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

Chapter 102: Suppressing Competitive Products and Expanding the Mall Rebate Territory

February 2nd, the sixth day of the Lunar New Year.

A black BMW 750 got on the Hexu Expressway and sped away.

Wang Zihao sat in the driver's seat and was responsible for driving.

Meng Jie was leaning in the back row, watching the latest hit drama "Palace". After listening to a few words of love offering, Chen Yansen quietly put on his earplugs and lowered his head to check the news.

"The equity dispute between Ali Baba and Yahoo has escalated, and the relationship between the two parties has further deteriorated."

"There's fierce competition among group-buying websites like Meituan, Lashou, and Nuomi.com. Who will have the last laugh?"

"Weibo's number of new users continued to climb in February, with the arrival of Yang Mi and Feng Shaofeng, firmly securing its position as the leading social media platform."

Chen Yansen squinted his eyes and thought. After the first year of group buying, the intensity of competition in this field has almost reached the point of breaking heads. It seems to be a battle between group buying platforms, but in fact it is a game between venture capital institutions behind them.

In order to attract new customers and merchants, various companies have tried every possible means to reduce the service deduction rate again and again. Yours is 5%, mine is 4%, and websites backed by capital have even shouted the slogan of 3%.

Compared with the 10% more than ten years later, it can be considered a conscientious charge.

Currently, Lashou has the highest market share, followed by Nuomi, Meituan in third place, Dianping in fourth place, and 24quan, Gaopeng and Wowo.com share the remaining 40% of the market.

No one could have imagined that Meituan would become the ultimate winner in the battle of thousands of groups.

"Before the competitors react, take over the group buying business first."

Chen Yansen made the decision immediately.

Mogujie, Meilishuo, and Taofenba are all imitating FoxTao’s super rebate model, but they don’t know that mall rebates and search rebates are the other half of the moat of shopping guide websites.

Thinking of this, Chen Yansen called Lin Chenfeng of Penguin Capital. After a brief conversation, the other party was surprised and said, "The group buying business is already a service sales model, and you still want to take a commission from them?"

To put it bluntly, today's group buying websites are all supported by capital. The service fee of less than 5% cannot even cover the operating costs, not to mention the high advertising costs.

“They can give money to Qiandu, but they can’t give money to me?”

Chen Yansen asked back.

At this time, the external promotion of group buying websites mainly relied on search engines, portals and local promotion, especially keyword bidding advertising. During the Thousand Group Wars, Qiandu made a lot of money from advertising fees.

After hearing this, Lin Chenfeng smiled and said, "I'll try to contact the person in charge of Gaopeng's marketing department for you."

Gaopeng is a group buying website jointly established by Penguin and Groupon. Its offline business has drawn a large number of manpower from QQ Group. Although it has just been established, its business is expanding very quickly.

Penguin holds half of the shares, and if Lin Chenfeng comes forward, the probability of promoting cooperation will be much greater.

Half an hour later, Zheng Yun, the marketing director of Gaopeng.com, called back.

"How would you like to cooperate, Mr. Chen?" Zheng Yun asked politely.

"There are two ways of cooperation, mall rebates and super rebates. I suggest that Mr. Zheng try both." Chen Yansen answered simply.

"But group buying and e-commerce models are different. Products have strong local characteristics. For example, for hot pot group buying packages in Shanghai, users in other regions have low purchasing intentions and dispersed traffic..."

Zheng Yun was very tempted when he saw FoxTao had more than one million daily active users, but he was also worried that the effect would not be good and it would waste the manpower and financial resources of the marketing department.

"This problem is easy to solve. On the one hand, you can choose group buying packages from national chain stores, such as KFC and McDonald's. On the other hand, Fox Tao can push products to users based on their IP addresses."

Chen Yansen pondered in confusion. In his opinion, these problems that worried Zheng Yun would have dozens of solutions in a dozen years.

"Mr. Chen, that's a great idea! I'm impressed by your ability to connect shopping guides with group buying. No wonder you were able to grow FoxTao to a valuation of 28 billion in just six months."

Zheng Yun praised generously.

Normally, as a marketing director with an O2O background, he should have thought of this method first, but his thinking was restricted by the shopping guide e-commerce.

"Let's discuss the details of the cooperation in a group. After we finalize it, we can discuss the issues of mall entry and CPS interface."

Chen Yansen didn't say much to him and decided on the cooperation intention in just a few words.
Gaopeng had just completed its Series A financing and its valuation was only 1.3 million US dollars, which was a far cry from Fox Taobi. Chen Yansen asked Zhang Jiancheng to act as a match, which they naturally wanted.

