my return 2002

Chapter 391 Battle for Offline Stores

While the Mountain Dew stand-alone game platform is in full swing, Weibo has gradually begun to occupy the mainstream social media market. This more concise form of expression is increasingly sought after by young people.

Especially after the rise of 3G mobile phones, the number of users and user stickiness of several Weibo platforms have doubled compared to when they just launched last year.

Among them, YY Weibo and Sina Weibo ran the best, followed by Sohu Weibo. As for QQ Weibo, although there was no growth in the mobile terminal, it still gained a certain amount of user growth by relying on the traffic import of QQ. Can be ranked in the second echelon.

However, the competition in the microblogging industry has become more and more fierce, especially the three companies YY Weibo, Sina Weibo, and Sohu Weibo.

YY Weibo has YY’s drainage and YY log blogger’s transfer. At first, it absolutely had the upper hand. However, Sina’s Cao Guowei once again used the influence of Sina media in the cultural circle to attract many celebrity platforms. Sohu Weibo Some cultural celebrities such as Uncle Benshan, Xiao Cui, Zhu Jun, Li Yong, etc. have opened Weibo, firmly occupying the third place on Weibo.

The days of Sohu have not been easy these years. The era of the three major portal websites has come to an end. The projects that Sohu can currently offer are Sohu Changyou and Sohu Video. However, the operation of these two projects is relatively average. Can be ranked in the second echelon of the industry.

So Sohu's Zhang Chaoyang also spent a lot of money this time, and he is bound to push Sohu Weibo to the status of a unicorn in the industry.

In the beginning, both Sina and Sohu didn't trust Shen Lang a little bit, for fear that Shen Lang would take advantage of the advantages of the Xingchen system to stumbling their Weibo business, but later found that Shen Lang still obeyed the rules of the game, and his heart was hanging. I gradually put it down, and began to increase the optimization and update of Sina Weibo and Sohu Weibo apps.

Perhaps seeing that the Weibo business has such a huge potential on the mobile side, other products of the same type have also begun to develop mobile apps based on the Star system.

Of course, there are also people who want to go to the Android camp, but the Android camp also has QQ Weibo, and Penguin and Ali have paid such a high price for the Android camp, so it is naturally impossible to watch others come to pick peaches. When it's cheap, these people will naturally turn around and go to Shen Lang again.

At least the current market share of the star system is there. After the APP is developed, it is completely possible to use this report card to tell a story to investors.

Jelson is very depressed about this, but now he still has to rely on Penguin and Ali to help improve the ecological chain, so he can only endure it temporarily.

In late August, finally, Sassafras' "Bumblebee Phone" was officially released.

On the day of the press conference, Huang Zhang took advantage of the connections he had accumulated during his Meizu days to invite a lot of media, and some old Meizu users also came to the scene. There were less than 1000 people, and the scene was very lively.

Standing in the center of the stage again, Huang Zhang shouted the slogan of surpassing Xiaomi and Meizu in high spirits.

Of course, just shouting slogans is not enough, users will not buy it, Sassafras has also come up with some dry goods, first of all, the appearance of the "Bumblebee phone", the yellow and black color scheme, really has a bit of the tough temperament of Transformers.

When Sassafras took out the physical model, the audience still had some applause.

After getting feedback from the audience, Sassafras started to introduce the hardware configuration of the mobile phone with some excitement. Sassafras is also willing to spend money on the stacking material. The memory and flash memory are the same as the enhanced version of Xiaomi 2S, so it has not been announced yet. The price, so I can’t see the price/performance ratio for the time being, but Sassafras left a button, indicating that the price will definitely surprise everyone.

After introducing the appearance and hardware configuration, it was naturally the turn of the system. When they learned that the mobile phone uses the Android system, many audience members began to boo, which made Jelson in the audience very embarrassed. A good reporter caught it.

Huang Zhang knew the disadvantages of the Android system, so he directly skipped the introduction of the basic functions of the Android system, but focused on introducing mainstream software such as QQ, Taobao, and Alipay. At the same time, he also used the QQ video call function to contact the The staff outside the venue followed his order.

Countless fireworks began to bloom outside the venue, and the picture of the fireworks shining brilliantly in the sky was also transmitted to the screen behind Sassafras.

