Chapter 338 No suckers? Then do it yourself! Get another 800 million in funding! Where is the car?
On November 4, Dangdang.com simultaneously entered Pinbei and Yaomao Mall.
Liu Qiangdong mocked Li Guoqing for "hanging out with rich men" on Weibo. Although his words were harsh, they hit the nail on the head.
Li Guoqing didn't indulge him, and said bluntly: "When Daqiangzi entered Pinbei Mall last year, I didn't scold him."
The implication is that Liu Qiangdong is not thick enough.
If Yidong can do the same thing, why can't Dangdang?
It can be seen that the e-commerce landscape in 2012 is quietly changing, and vertical e-commerce is facing increasing pressure to survive under the suppression of comprehensive e-commerce platforms.
Li Guoqing's decision to "join" Pinbei and Yaomao Mall was also a helpless move.
That afternoon, it was revealed that Yidong had signed an 800 million yuan procurement contract with Meizu.
Liu Qiangdong and Huang Zhang jointly provided subsidies, reducing the price of the Meizu MX quad-core 32GB version to 2,499 yuan. In just six hours, the Meizu MX was on the real-time best-selling mobile phone list of Dongguan, second only to the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S III and iPhone 4S.
After Orange Mobile withdrew from Yidong, Liu Qiangdong found a new partner.
An hour later, WoWotuan announced that it would cease services on December 31 due to financing failure, and the company's life entered a countdown.
One of the top five group buying companies has suddenly disappeared, leaving only Dianping, Lashou, Meituan and Kuaipao still competing.
The subsidy war lasted for two months and countless group buying websites were killed. WoWotuan was just the most famous one. When other competitors went bankrupt, no one cared at all.
…
…
Xucheng, Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park, Office Building No. 9.
Chen Yansen leaned back in his chair with his feet on the table. He played Subway Surfers for three minutes and then threw his phone down in boredom.
With his current reaction ability, this game was like slow motion and there was no fun at all.
Mr. Chen glanced out the window and saw a few birds flying across the sky and heading towards the dense forest in the distance, leaving behind their crisp chirping sounds.
At this time, Pei Yi called.
"Boss, Meituan Takeaway has already expanded beyond Yanjing and launched takeaway services in eleven cities including Tianjin, Anci, and Tangcheng."
Pei Yi reported in a calm tone.
"Sequoia Capital gave Wang Xin some money. It seems that his confidence has returned. I will beat Meituan to death."
Chen Yansen sat up straight and gave instructions to the person on the other end of the phone.
In his eyes, Wang Xin was like a troublemaker.
The transportation model of food delivery riders should be based on full-time work and supplemented by part-time work, which can not only guarantee the monthly income of regular employees but also flexibly supplement delivery resources.
But as soon as Wang Xin came, he copied the outsourcing model to the food delivery industry. Although it solved Meituan’s transportation capacity problem, it brought a lot of trouble to Kuaipao.
Because Meituan has formulated a large number of penalty policies, the delivery pressure on riders has increased dramatically, and they have frequent quarrels and even physical conflicts with customers. This has made users reluctant to order takeout, fearing that they will be beaten before they can even eat a single bite of their meal.
The constant flow of negative news has also affected Kuaipao. Some users who have never ordered takeout have a stereotype about the industry that delivery is often overdue, the food loss rate is high, and the attitude is poor.
Hit customers above and merchants below.
In addition, after the number of part-time riders online exceeded 50,000, Wang Xin continued to test the lower limit of the delivery fee and reduced the unit price from 8 yuan to 5 yuan.
Logically speaking, Meituan has no basic salary, no social security, no insurance, and low unit price, so no one should want to work there. However, there are too many coupons, and the price has been reduced by three yuan in a row, but it has not affected the delivery efficiency at all.
Therefore, Wang Xin is considering whether to reduce the price by another 0.5 yuan to make it equal to the unit price of Kuaipao.
"Okay, boss. I'll send Shan Jiawei to North China. He knows Meituan's operating model inside and out. Let him take the lead, and Wang Xin will be in trouble." Pei Yi replied immediately.
In fact, if Shan Jiawei had not joined and brought the business expansion model of Chinese suppliers to Meituan, Wang Xin's ability alone would have been unable to stand out from the battle of thousands of groups.
Xiaonei.com and Fanfou.com, founded by Wang Xin, are both social software. Which one is related to offline?
Wang Xin knows nothing about sales! Pei Yi is full of confidence. With two great generals, Shan Jiawei and Zhang Xuhao, under his command, if he can't beat Meituan, he might as well find a piece of tofu and die.
"Shan Jiawei? I am confident in his abilities. By the way, where is Zhang Xuhao?" Chen Yansen asked casually with a smile.
"I went to Yanjing with Lao Dan." Pei Yi grinned.
"Pinbei 3.0 will be released soon. At that time, the entrance of Kuaipao will be adjusted from the ICON area to the first-level page of the homepage. Users can see the takeaway channel by swiping left." Chen Yansen reminded.
"Mr. Huang mentioned it to me, and I have no objection." Pei Yi immediately expressed his opinion.