After that, Chen Yansen invited Song Yuncheng and Xiang Pengfei to join the group, and Zheng Yun also invited colleagues from the marketing and technical departments. The two sides began to communicate on matters such as product selection, commissions, and new customer rewards.

When Wang Zihao drove off the highway and headed straight for Xucheng College, Chen Yansen and Zheng Yun had already decided on the flash sale products.

KFC family bucket meal, commission is 30%, 20% is released, and the user gets 20% off the price;

For the Zhen Gongfu Mushroom Chicken Set Meal, the commission is 35%, 25% is released, and the user gets a 25% discount on the price.
Dicos Pistol Chicken Burger, commission is 25%, 15% is released, and the user gets 15% off the price;
The Little Sheep Double Enjoyment Package has a 20% commission rate and a 12% commission rate, giving users a 12% discount on the price.
The products selected are mainly national chain brands. Except for the 3%-5% merchant commission, the remaining price difference is made up by Gaopeng.com.

Therefore, Gaopeng strictly limited the inventory for the event and controlled the subsidy costs at 8 million yuan, plus a new customer reward of 40 yuan per item, which almost covered all the advertising investment in February.

Twenty minutes later, Wang Zihao parked his car at the entrance of the Entrepreneurship Park.

Chen Yansen handed the luggage to Meng Jie and asked her to put it at 0418, while he went upstairs.

"Brother Sen! Happy New Year!" Xiang Pengfei's eyes seemed to be equipped with automatic aiming, and he could always see Chen Yansen first.

"How is the back-end attendance rate?" Chen Yansen walked into Room 206 and asked casually while patting Xiang Pengfei on the shoulder.

"Only two are still on the train and will arrive in the afternoon. The rest have arrived." Xiang Pengfei replied.

"How long will it take to get the CPS interface with Gaopeng?" Chen Yansen asked again.

"Technically, it's similar to the B2C platform. The fastest time is three to five days. But since this is our first cooperation, the order tracking and data caliber must be unified." Xiang Pengfei thought for a moment and replied.

"Then you can invite Hu Yun to join the docking group. Song Yuncheng is in charge of this project. If you have any questions, please contact her."

Chen Yansen warned.

"Okay, I understand." Xiang Pengfei turned around and went into the conference room together to prepare for the upcoming group buying cooperation.

Chen Yansen returned to his seat, turned on his computer, logged into the data backend, and first checked the recovery of website traffic.

For three days during the Spring Festival, the daily active users fell below one million. After express delivery operations resumed on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, the situation improved and the daily active users reached 109 million yesterday.

At this time, Yuan Wei came over with a serious face and reminded: "Brother Sen, there is feedback from the investment promotion. Some merchants who have participated in the super rebate have signed up for brand sales activities on Mogujie and Meilishuo."

"You and Yifeng should hold a meeting for the investment promotion. Whoever owns the merchants will be responsible. Give them a warning first. If they don't obey, they will be blocked and will never cooperate. If the investment promotion is not actively handled, their commission will be reduced for that month."

Chen Yansen became alert instantly, realizing the seriousness of the problem, and immediately gave orders.

He has a first-mover advantage and won't give imitators a chance. If merchants want to go to Mogujie or Meilishuo to boost their sales, he won't stop them. But if the commission rates and prices there are the same as on Hulitao, or even better, don't blame him for being unscrupulous.

"I'll do it right away." Yuan Wei replied.

Chen Yansen nodded slightly. He felt pressured but not panicked. The head effect in the e-commerce industry was very obvious.

When Mogujie was first established, its daily active users were less than 10,000; Meilishuo was established less than two years ago, and its daily active users were only tens of thousands.

The reason why merchants sign up is simply because the two companies do not charge a deposit and do not charge a slot fee. It is a pure commission model. If you don’t sign up, you are a fool.

Although it is not a big threat to Fox Tao, Chen Yansen will not take it lightly and give his opponent a chance to rise.

Not long after, Xiang Pengfei came back from the meeting.

"Pengfei, come here!" Chen Yansen waved at him.

"Brother Sen, what's the matter?" Xiang Pengfei asked while holding the computer.

"We monitor the product pools of several competitors, using title fuzzy matching and ID matching. Once we find a product that has participated in our super rebate, we will send an email to notify the investment."

Chen Yansen made arrangements slowly and methodically.

"What is the priority of demand?" Xiang Pengfei asked subconsciously.

"T0, go online as soon as possible." Chen Yansen said without hesitation.

That afternoon, the investment promotion team had an additional task: switching back and forth between several competing websites, for fear of seeing the merchants and products they were responsible for.