I have to admit that this trick is still very creative, and Huang Zhang has also worked hard to sell the mobile phone.

Finally, when the press conference was over and it was officially launched in the early morning, Taobao and JD.com both sold [-] units within an hour. This result is not bad, and it is much better than Lenovo.

At least Jelson is very satisfied with Sassafras, and said that he will apply for more resources from the headquarters, so that Sassafras will continue to work hard and strive to surpass Xiaomi and Meizu as soon as possible.

Jack Ma and Brother Xiao Ma also heaved a sigh of relief. This time Bao finally made the right bet. With the Bumblebee mobile phone to open up the mobile terminal market, at least some people use Android mobile phones, and their investment in the mobile terminal will soon increase. income.

Huang Zhang secretly slandered, with the current size of the Xingchen system, [-] mobile phones are nothing at all, expecting him to fight against Xiaomi and Meizu alone is simply a dream, but no matter what, his first step in revenge against Shen Lang is considered Step out.

For Shen Lang, Huang Zhang has always held a grudge, and at the same time, he also wants to use this opportunity to tell others that even without Shen Lang's support, he can still succeed!
Shen Lang still knew about the sales volume of Bumblebee mobile phones from Lei Jun, but Shen Lang didn't say anything. No matter how strict he was, it was impossible for the Android system to lose any market share. The key is not to let "Bumblebee "Mobile phone" took the opportunity to expand.

Otherwise, when the "Bumblebee phone" helps the Android system to develop enough market share and other hardware and software manufacturers join the Android camp, the problem will be troublesome.

Shen Lang said to Lei Jun: "The price positioning of Bumblebee is very ingenious. The configuration is exactly the same as the enhanced version of Mi 2S, but the price is only 3299. How do you plan to deal with it?"

Lei Jun said disdainfully: "The reason why sassafras set this price is plainly because it wants to pull us into a price war. Once we lower the price, the previous investment in brand marketing will be in vain. We can't do a loss-making business. Instead of following For sassafras to fight price wars, it is better to invest this money in offline stores, establish a good after-sales system, improve service, and brand influence will naturally increase.”

Shen Lang nodded appreciatively: "Well, this idea is good, just do it according to your idea."

The weakest points of Xiaomi and Meizu are the offline sales and after-sales links. Only by doing these two things can they be qualified to talk about high-end brands. Lenovo’s reputation collapsed later, but the products are still strong because of its offline sales channels and after-sales services. None of these computer brands can do better than Lenovo wants. Consumers have no other choice at all. Otherwise, Lenovo's popular popularity would have died long ago.

Perhaps seeing that Lei Jun and Bai Yongxiang have not responded, Huang Zhang began to take the initiative to provoke, publicly challenged in some media, the purpose is to drag Xiaomi and Meizu into the water, and use the popularity of these two to start the brand of Bumblebee mobile phone.

However, Lei Jun and Bai Yongxiang had communicated a long time ago, and no matter how much Sassafras jumped up and down, he just ignored him. After a long time, the media saw that there was no enthusiasm, so they didn't bother to continue reporting.

During this period of time, Xiaomi and Meizu also began to aggressively expand their offline stores, but they also encountered some problems during the expansion process, such as employee training and management, especially after-sales personnel training.

After-sales maintenance personnel are technical jobs. If they are hired directly from the society, not to mention the high cost, it is also difficult to guarantee that they will not change their minds. After all, it is too convenient for people in the maintenance industry to falsely report some consumables.

Lei Jun had no choice but to learn from Bai Yongxiang, and Bai Yongxiang finally uttered the truth after being drunk a lot by Lei Jun.

"It's simple. There are some maintenance jobs in our factory. Their monthly salary in the factory is only 2000 yuan. We train them a little bit and give them better job opportunities. The salary is higher than that of the factory. It has grown exponentially, and the employees in the factory are relatively simple-minded and easy to manage, so this will be solved.”

Lei Jun heard the truth, but Xiaomi does not have its own factory yet, so what should we do?In the beginning, Lei Jun originally planned to recruit people from BYD, but he was afraid that it would affect the cooperative relationship with BYD.

Then, in total, simply, recruit people from BYD's old rival, Foxconn.

As a result, many employees of Xiaomi appeared at various entrances and exits of Foxconn, specially recruiting those employees who do Apple mobile phone assembly and repair, and their wages were directly doubled.

