Reborn in 08, a heretical cultivator starting a business

Chapter 142 Paipai.com collapses, Vipshop wins without lifting a finger!
"What? Paipai.com is finished?"

Shen Huaijin found it hard to believe: "Paipai.com has more than five million sellers. Even if a million stores close down, there are still more than four million stores that haven't closed down. How could it be finished?"

“Huaijin, that’s not how you look at the data. One million and one million are not the same thing,” Wang Junshan said meaningfully.

“Hmm…” Shen Huaijin fell into deep thought: “It means that many of these million closed stores are important and active stores.”

"And many of the remaining 400-plus stores that haven't closed are zombie stores?"

“That’s right!” Wang Junshan laughed. “Taobao claims to have over ten million shops, but more than 50% of them are inactive; only about five million are actually active. What about Paipai?”

"If more than half of the shops on Taobao are zombie shops, then wouldn't more than 70% of the shops on Paipai be zombie shops?"

Shen Huaijin gasped:
"Paipai.com has five million stores, but 70% of them are inactive stores. There are actually only 1.5 million active sellers!"

"Those zombie shops have long since stopped receiving orders, and the owners have long since given up. Most of them are too lazy to log in and have closed down."

"So, of the 1.1 million stores that have closed down, at least 60-70%, or more than 700,000, are active sellers."

"So, the number of active sellers on Paipai.com... has actually been halved!"

"Hiss! Does that mean Paipai.com is finished?"

Wang Junshan smiled faintly: "That's right, Paipai.com is finished!"

"Xu Tiannian is finished too."

"This..." Shen Huaijin was shocked. He never expected the situation to have developed to this point.

She thought that Paipai.com, as the second largest e-commerce platform, was a large and established company that could sustain itself for a long time, and that the commission-based system would continue.

Unexpectedly, commissions were withdrawn starting on September 12th, and now, in less than two months, the situation has deteriorated to this extent!

Sure enough, that evening, all Paipai.com sellers received an internal email:

[Dear Paipai.com merchants, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to our sellers by the improper operation of our management team, which resulted in the comprehensive withdrawal of commissions and security deposits.]

Starting today, Paipai.com will cease charging commissions and collecting security deposits from all sellers.

The commissions and deposits already received will be returned to the seller's Tenpay account within five business days. Please check your account promptly.

Providing better services to our sellers has always been our mission at Paipai.com.

We cordially invite sellers who have closed their shops to return!

As soon as this news broke, various rights protection groups exploded:

"Heh, Paipai.com has backed down. Now they know they were wrong, stopping commissions and giving back money. Where were they before?"

"Exactly! I've already closed my shop, and now you're asking me to open one? Are you kidding me!"

"Are you guys still going to keep opening your photo shops? I don't want to anymore, it's pointless, this is enough."

"To admit one's mistakes and correct them is the greatest virtue. Paipai.com has admitted its mistake, so please give me a chance. I've reopened my shop."

"I've also reopened, but I feel like the traffic has dropped a lot, probably because the store was closed for too long."

"That's right. My shop has been open all along, but I can clearly feel that the number of customers is decreasing day by day, and the number of orders has been drastically cut in half."

"Huh? It's that serious? Why? Logically, since we're all closed, shouldn't your revenue be high?"

"Yes, it was indeed high at first, but it dropped after half a month. Now it's even more serious."

"I totally agree. How should I put it? It feels like the entire Paipai.com is half dead."

"Nonsense, so many businesses are closing down, and when consumers see that they can't buy anything, they all go to Taobao. Once consumers leave, they won't come back."

"I see, does that mean Paipai.com is finished?"

"Pretty much, anyway, I'm not going to bother with that anymore. I'll just run a Taobao store and a Baidu store."

"How about Baidu Youa, everyone?"

"How should I put it? It's a bit of a mystery. When things are good, they're really good; when things are bad, they might not even make a sale for several days."

"Me too. But during the early stages, the benefits were decent, not as good as the old Paipai.com, but better than the Paipai.com that's barely surviving now."

……

Similar sentiments have emerged in various rights protection groups and forums.

What's worse is that these sellers not only say it, they actually do it!
Even if Paipai.com announces that it will stop taking commissions, stop collecting deposits, and refund the money!
Of the 110 million stores that had already closed, only 30 chose to reopen.

The remaining 80 shops will continue to be closed.

This is the most deadly!
Xu Tiannian was extremely distressed by this.

A sense of foreboding crept into my heart.

If the reforms fail, his position will be in danger.