The big boss has said that if three illegal merchants are found in a month, the commission will be automatically reduced by one level. For example, if the sales volume is 500,000, the original commission is 5%, but if three merchants are found to be doing activities on the competitor's website, it will be directly reduced to 4%, and if five merchants are found, it will be reduced to 3%.

Chen Yansen didn't completely deny him any chance. He gave him a warning the first time and blocked him the second time.

For a time, the investors were in a panic and their tone became harsh when speaking to merchants.

"Squad leader, the boss of Meilishuo posted @ you on Weibo, and the abuse was really nasty."

In the evening, Xu Xingxing came over and said while holding up his cell phone.

"@HushitaoCEOChen Yansen, young man, don't be so overbearing in business! Merchants can only participate in Hushitao's super rebates and cannot participate in Meilishuo's brand sales. Are you trying to monopolize the market?"

Xu Yi, the boss of Meilishuo, cursed people by name.

Thanks to his status as a freshman, a valuation of 28 billion, and the title of business genius, Chen Yansen's Weibo followers have increased to 480 million. Xu Yi's mention of him immediately attracted a bunch of netizens who were curious about the situation.

In one afternoon, more than 20 merchants suddenly broke their contracts and refused to participate in Meilishuo's brand sale. Xu Yi found out through various sources that Fox Tao was playing a "choose one of two" game.

Merchants can only choose one of the two: either go to Fox Tao or go to Meilishuo.

The sales data on both sides were very different, and the merchants made a choice quickly, fearing that they would offend FoxTao.

"@MeiliShuoXu Yi, you think you can bully people just because you're old? Your company copied the UI and gameplay of Super Rebate 1:1. When will you pay the copyright fees?"

Chen Yansen didn't want to pay any attention to it, but since Xu Yi was trying hard to get attention, he retorted.

The design team posted a UI comparison chart of the two websites in the comment section, making it clear who plagiarized and who imitated.

"@MeiliShuoXuYiBoss, please come out and explain. The color scheme, font size, and layout are all the same. Is it just a coincidence?"

"Bah! How shameless!"

"This is the thief crying thief!"

The wind direction suddenly changed, and netizens who originally thought that Chen Yansen was domineering began to sympathize with Fox Tao.

Xu Yi was scolded so badly that he ended up deleting his Weibo post and closing the comments.

The situation on Mogujie is similar, with few merchants willing to sign up.

It took a lot of effort to attract investment, but we only managed to attract dozens of white-label (unknown brands) companies and barely put together a brand sale, but only a few users placed orders.

First, there is no popularity, and second, there is no strong activity. Users vote with their feet and know who to choose.

"Fuck! This kid has no moral principles!"

Xu Yi slammed the table in the office, but there was nothing he could do.

Merchants can achieve sales of 500,000 to 1 million yuan by holding a brand group event on Fox Tao, but on Meilishuo, the best they can achieve is 30,000 to 40,000 yuan, and they still have to attract traffic from the entire site.

After venting for a while, he said to the person in charge of business development: "First, pick up the merchants that Fox Tao doesn't want, and then build up the platform traffic."

……

……

The next morning, Chen Yansen just arrived at the second floor of the Entrepreneurship Park.

I saw several people in suits sitting in the conference room, and Song Yuncheng and another business person from the key account business department were receiving guests.

"Brother Sen, they are from eLong Travel. They are probably here to discuss the mall's entry."

Wang Zihao saw Chen Yansen looking at him for a second time and explained with a smile.

Chen Yansen smiled and thought: This is the advantage of being famous. In the past, when discussing B2C cooperation, I had to run the channels myself. If I was unlucky, I would run into an idiot like Zhang Hanhua.

Now, even if you sit at home, people will come to you and seek cooperation.

The mall rebate business involves vertical websites such as beauty and personal care, maternal and child toys, digital books, as well as self-operated brands, travel ticketing and group buying businesses.

Once the ecosystem is complete, users will subconsciously click on Fox Tao when they think of discounts, which can not only contribute to gross profit but also enhance user stickiness.

There are at least 20,000 to 30,000 websites of this type in China. Even if he can only negotiate for 10% of them, Chen Yansen can earn 700 to 800 million yuan just by collecting deposits.

A week later, eLong Travel officially entered the travel ticketing section of Fox Tao Mall's rebate program, and will also host a brand group event at the end of the month.

While the project team was busy introducing the B2C mall and increasing the number of new products in the daily brand group, Chen Yansen quietly established a new company - Senlian Capital.

He transferred the equity of FoxTao, Mihayou and Yunsu Express to the new company.

(End of this chapter)