Chapter 102: Suppressing Competitive Products and Expanding the Mall Rebate Territory
February 8th, 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 TV series "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."
"Meituan, Lashou, Nuomi and other group buying websites are in fierce competition. Who will have the last laugh?"
"The number of new Weibo users continued to rise in February, with the addition of Yang Mi and Feng Shaofeng, making Weibo 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 fight 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 commission on service again and again. Yours is 5%, mine is 4%, and websites backed by capital are even shouting the slogan of 3%.
Compared with the 10% more than a decade later, it can be considered a conscientious charge.
Currently, Lashou has the highest market share, followed by Nuomi, Meituan is third, Dianping is fourth, 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.
"Take over the group buying business before the competition reacts."
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 sale model. Do you still want to take their commission?"
To put it bluntly, today's group buying websites are all supported by capital. With a service fee of less than 5%, they 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 offline 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, 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 the models of group buying and e-commerce are different. Products have strong city attributes. For example, for hot pot group buying packages in Shanghai, users in other regions have low purchasing intention and scattered traffic..."
Zheng Yun was very excited when he saw FoxTao had more than 1 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 purchase 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, what a great idea! I'm impressed by your ability to link shopping guides with group buying. No wonder you were able to value FoxTao at 2.8 billion in just half a year."
Zheng Yun praised generously.
Logically, as a marketing director with an O2O background, he should have thought of this solution first, but his thinking was restricted by shopping guide e-commerce.
"As for the details of the cooperation, let's create a group and discuss it slowly. After it is finalized, we can discuss the mall entry and CPS interface issues."
Chen Yansen didn't say much to him and decided on the cooperation intention in just a few words. Gaopeng had just completed its A round of financing and its valuation was only 130 million US dollars, which was a big gap from Fox Taobi. Chen Yansen asked Zhang Jiancheng to make the connection, and they naturally wanted it.
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;
For the Zhen Gongfu mushroom chicken meal, the commission is 35%, and 25% is released, so the price to users is 25% off; for the Dicos pistol chicken burger, the commission is 25%, and 15% is released, so the price to users is 15% off; for the Little Sheep double enjoyment meal, the commission is 20%, and 12% is released, so the price to users is 18% off; the products are basically selected from national chain brands, and except for the 3%-5% merchant commission, the rest of the price difference is made up by Gaopeng.com.
Therefore, Gaopeng strictly limited the event inventory and controlled the subsidy cost at 8 million yuan, plus a new customer reward of 40 yuan per customer, which almost covered all the advertising investment in February.
Twenty minutes later, Wang Zihao parked his car in front 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 attendance rate at the back end?" 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 are here." Xiang Pengfei replied.
"How long will it take to get the CPS interface with Gaopeng? " Chen Yansen asked again.
"Technically, it is 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 website traffic recovery status.
There were three days during the Spring Festival when the daily active users dropped below one million. After express delivery operations resumed on the fifth day, the situation improved and the daily active users reached 1.09 million yesterday.
At this time, Yuan Wei came over with a serious face and reminded: "Brother Sen, there is feedback from the investment promotion that some merchants who have participated in the super rebate have signed up for brand special sales activities on Mogujie and Meilishuo."
"You and Yifeng should hold a meeting for the investment promotion. Whoever owns the merchant 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, the commission for that month will be reduced."
Chen Yansen became alert instantly, realized the seriousness of the problem, and immediately gave orders.
He has the first-mover advantage and never gives imitators a chance.
If merchants want to go to Mogujie and Meilishuo to increase their sales, he will not stop them. However, if the commission ratio and price there are the same as those on FoxTao, or even more favorable, 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; and when Meilishuo was established less than two years ago, 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’d be a fool.
Although the threat to Fox Tao is not great, 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 competing companies, using fuzzy title 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 promotion."
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 commission was originally 5%, but if three merchants are found to be doing activities on competitors' websites, it will be directly reduced to 4%. If five merchants are found, it will be reduced to 3%.
Chen Yansen did not completely deny opportunities. He gave a warning the first time and blocked the second time.
For a time, the business investors were in a panic and their tone became stiff when speaking to the merchants.
"Squad leader, the boss of Meilishuo @ed you on Weibo, and the abuse was really nasty."
In the evening, Xu Xingxing came over and spoke while holding up his cell phone.
"@Hushitao CEO Chen Yansen, young man, don't be too domineering when doing business! Merchants can only participate in Hushitao's super rebate and cannot participate in Meilishuo's brand sales. Do you want to monopolize the market?"
Xu Yi, the boss of Meilishuo, cursed the person by name.
Thanks to his status as a freshman, a valuation of 2.8 billion, and the title of business genius, Chen Yansen's Weibo followers have increased to 4.8 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 temporarily broke their contracts and refused to participate in Meilishuo's brand sale. Xu Yi made inquiries from various sources and learned that FoxTao was playing a "choose one of two" game.
Merchants can only choose one of the two: either go to Fox Tao or Meilishuo.
The sales data on both sides were very different, and the merchants made a choice quickly for fear of offending FoxTao.
"@MeiliShuoXu Yi, you think you can bully people just because you are old? Your company copied the UI style and gameplay of Super Rebate 1:1, when will you pay the copyright fee?"
Chen Yansen didn't want to pay 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 at a glance who plagiarized and who imitated.
"@Meilishuo Xu Yi, Boss Xu, please come out and explain, the color scheme, font size, and layout are all the same, are they all coincidences?"
"Bah! How shameless!"
"This is the thief crying thief!"
The wind direction changed instantly, and netizens who originally thought that Chen Yansen was overbearing began to sympathize with Fox Tao.
Xu Yi was scolded so much that he eventually deleted his Weibo post and closed the comments.
The situation on Mogujie is similar, with few merchants willing to sign up.
It took a lot of effort to attract dozens of white-label (unknown brands) companies, and they were able to 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 FoxTao, but on Meilishuo, the best they can achieve is 30,000 to 40,000 yuan, and they have to attract traffic from the entire site.
After venting for a while, he said to the person in charge of investment promotion: "First pick up the merchants that Fox Tao doesn't want, and then increase 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. Song Yuncheng and another business person from the key account business department were receiving guests.
"Brother Sen, they are from eLong Travel, and 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 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 from the deposit.
A week later, eLong Travel officially entered the travel ticketing section of FoxTao 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 name of the new company.
(End of this chapter)
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