Pinbei has over 60 million daily active users, but the order frequency of e-commerce users is relatively low; Kuaipao has 6 million daily active users, but has the advantage of high-frequency orders. The combination of the two can form a 'high-frequency with low-frequency' business ecosystem.
Currently, Pinbei provides greater support to Kuapao, so Kuapao needs to pay an advertising fee to Pinbei as a CPS rebate.
Pei Yi said "no objection", which means he was willing to pay "toll" to Huang Zheng.
After all, both companies belong to Senlian Capital, and Huang Zheng’s fees are not high.
"Where is Qiandu Takeout? Is it still sitting in Yanjing like a cuckold?" Chen Yansen asked again.
"Yes, but I think that since Qiandu has established the LBS business unit, it will definitely not stay in Yanjing forever. I guess Li Yanhong and Wang Zhongpu are planning a big move."
Pei Yi thought for a moment and said.
Qiandu’s market value of more than 50 billion US dollars cannot be faked. Although Li Yanhong is temporarily at a disadvantage in the online car-hailing market, it does not mean that Qiandu will lose in the end.
If Li Yanhong continues to increase his stakes, Cheng Weixing will have no choice but to continue fighting.
"Then speed up the expansion and beat the slow with the fast. Don't be afraid of losing money. Cheng Weixing lost 1.2 billion in a month, and I didn't say anything. What are you afraid of?"
Chen Yansen raised the corner of his mouth slightly and joked with a smile.
Pei Yi smiled knowingly and nodded in agreement. Kuaidi Dache's valuation was not even in the first tier within the group, but its monthly marketing expenses were the highest.
Neither Orange Technology nor Pinbei Mall can spend money that much!
After Chen Yansen hung up the phone, he pondered for a moment, then called Wang Teng and asked him to contact Daniel Ek to introduce Spotify's music data source into the Moss smart speaker, and to add music libraries such as Penguin Music, Kugou and Kuwo to the Alexa smart speaker.
There are Chinese people overseas and foreigners in China. Although the proportion of these users is small, there is no need to ignore them.
What's more, there are many users in China who like European and American music. Although it is unclear how much sales this move can bring to smart speakers, it is better to do something than nothing.
The other side.
Li Yanhong, whose peace talks were rejected, has been busy looking for investment targets in recent days. As soon as the subsidies for Didi Taxi stopped, the average daily order volume began to decline, and has now fallen to 600,000 orders per day.
But if Li Yanhong were to invest alone, he felt the risk was too high.
Among the BAT big three, Penguin and Ali both stood on the side of Kuaidi Dache.
Among the state-owned institutions, Huake and Huaxin contributed money and effort to Kuaidi Taxi.
Among foreign companies, Goldman Sachs and DST chose to side with Kuaidi Taxi.
There were very few opportunities left for Qiandu.com. After some communication, only Ping An and IDG Capital expressed investment intention. However, what made Li Yanhong angry was that the contacts of these two companies did not recognize the valuation of 8 billion Huayuan.
The maximum offer is only 6 billion!
In other words, the 1.2 billion yuan in Qiandu's Series E financing was reduced by a quarter in less than a month.
Of course Li Yanhong refused! The negotiations between the two sides came to a stalemate, and neither side was willing to give in.
Who would have thought that Legend Capital, with the contract terms for priority exit, took the initiative to find IDG Capital and sold its 8.1% stake in Didi Dache for 500 million yuan, with a valuation of just over 6 billion yuan.
Zhu Nanli's intention of investing in Didi Dache was not pure from the beginning. After Liu Yiqing took the position of managing director of Goldman Sachs Asia, he immediately lost interest in the position of CEO of Didi Dache.
All in all, Junlian Capital made 100 million yuan and successfully cashed out and ran away.
After learning the news, Li Yanhong almost contacted Xiong Xiaoge of IDG Capital, wanting to sell his shares in Qiandu to the other party.
At least Xiong Xiaoge's offer was more sincere than Chen Yansen's! But he thought about Qiandu's LBS division and O2O strategic layout, sighed, and suppressed the negative emotions in his heart.
Temporary success or failure does not matter. Didi Taxi has not yet reached the point of admitting defeat.
Qiandu.com is not short of money!
After careful consideration, Li Yanhong decided to make additional investments.
The next morning, under his strong push, Qiandu.com injected another 800 million yuan into Didi Dache, with the valuation remaining the same as in the E round.
This time, Li Yanhong did not dare to provoke Cheng Weixing. He called Xiang Hailong to talk for three or four hours. The core strategy was: do not compete head-on with Kuaidi Dache, reduce subsidies, and use the funds to improve product functions and expand the scope of operations.
"Boss, I don't want to go head-to-head with Cheng Weixing, but every time Didi Taxi adds a new city, Kuaidi Taxi will catch up with us the next day and drive close to us."
Xiang Hailong said with a wry smile.
"Focus on the user experience of passengers and drivers. Suspend the activity subsidies until Didi Chuxing accumulates sufficient orders and fulfillment capabilities." Li Yanhong said ambiguously.
In a nutshell, reduce subsidies and expand service areas.
