The next day, Lei Jun registered the company license for Xiaomi Maps and even had someone contact the programmers who had previously worked on Gaode Maps. The programmers were very happy to hear that they could change jobs. Except for a few who were unwilling to come from Beijing to Shanghai for personal reasons, the rest of them agreed. After all, they were not doing well at Gaode. They were not valued, did not receive bonuses, and the vice president in charge of them, Xiao, had been nowhere to be seen recently.
Xiaomi Maps' office is still located on the 27th floor of Deji Building, just like Ele.me on the 26th floor, where a section has been designated for Xiaomi Maps.
A week later, Huasuan.com launched its merchant map feature. After opening the Huasuan.com group buying channel and entering the information you want to buy, a new link appears after the search results are displayed – Merchant Map.
Clicking on the merchant map feature will bring up a prompt where you can add your location information in your personal center on the Huasuan.com website. After entering your location information, you can calculate your distance from the merchant, view information on various modes of transportation available, and the approximate travel time.
This eliminates the problem of order cancellations due to distance after group buying. As soon as this feature was launched, it received unanimous praise from group buying users. The proportion of users transferred from Huasuan.com to major group buying websites has been rising steadily. Zhang Yiming said that this money is too easy to make.
"I really need this feature. Last time I bought a couple's double meal deal through a group purchase, but it turned out to be a million miles away from me. In the end, my girlfriend and I were left to starve all night."
"Upstairs, I understand your frustration, but do you really have to go so far to eat? You can cancel the order."
"Ahem, that couple's package includes a hotel night."
"The northwest wind tastes so good!"
Wu Bo was furious when he saw that Huasuan.com had launched this feature before them. "Lin Chen, are you a real scoundrel? I only paid you 30 million, and this is how you do this? You're inhuman! Why do you, a price comparison website, provide such a great service? Let us group-buying websites fight tooth and nail while you sit back and watch the show."
However, after his anger subsided, Wu Bo remembered that Lin Chen had a nickname in the underworld: "Five Million Consulting Fee." It was said that if you paid him five million for a consulting fee, he could come up with an idea, and it would be a very powerful one, definitely worth more than you paid for.
Wu Bo endured the humiliation, imagining himself as King Goujian of Yue, and picked up his phone to dial Lin Chen's number.
"Mr. Lin, hello, I'd like to ask you something, is it a convenient time?"
Lin Chen thought Wu Bo had come to interrogate him, so he quickly said, "Mr. Wu, I'm in a meeting right now. I'll call you back in a bit."
"Mr. Lin, I understand the rules."
"Ding~" Lin Chen's phone vibrated. He picked it up and saw the familiar text message about five million yuan arriving in his account.
Lin Chen: Which bastard ruined my reputation! Mmm, it smells so good!
"Ahem, Mr. Wu, I'm so sorry to trouble you. Please wait a moment, I'll pause the meeting for a bit."
Lin Chen came out of the bathroom and sat on the sofa in the living room.
Just as I sat down, An Rou's voice came from behind me: "Lin Chen, you forgot to flush the toilet again!"
Wu Bo's lips twitched on the other end of the phone. How could someone be so shameless? How did someone as shameless as you become so rich?
"Alright, Mr. Wu, what's the matter?"
"Mr. Lin, I previously spent 30 million to purchase map resources from you. I originally wanted to focus on merchant services, but your Huasuan.com beat me to it, which puts me in a very passive position. It feels like that 30 million has gone down the drain. Do you see any way you can help me out?"
"Oh? You're also going to do merchant services? Mr. Wu, why didn't you tell me sooner? You should have told me sooner."
"Oh, Mr. Lin, how can you just reveal trade secrets like that? Please help me think of a solution."
"Well, there are solutions. Mr. Wu, think about it. What is the user logic of our Huasuan.com? We search for specific merchants first and then provide services. But your Lashou.com is different. Lashou.com provides services based on the user's location. The starting point is different. Your merchant map should actually be called a user map. Sometimes users are not sure what they want to eat. They open your Lashou.com and see so many good restaurants nearby. So they just pick one randomly, and that's how the deal is made."
Wu Bo's eyes lit up. "That's right, I'm making user maps!" Wu Bo also thought of another scenario: when users open the map and make selections, he could mark the subsidy level above each merchant's name, and that would generate advertising revenue.
"Oh my, Mr. Lin, you are truly amazing! You are a business prodigy! You can continue the meeting, I'll get back to work."
Soon, Lashou.com launched its user map feature. Lin Chen was very accommodating and forwarded Lashou.com's update announcement on Huasuan.com's official Weibo account, after all, he had received five million from them.
Wu Bo thought Lin Chen was really generous; he truly provided excellent after-sales service. So, he sent another 100,000 RMB worth of Lashou.com's no-threshold discount to Huasuan.com.
Lin Chen casually sent these coupons to An Rou, asking her to distribute them to the company employees.
Xingchen Technology has grown significantly. Last year at the annual meeting, the company only had 14 people, but now it has nearly 40. The website department has recruited a group of programmers, the game department has recruited several designers, and there are also departments for logistics, art, finance, and so on. Can you imagine? Xingchen Technology now even has a receptionist, and she is a very pretty young woman who was personally interviewed by Lin Chen!
An Rou divided the coupons equally among the employees of each department in the company's leadership group, allowing the department leaders to distribute them as they saw fit.
After Lashou.com launched this feature, transaction volume increased significantly. Seeing that this move was really effective, Wu Bo pressed his advantage and started burning money on subsidies to grab market share. He even spent a lot of money to hire Ge You as a spokesperson.
"Let's do group buying on Lashou, it's a deal!"
Seeing Lashou's aggressive offensive and its market share declining daily, other group-buying websites couldn't sit still any longer and began to study Lashou's user map.
After conducting research, it was found that implementing this feature was not difficult, but firstly, they needed map data, and secondly, they needed to compete with Lashou for subsidies.
However, these group-buying websites, one by one, none of them have as much money as Lashou. But no matter what, they have to grit their teeth and keep up, otherwise they can just announce their withdrawal.
Lei Jun's secretary rushed in from Xiaomi Technology, forgetting to even knock on the door.
"Mr. Lei, we've received many calls today from people at group-buying websites who want to integrate our map data."
Lei Jun was taken aback, then overjoyed: "As expected, Brother Lin was right! Let's go downstairs and find President Lin."
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