"

Jack Ma said with dissatisfaction: "Although we don't have QQ, we still have Taobao, Zhifubao, and Ali Mama."

Cai Chongxin frowned: "You mean...?"

"First, let Ali's mom collaborate with Etao to launch the 'Commission+' reward program. The Taobao Affiliate Program covers millions of small and medium-sized website owners and individual group leaders, allowing them to receive an extra reward when promoting Etao..."

"Secondly, the traffic entry points of the Ali ecosystem have been fully shifted to YiTao."

"Add an activity entry to the successful payment page of Zhifubao. Every time a user completes a payment, they will see a prompt to 'Go to YiTao to get cashback.' This will generate tens of millions of exposures every day. Even if only one in a thousand people clicks in, it will still result in tens of thousands of new users every day."

"Thirdly, we launched the 'Yitao Special Offers Zone' on the homepage of Taobao and Zhifubao."

Cai Chongxin quickly replied, "We can even directly embed information such as Taobao coupons, cashback commissions, and discount activities into Taobao's search results page and product details page."

Jack Ma nodded and said, "We will open a special traffic window for YiTao within Taobao."

"Alright!"

Cai Chongxin said, "Taobao has the largest traffic in the entire e-commerce industry. As long as we can open up these channels, the customer acquisition traffic of YiTao may not be inferior to that of YiTao GO's 'cut a cut'."

"Tell Wu Yongming that YiTao GO's 'cut-a-price' strategy is nothing to fear. Let them play their cards steadily and steadily."

Jack Ma narrowed his eyes, feeling a slight displeasure in his heart.

The "cut a cut" feature on YiTao GO seems designed to target YiTao and Ali the Fox!