Now that commission rates have been withdrawn, sellers are not accepting it, and many are not returning, clearly out of utter anger.

Paipai.com can only take further measures to quell the sellers' anger in order to get more sellers back and continue opening their stores.

So how do we appease the seller's anger?

The best solution is to get rid of him, the culprit!

Make Xu Tiannian sever ties with Paipai.com and pin all the blame on Xu Tiannian alone!
This will make the majority of sellers on Paipai.com hate Xu Tiannian, rather than be hostile to Paipai.com!

This is undoubtedly the best and easiest choice.

Xu Tiannian knew perfectly well that this resolution was likely already under voting, and might even have already yielded a result.

But no one notified him at all.

They also gave him no further chance to make a final defense, just like last time, and turn the tide against all odds.

This means he's been abandoned!
He's doomed!

Those major shareholders who were optimistic about him before probably won't continue to support him anymore.

In the previous two weeks, 500,000 stores closed down, including about 300,000 active sellers, which had already alarmed the major shareholders and led to a board meeting to decide to stop taking commissions.

It was a moving speech by Xu Tiannian, presenting facts, reasoning, and making grand promises.

This finally changed the attitude of the shareholders, who were willing to continue to believe in Xu Tiannian.

I think Xu Tiannian is also a remarkable person, capable of pulling off feats like Amazon raising commission rates and JD.com cutting C2C, and achieving great success.

However, just when everyone was full of expectations, Xu Tiannian not only failed to upgrade Paipai.com, but also made Paipai.com half dead!
Furthermore, since the sellers are not buying it and refuse to return, he is likely to be sacrificed!
Sure enough, what you fear most is what happens.

The call from the chairman's secretary landed in Xu Tiannian's office:

"President Xu, please come to the chairman's office."

"Okay." Xu Tiannian took a deep breath, glanced at the familiar office one last time, his eyes filled with reluctance.

It's very clear that this time, leaving and returning will likely just mean packing up and leaving again...

But all he could do was open the door and head towards the chairman's office.

"Chairman, please find me."

"Xu Tiannian!"

Chairman Ma's hand, pointing at Xu Tiannian, trembled continuously.
"You're talking about yourself!"

"I trusted you so much and supported you time and time again."

Is this how you repay me?

"Should we replace chemotherapy and bone-scraping treatment with this brutal process to transform and upgrade Paipai.com?"

"You've essentially killed Paipai.com!" "And you're saying that while the number of users and sellers has decreased, the ARPU has increased, and Paipai.com is moving towards the high-end market?"

"And the result? The number of users decreased, the number of sellers decreased, and even ARPU decreased!"

"Don't even talk about Paipai.com moving towards the high-end market, it's heading towards its demise!"

"Achieving break-even in the fourth quarter and profitability in the first quarter of next year?"

"They talk a good game, but what's the result?"

"The losses are getting worse and worse!"

"Your reforms have resulted in half the number of active merchants on Paipai.com!"

"Now we've lost half our users."

"All data has plummeted!"

"This is your reform? You've completely destroyed Paipai.com!"

"This is your chemotherapy? You've practically sent Paipai.com away!"

"You said you... sigh!"

Having been thoroughly berated, Xu Tiannian was at a loss for words: "Chairman, I..."

"Forget it, you take a rest first, I'll have someone else clean up this mess for you!"

"!!!" Xu Tiannian's heart skipped a beat. The worst outcome had come!
Once you start resting, you might have to rest forever.

My future is ruined.

Before he could say anything, Chairman Ma waved his hand, signaling him to leave.

The chairman, who had always supported him, was finally completely disappointed in him!

Xu Tiannian's face was gloomy, but he had no choice but to turn around and leave.

The sellers who had already closed their shops refused to reopen their stores because they were angry about the commission cutoff.

The only thing we can do is remove him to appease the seller's anger!

Win back the seller.

If it were him, he would have done the same.

Soon, the news of Xu Tiannian's dismissal spread rapidly across the internet.

In various rights protection groups, there was jubilation once again:
"Serves him right, that Xu guy is finally finished."

"A blanket ban, charging all sellers commissions and taking a cut—to come up with such a heinous method, Xu Tiannian deserves to be kicked out!"

“That’s right, Paipai.com was ruined because of Xu Tiannian. If he hadn’t caused trouble and hadn’t taken commissions, we could have just run our shop properly, right? Why did he have to cause all this trouble? Now that we’ve dealt with Xu Tiannian, I’m not going back.”

"Exactly, Paipai.com is practically dead, who would go back to it?"

"I would like to go back, but looking at Paipai.com where traffic has been halved, opening a store is not profitable, so it's pointless."

