Lin Chen stood up, ripped the mask off his face, and replied, "That's me. What can I do for you?"
Zhang Yong sighed. Since we're already here, let's chat first: "Hello, I'm Zhang Yong from Alibaba. I sent you an email yesterday."
"Oh, Mr. Zhang, hello, hello. Please have a seat. An Rou, go and make two cups of coffee."
Zhang Yong was a little dazed when he saw An Rou bring over two cups of Nestlé instant coffee. He hadn't had instant coffee like this in years.
Lin Chen took a sip of his coffee and spoke up, "Mr. Zhang, you've come here for Singles' Day, haven't you?"
Hearing Lin Chen's words, Zhang Yong began to take it seriously. The Double Eleven plan had not yet been officially released. How did Lin Chen know about it?
"Mr. Lin is very well-informed. May I ask what your thoughts are on Taobao's Double Eleven event?"
"Mr. Zhang, I must say that Taobao's Double Eleven is an event that will go down in history in China's online shopping history. The holding of this event is enough to establish Taobao's leading position in China's online shopping industry."
Zhang Yong was very happy to hear Lin Chen's words. No matter who it is, it is a happy thing to hear that one's hard work has been recognized and appreciated.
Lin Chen continued, "It seems that Mr. Zhang is facing some difficulties. Let me guess, is it because there are too few participating merchants? Does Mr. Zhang want to invite more merchants to participate and expand the influence of the Double Eleven shopping festival?"
Zhang Yong narrowed his eyes. Lin Chen's words were already quite direct, so he stopped being polite.
"That's right, Mr. Lin. I saw the Huasuan.com model and thought it was a stroke of genius for online shopping, so I wanted to see if there was any possibility of cooperation between us?"
Lin Chen laughed and said, "Haha, Mr. Zhang, even if you hadn't come to see me today, I would have visited Alibaba in Hangzhou in a while. Moreover, I believe that with Mr. Zhang's vision, he can see our website's profit model at a glance. So, let's just talk about our needs."
"Haha, Mr. Lin is straightforward, so I won't beat around the bush either. I want to make sure that from the start of the Double Eleven pre-sale period until the end of the Double Eleven event, the price comparison results on Huasuan.com consistently place Taobao Mall first, and no other search results can offer a better price than Taobao Mall's Double Eleven promotion."
Upon hearing this request, Lin Chen smiled and asked, "So, Mr. Zhang, what price are you willing to offer?"
"Mr. Lin, I'd like to ask, what is the current daily active user count of Huasuan.com?"
"The daily active users are around 100,000."
Zhang Yong looked disappointed. For Taobao's size, 100,000 daily active users was still too few.
"However, our Huasuan.com has only been online for a week."
"What?!"
A small company, a new website, 100,000 daily active users in a week? That's impossible, absolutely impossible.
"Mr. Lin, is this data accurate?"
"Of course it's true. I can check it for you right now if you don't believe me."
Lin Chen logged into the database and directly checked the total number of users currently in use, which showed 130,000.
"It's gone up by tens of thousands again today, not bad, not bad." Lin Chen said happily as he looked at the latest data.
Zhang Yong stared at the data displayed on the screen, looking somewhat dazed. The data seemed too unreal. According to what he had learned last night, this company was currently only targeting the university town market, and there were no Huasuan.com advertisements in other places. University students were the main force of online shopping, and Huasuan.com's users and Taobao were a natural fit.
Tens of thousands of users and tens of thousands of daily active users are two completely different concepts. If all those tens of thousands of college student users placed an average order on Taobao during Singles' Day, the transaction volume would be terrifying.
Moreover, with half a month to go until Singles' Day, Huasuan.com's daily active users may exceed 300,000.
After thinking for a moment, Zhang Yong said, "Lin Chen, I can offer five million."
"How about this, Mr. Zhang? I'll pass on the five million. Let's do a collaboration. I'll set up a Double Eleven special event on the homepage of Huasuan.com. During Double Eleven, if customers compare prices on Huasuan.com and then place orders on Taobao Mall, and a return occurs, Huasuan.com will fully reimburse the return shipping costs. Taobao will also promote Huasuan.com on its Double Eleven event page."
"Return shipping fee..." Zhang Yong pondered these four words, his eyes lighting up. Lin Chen's move was not just about reimbursing a few dollars for shipping; it could also greatly increase sales. Zhang Yong planned to broadcast the sales figures for this Double Eleven event in real time. The higher the sales figures, the more successful the event would be, and the more stable Taobao's position would be.
As for the return of the goods, that doesn't matter. Returning goods is a normal business practice.
Lin Chen's ingenious method of subsidizing return shipping costs greatly alleviated the concerns of customers who worried about returning unsuitable online purchases.
Since returning them is free, I might as well buy them all and try them out.
"Haha, Mr. Lin is indeed a genius. It's decided then. I'll go back and have the technical department communicate with you immediately."
After exchanging contact information, Zhang Yong left Xingchen Technology.
On the way, the secretary asked, "Boss, we can handle the return shipping fee ourselves, so why did you still cooperate with Xingchen Technology?"
"You can't do business like that. If I plagiarize Xingchen Technology's idea today, Alibaba's reputation will be ruined, and no other company will be willing to cooperate with us tomorrow. Even if they do cooperate, they will be wary, which would be even more of a loss. Moreover, with Lin Chen around, Huasuan.com will only grow bigger and bigger in the future. Alibaba and Xingchen Technology are not in competition, and cooperation may increase."
"I...I understand." The secretary nodded in embarrassment.
Inside the startup center, An Rou was also asking Lin Chen, "Boss, you don't even want the money that's offered to you, it's five million!"
"Pshaw, only five million? Our current goal is to build a user base, ride the wave of Taobao's Double Eleven shopping festival, and piggyback on their advertising. That's worth way more than five million. Besides, do I really need five million?"
"Big dog."
The next day, Alibaba's technical team contacted Lin Chen. The cross-promotion feature wasn't complicated and was quickly implemented. That afternoon, news of the collaboration appeared on the homepages of both Taobao and Huasuan.com.
The entire online shopping industry was shaken.
"Return shipping costs? How come I didn't think of that? I need to quickly calculate the costs." This is almost a must-say sentence for all the online shopping platform owners today. Every online shopping platform owner who has seen the details of the cooperation between Taobao and Huasuan.com has keenly grasped the keyword "return shipping costs".
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