After the Alipay executives returned, they discussed the matter and decided to try recruiting merchants first.
If we can find brands willing to pay a premium, then we can run this red envelope giveaway event.
This is mainly to prevent any unforeseen circumstances. If there are no brand owners, Taobao will suffer huge losses, and in the end, this loss might even fall on Alipay's branch.
As it turns out, the person in charge of Alipay was indeed a visionary.
Because there really wasn't a single brand involved, it was indeed a little embarrassing.
Ultimately, the event came to nothing.
Learning from the previous Weibo incident, the Alipay executive did not email Jack Ma, but instead went to Ma's office in person to report the situation.
Jack Ma was so angry that he smashed his own cup.
"You could have just sent me an email about this. Why did you have to come all the way to my office? Were you here to mock me? I'll deduct the cost of the broken cup from your salary today!"
Alipay representative: I really am...
Helpless, she could only say, "Mr. Ma, there's nothing I can do about this. But if you think about it from another perspective, the more Pinduoduo gives away, the more it loses. I see that Pinduoduo's red envelope cutting activity is getting a lot of attention online right now. If everyone tries to cut red envelopes, won't it bankrupt Pinduoduo?"
Jack Ma's eyes lit up. "That's right! No matter how much money Pinduoduo has spent on recruiting merchants for its red envelopes, if the people who claim the red envelopes don't spend money on Pinduoduo, then you're bound to lose money. And the more people claim the red envelopes, the more you lose."
"Great idea, that's a fantastic suggestion. I'll give you a bonus at the end of the year."
Alipay representative: ? ? ? What did I say?
But who would refuse a bonus?
"Thank you, Mr. Ma. I'll head back to work now."
On that day, Jack Ma ordered people to start promoting Pinduoduo's "cut red envelope" activity on Taobao's big data platform, and declared that given the long-term friendly cooperation between Taobao and Pinduoduo, the amount of the "cut red envelope" from Pinduoduo could be used to make purchases on Taobao, and on Singles' Day, customers would receive an additional 10 yuan no-threshold consumption coupon.
At the same time, Jack Ma also issued an internal notice instructing all Alibaba employees to go to Pinduoduo to claim red envelopes and then make purchases on Taobao. They could receive a 20-yuan no-minimum-spend coupon by virtue of their employee status.
When Taobao released its big data announcement, Huang Zheng was so angry that he almost rushed to Alibaba's headquarters to confront Jack Ma.
No, Jack Ma, your methods are too dirty.
Jack Ma: Where is it dirty? I'm doing this for the benefit of consumers, okay? Ask the consumers if they agree.
Consumers are naturally very happy, as they get an extra ten yuan for no reason. Who wouldn't be happy?
Huang Zheng called Lin Chen to complain.
"President Lin, Jack Ma is really shameless. He would do something like this. As a result, all the money I send out will end up on Taobao."
"Mr. Huang, I know you're in a hurry, but don't rush. Although Jack Ma's actions are a bit shameless, it's about making money, so there's nothing shameful about it."
"So what should we do?"
Lin Chen thought for a moment and said, "Here's what you do: pretend to be a customer and ask Taobao how they determined that I actually got a red envelope on Pinduoduo. In principle, Taobao shouldn't have any way to get the data on getting red envelopes on Pinduoduo."
"Okay, I'll go find a few more people to ask Taobao customer service together."
The next day, Huang Zheng called Lin Chen again.
"Mr. Lin, I've found out. Taobao only needs users to provide a screenshot of the amount they spent on Pinduoduo's red envelope promotion to directly issue them a voucher."
Lin Chen laughed after hearing this and said, "Hehe, then things are simple. Let me explain..."
After hearing what Lin Chen said, Huang Zheng's expression turned smug: "President Lin, we still need you to pull off some amazing moves."
"Ahem, don't talk nonsense. I'm such a positive person."
That evening, Pinduoduo suddenly launched a small promotion.
To promote the Mixin Moments feature, users can earn an extra 1 RMB by sharing a screenshot of the "Cut Red Envelope" interface to their Mixin Moments.
Moreover, you can freely enter the amount of the red envelope you cut in the shared screenshot. Even if you only cut one cent, you can write it as ten thousand yuan, and then an image without any Photoshop traces will be automatically generated.
This immediately sparked a lot of fun among netizens.
What? 1314, 520, 888... people fill in all sorts of amounts, not for any particular reason, just to post it on their WeChat Moments and show off.
Suddenly, images of people cutting off the amount of money in red envelopes were all over the internet.
Then, clever netizens discovered a bug in the game.
They can just find a screenshot online and send it to Taobao to ask for a coupon! It's a no-minimum-spend coupon anyway, whether they use it or not is another matter, they might as well take it.
Even if they are not Pinduoduo users who offer coupons, they can still contact Taobao customer service to get coupons.
However, Taobao's event announcement stated that the coupons could only be claimed by contacting customer service the day before Singles' Day. No problem, I'll just wait a bit longer; I'll save the screenshots first anyway.
At first, Jack Ma hadn't noticed Pinduoduo's shady tactics and was still basking in his own cleverness.
He felt he had Lin Chen completely under his control. He thought that when Pinduoduo lost everything, Lin Chen would still be laughing.
Three days later, Zhang Yong rushed into Jack Ma's office in a panic.
"Mr. Ma, something terrible has happened."
"What happened?"
"Pinduoduo has released a feature that generates screenshots of the amount received in Pinduoduo's 'cut red envelope' promotion, and these images are now all over the internet."
"Heh, what's so special about that? It's just for showing off..."
Before Jack Ma could finish speaking, he suddenly remembered the announcement of an event that Alibaba had released earlier.
"Oh no! If that happens, Taobao will be giving out so many coupons that people will be overwhelmed!"
"Yes, that's the problem. Because we can't get Pinduoduo's real data, we can only give out coupons based on screenshots. But now screenshots are everywhere. You can just download one from the internet and send it to our customer service."
This made Jack Ma anxious. He originally wanted to attract Pinduoduo's users, but now he's attracted not only Pinduoduo's users, but users from the entire internet.
Just a few days ago, he said that the more Pinduoduo gives away, the more it loses.
Now things have changed, and it's my turn. Taobao is going to become a platform where the more you give away, the more you lose.
Taobao itself probably gives away two or three hundred million coupons, each worth ten yuan, which adds up to two or three billion yuan.
Who gives away billions in coupons? That's ridiculous!
But the event has already been announced, so we can't just cancel it. If we go back on our word like this, Taobao will lose its credibility, and we might as well not even bother with Singles' Day.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