"Yes, it's not a question of whether we want to go back or not. The problem is that after all this turmoil, Paipai.com has lost half of its active users. Even if we open a store, we won't make any money. That's the real issue."

"Please, please don't come back. Paipai.com's traffic has been halved. If you don't come back, my income will be halved. If you come back, we're all doomed."

This person not only said that, but also posted screenshots of the store's recent revenue to the WeChat group.

Following that, other sellers who had not closed their stores also started posting pictures.

Looking at these screenshots of data, many sellers were filled with emotion:

"Daily active users have really been halved, and revenue has also declined. There's no going back."

"Yeah, with this little traffic, what's the point of opening a store? It's not even as good as searching on Baidu."

"Here's a joke for you all: the revenue from my Baidu Youa store these past two days has surpassed the revenue from my Paipai website. Hahaha."

"Damn, there's no going back. Paipai.com is dead. Everyone should find their own way out."

"Paipai.com, what a pity. Xu Tiannian's reforms and upgrades were great, but they killed us all, including Paipai.com."

"During the financial crisis, revenue was already declining and orders were plummeting. With this move by Paipai.com, it's even worse."

"I wish I could go back to August. It was the worst month of the past, but also the best month of the future!"

……

Looking at this data, most of the sellers who closed their stores gave up the idea of ​​reopening.

Even those stores that had already reopened were considering closing down again.

The situation has developed to this point, and it is no longer a matter of hatred or not, but a fundamental question of survival.

If Paipai.com's traffic remains as high as before, with many users and orders, many sellers will return to reopen their stores.

The problem is that Xu Tiannian's actions caused half of Paipai.com's active sellers to close their shops.

With so many sellers closing down, consumers are unable to buy the products they need and are starting to leave, turning to Taobao!
This resulted in the loss of half of our users!
This is the most deadly!
And it is irreversible.

That's how consumer behavior is; once it changes, it's hard to go back.

Taobao is far superior to Paipai!

With half the number of users and the previous million sellers closing their stores, the remaining 70 active sellers can barely maintain their income due to the reduction in competitors.

Now, another 300,000 stores have reopened, competing for customers who were already half gone, resulting in everyone going hungry!

Small and medium-sized sellers have low costs, and many do it themselves. If they don't make money, they don't make money. As long as it's better than working for someone else, that's fine.

But the brand sellers couldn't hold on any longer!
Brand businesses are large and have high costs, many employees, and various expenses.

With the number of users on Paipai.com plummeting and so many new sellers opening stores, brand sellers are finding it impossible to make money.

In particular, many sellers resort to price-cutting and even dumping in order to grab orders.

Third-party sellers can drive down prices like this to achieve high sales volume with low profit margins, but brands can't; they have to maintain a firm price line.

This resulted in half of the users switching to lower-priced third-party merchants, while brands suffered from sluggish sales due to high prices, leading to a sharp drop in both revenue and profits.

They even run into losses because their income doesn't cover their expenses.

As a result, brands have had to start looking for other solutions.

Taobao Mall had already opened stores long ago, Paipai.com was crippled, and Baidu Youa was just starting out with few users and couldn't sustain itself.

What should I do?
After looking around, Vipshop, which seems unremarkable, has become everyone's choice!

Especially after Hu Xiaoyao became the brand ambassador, WeChat launched a massive advertising campaign, resulting in a surge in downloads and a massive increase in Vipshop's users, which in turn led to a sharp rise in revenue.

Paipai.com is declining, while Vipshop is rising!
With one side gaining and the other losing, many brands had ideas and decisively began a series of investigations.

You wouldn't know unless you did the research, and what you found was astonishing!
All the competitors who partnered with Vipshop actually made a fortune!
Many brands' revenue on Vipshop has long surpassed the peak revenue of Paipai.com!
They're all making a fortune in silence!
These survey results have alarmed major brands.

They immediately contacted Vipshop to cooperate.

Vipshop, which was already enjoying easy profits, naturally accepted all offers.

Take them all.

And it is proceeding on two fronts simultaneously.

Vipshop's official self-operated model involves brand merchants regularly delivering goods to Vipshop's eight warehouses. Vipshop is responsible for overall operation and delivery, with a deposit of 30,000 yuan and settlement on a T+30 day basis.

The brand flagship store model involves brand merchants opening a flagship store on Vipshop, operating the store, paying a deposit of 50,000 yuan, and receiving a 5% commission. Purchases of traffic packages from Vipshop are calculated separately!
(End of this chapter)