At first, the employees of Foxconn thought it was an unscrupulous intermediary. How can there be such a good thing these days, and the salary is doubled, who is cheating.

However, there must be brave men under heavy rewards, and a group of brave men will leave Foxconn soon. After all, Foxconn can enter Foxconn at any time, but this kind of opportunity does not come often. What if it is true?

So they became the first batch of probationary workers in Xiaomi's after-sales department. Generally speaking, after-sales maintenance of mobile phones is actually quite simple. Light, there are bad points.

For those who have assembled mobile phones, these problems are actually not difficult, because many problems do not even need to move Luotie, just disassemble the mobile phone and check a few cables to solve them. If there is no problem with the cables, The basic offline after-sales service can only be returned to the factory.

The employees poached from Foxconn learned relatively quickly. Some of the employees who performed well in the training and assessment were retained to continue learning a deeper level of maintenance knowledge. Those who passed the assessment were assigned to work in various maintenance and after-sales locations.

After the news was sent back to Foxconn, more and more employees took the initiative to sign up with Xiaomi, causing Foxconn's employee turnover rate to skyrocket.

Like Xiaomi and Meizu, OPPO is also planning offline stores. Chen Yongming discovered the role of offline sales channels when he was working on MP3 before. However, the profit of MP3 was too thin at that time, and the product line was relatively simple. It was difficult for him to establish Own offline store system.

The mobile phone is different. On the one hand, there are enough profits, and on the other hand, there are extended products such as charging treasures, protective cases, earphones, and charging cables.

It’s just that OPPO’s speed of establishing offline stores is significantly slower than that of Xiaomi and Meizu. On the one hand, the funds are not as abundant as these two. On the other hand, OPPO’s popularity is slightly lower. Too many stores will only compress its own living space.

However, this time Xiaomi and Meizu once again expanded the number of stores and extended their tentacles to third- and fourth-tier cities. It is more intense. At the same time, the investment in opening a store in a first- and second-tier city can open three to four stores in a third- and fourth-tier city.

Chen Yongming found a business opportunity. He did not seize the market in the third- and fourth-tier cities like Xiaomi and Meizu. Instead, he took the route of encircling the cities from the countryside and sinking offline stores to the county-level cities.

For a while, the logo of Blue Factory began to appear on the busiest streets of many county-level cities. The standard loudspeakers played restless music, and the handsome men and women who were all waiters began to pull passing customers into the store to check their mobile phones.

Although it is a county-level city, the economy is not too developed, but there are actually a lot of rich people. A 3000 yuan mobile phone is not too expensive, and the smaller the city, the more face-saving, others use 3000 yuan. For mobile phones, if you use 2000 yuan, you will be compared.

Chen Yongming was pleasantly surprised to find that the effect of this trick was so good. Originally, he just planned to test the water in the first phase and opened more than 100 offline stores. As a result, the combined sales of more than 100 offline stores in one month can reach It has the sales performance of more than 40 offline stores in first- and second-tier cities, but the cost is only one-sixth of the stores in first-tier cities.

Therefore, Chen Yongming decided on a strategy of sinking offline stores. When mobile phone brands such as Xiaomi, Meizu, and Apple were crazily competing for offline stores in big cities, OPPO had quietly blossomed in the sinking market.

Sassafras soon noticed the actions of Xiaomi and Meizu, and after the first wave of online sales, the sales of Bumblebee mobile phones also began to decline, and Sassafras also began to think about offline stores.

As a result, offline store resources that were originally crowded in big cities became even more sought-after. The originally scattered mobile phone stores began to gradually form a street of mobile phone specialty stores. Today Xiaomi opens a store here, and tomorrow Meizu will open a store next door. Then Apple opened another one next door.

The penetration rate of 3G mobile phones has also gradually increased with the competition of these mobile phone brands. This can be seen directly by Shen Lang from the user growth rate of each product APP under the Inspur Group.

In October, Apple was the first to discover that something was wrong. Apple invested so many resources in offline stores, but the sales of mobile phones did not increase significantly. Moreover, Jobs also found that he lowered the IOS payment ratio, and there were no Chinese software manufacturers to join. IOS camp.

(End of this chapter)