Seeing Li Yanhong's firm attitude, Xiang Hailong decided not to persuade him any further. He knew that his boss was already dissatisfied with him, and if he said a few more words, he might lose his job.
In the Qiandu headquarters building, there may be someone more suitable to be the CEO of Didi Dache than him, but so what?
Taking care of personal interests is far more important than the interests of the company! Unless Li Yanhong gives the order, he will not move.
After leaving the office, Xiang Hailong returned to Digital Valley and convened the heads of various departments and regions to redeploy Didi Dache's Q4 development plan.
At the same time, after receiving 300 million yuan in funding for the A round, Cheng Wei started to invest without hesitation.
The total number of Didi bikes in Yanjing has rapidly increased from 1,000 to 3,000. Shared bikes can be seen everywhere at subway exits and commercial areas with the most concentrated traffic.
When the locals saw this, they couldn't help but complain: "Hey! Wow! I haven't seen so many bicycles in years. It's really amazing!"
The charging standard of Didi Bike is: 1 yuan within 30 minutes, and after the time limit, 1 yuan will be increased for every 15 minutes, with no upper limit.
But what Cheng Wei did not expect was that as the number of Didi bikes put into use increased, the number of lost bikes also increased sharply.
There are 3,000 vehicles in total. After someone counted them yesterday, there were about 2,860 left.
140 bikes were missing out of nowhere! Cheng Wei couldn't help but think of the old man holding an angle grinder on the first day of Didi Bike's launch.
It's not hard to imagine where these bikes belong.
"We have to install GPS devices on the cars. Otherwise, when the number reaches 10,000, it will be difficult to find the cars."
Cheng Wei pondered secretly.
In addition, the first generation of mechanical locks had too many bugs, which was no different from covering one's ears and stealing a bell, because the password for each bicycle was fixed, and users only needed to remember the password to ride for free.
In this case, how does Didi Bike make money?
Thinking of this, Cheng Wei made up his mind to replace the mechanical lock with a smart lock.
In fact, a third-party company had already provided a technical solution, but he thought the cost was too high and shelved it.
Now, if no changes are made, it will be of no avail even if he hires more car finders.
There is not even a GPS location, where can I find it? …
…
Hangzhou, Fanzhou Technology Headquarters.
This is a bicycle factory with an annual output of up to 8 million bicycles. It is equipped with 4 independent bicycle production lines and painting lines. It mainly manufactures bicycles for European and American brands.
"Mr. Hu, nice to meet you! Who is this?"
In the lobby on the first floor, Yuan Zhen, the boss of Fanzhou Technology, shook Hu Weiyi's right hand and greeted her warmly.
The other party is the CEO of OFO Bike, and this identity alone is enough for him to maintain full respect.
The business model of shared bicycles has long been spread in the circle. Whoever can receive a purchase order from a shared bicycle company will make a fortune.
Who wouldn’t be tempted by a production contract worth millions of bikes? “Hello, Mr. Yuan. I’m Wang Zihao, the COO of OFO Bike.”
Wang Zihao was wearing a neat suit and made the introduction calmly.
Although he is only twenty years old this year, he has a dark face and a strong body. He looks quite anxious and seems to be about twenty-six or twenty-seven.
"Hello, Mr. Wang. Welcome, welcome. Let's go upstairs and talk slowly." Yuan Zhen said with a smile on his face.
He had to be cautious when dealing with big clients.
"Mr. Wang, please." Hu Weiyi nodded in response.
Behind the two of them were several colleagues from the business department and two legal officers to ensure the future cooperation.
Different from Didi Bike's low-cost strategy, Hu Weiyi's requirements for OFO Bike are: the frame, tires, seats, brakes and other components must be strong and durable, and the cost must be controlled below 400 yuan.
Because after being equipped with electronic devices such as smart locks, solar panels, embedded chips, GPS modules and SIM cards, the cost will soar to more than 500 yuan.
After hearing Hu Weiyi's request, Yuan Zhen looked embarrassed.
You get what you pay for, which is vividly reflected in the manufacturing industry.
In order to meet the manufacturing requirements of OFO bicycles, the material cost alone will not be less than 500 yuan. The cost of the aluminum alloy frame, thickened tires, anti-corrosion chains, etc., each of them cannot be reduced.
The two sides had a heated discussion for a whole morning but still could not reach a conclusion.
Yuan Zhen raised his hand to check the time, then invited Hu Weiyi, Wang Zihao and others to go to the restaurant to have lunch first and talk again in the afternoon.
"No, Mr. Yuan, we have other things to do this afternoon." Hu Weiyi declined.
Yuan Zhen understood what she meant, so he thought for a moment and said, "Mr. Hu, I can reduce the configuration of some parts for you, and the lowest price is 460 yuan per car."
"Sorry, to be honest, this price does not meet our company's cost control bottom line." Hu Weiyi shook her head.
"Mr. Hu, to be honest, you can't find a lower price even if you travel all over East China," said Yuan Zhen.
"Then I'll go to North China again." Hu Weiyi smiled faintly, waved goodbye to Yuan Zhen, then got into a Mercedes-Benz E350 and asked the driver to drive to the next bicycle factory.
(End of this chapter)
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