Chapter 423: A little greedy, let's do it bigger
In mid-November, group buying websites in second- and third-tier cities had signed enough merchants, officially launched their business, and invested a large amount of money into it.
If group buying gives a 20% discount, I will give a 40% discount, or even half price.
Such behavior instantly aroused enthusiastic market feedback, and the number of users of companies like Lashou, Nuomi, 24quan, Wowo.com, etc. continued to increase.
This was the first wave of offense and defense in second- and third-tier cities, and it went so smoothly that it was unimaginable.
Group buying is like a crispy chicken, being chased all the way.
But just like Jiang Qin’s original idea for promoting Zhihu, they seek quality in the promotion of first-tier cities, but quantity in the second- and third-tier markets.
This means that a regional manager cannot take comprehensive care of all cities.
After all, Sui Xin Tuan only served Shanghai and Shenzhen in the beginning, and the number of team members had exceeded 2,000. If every city did the same, the labor cost would be too high.
So the routine is that the elite team pushes forward, signs a group of the most popular merchants to enter the market, and then forms a local team to maintain relationships with the merchant group, continue publicity, and expand business areas.
There is competition between teams, especially in the front-line market, where a large number of KPIs need to be completed every day.
As the company is not yet profitable, each team needs to sign more contracts and make more deals in order to guarantee salaries and bonuses.
The rush, tension, competition, and elimination constantly stimulate everyone's mind.
Many times, as soon as the group buying website is listed on the positive review list, it is turned upside down by the sales teams of other websites.
Because signing a contract with one of the above merchants may be enough to cover the transaction orders of three to five merchants.
But... there are exceptions.
Xiao He from Nuomi.com recently begged everyone for help to sign up three new stores on the group buying hot list, but the results were not very ideal, as these stores did not seem to have much of a mass base.
However, with the opening of discounts, the transaction volumes of these stores in the later period were also good.
Anyway, the market is so competitive, who cares about those things?
In addition, the management of many websites are also analyzing and learning the routines and models of group buying, and what they want to learn most is the group buying praise list.
But the praise list for group buying was actually established by many local college students and is highly localized, but other websites do not have this channel, so even if the homepage was updated and a praise list was added, it did not make much splash in a short period of time.
“There are a few companies that we still can’t negotiate with.”
"Yes, he seems very stubborn. No matter how much the entry fee is, he won't agree."
"In fact, this is almost the same. The market share is almost 50-50 with group buying."
"If we could build a good review list, it probably wouldn't be so difficult to beat."
"That's going to be hard to beat, right? We... can't beat them."
"In fact, teamwork is already very impressive. There are only a few of them, but they can hold out for so long. Their fighting power is really high. I heard that the boss is a college student? From a martial arts school, right?"
"They have been doing this for a long time, and the user experience is not bad, and the audience base is deep, so it's normal."
"But the local websites can't survive..."
Song Yaqian is a senior this year and chose to leave school to start her own business. When Luo Ping acquired Higoutuan last time, he admired her very much and gave her an opportunity to intern at the Tianjin branch.
However, when she arrived in Tianjin and heard everyone talking about group buying, her mind went blank and she didn't react for a long time.
How come I hear people talking about Jiang Qin’s website here?
After she took over part of the branch work, she realized that Pintuan was competing with Lashou.com in Tianjin.
And it's not just Tianjin, group buying can also be seen in several cities such as Xijing and Shangcheng.
She was a little confused, because she knew that Jiang Qin was the boss of Zhihu and had natural publicity advantages and barrier advantages in the university town business circle. It was normal that she could not beat him in her own shopping group.
But she couldn't imagine that a college group buying website would dare to go out of school and compete with those capital-backed websites for the market. They were not even on the same level! Although Jiang Qin had a lot of connections in the group buying market, even Ye Ziqing's best friend had to call him uncle, but didn't Sui Xin Tuan fail miserably and was finally acquired? Song Yaqian was a person in this industry, but with her way of thinking, she didn't understand Jiang Qin's purpose at all.
This is a winner-takes-all game. You either win or lose. If he doesn't sell the website now, does he want to be the winner in the end? This seems a bit ridiculous, since we are all college students.
"What's this……?"
"The best reviews, the best food, and... Crazy Thursday?"
When Song Yaqian came to Tianjin, she did nothing else but to understand the business situation and she was analyzing Pintuan.com.
She found that compared with the group buying in Kyoto University Town, the group buying in second- and third-tier cities has been upgraded a lot.
Although their market is being eroded little by little by LaShou, the praise list is really intuitive.
She even suspected that group buying had hired special food critics to write food reviews for these stores.
But she had been away from school for too long and didn't even know the existence of the friend group. If you invite them to dinner, these college students will really pour out their knowledge.
In addition, there is the so-called Crazy Thursday. Every Thursday, they will concentrate a wave of funds to offer crazy discounts at a specific time. Although Lashou.com has attracted some customers, every Thursday, there will be countless repeat customers coming back for group buying.
Such pulling is very disadvantageous for the fast-playing hand-pulling net.
Moreover, Song Yaqian felt that both the field sales and supervisors of the Tianjin branch had neglected the purchasing power of the university town.
But with these advantages, does Jiang Qin expect to win in this crazy vortex? How is it possible?
"Jiang Qin, have you opened up a new business area?"
As Song Yaqian's message was sent to the QQ group, a group of college students in the group showed up.
They have also been looking for ways to sell the website recently. As the national group buying network has expanded into the lower-tier markets, half of the people have already sold their websites. But when they heard Song Yaqian say that the group buying network was still expanding its business outside, everyone was puzzled.
"Mr. Jiang is still expanding the market?"
"No way, now is the best time to sell it. If we really wait until the end of the year, it is very likely that we won't be able to sell it."
"I was passing through the provincial capital by bus yesterday and I seemed to have seen a flyer for group buying. I thought I had seen it wrong at the time."
Jiang Qin does not work in all second- and third-tier cities. In fact, he is still developing his business circle along the path of Zhihu promotion, including Tianjin, Xijing, Shangcheng, Linchuan, Xingcheng and Ningbo.
In the entire market layout, these cities, together with the four first-tier cities, can cover the north and the south, have greater mobility, and can radiate at any time.
Therefore, apart from those group members who had been lurking like dead, many people said that they heard about it for the first time and they didn’t understand it.
But soon, news about Jiang Qin appeared in the group.
"I'm a bit greedy. I'll sell it when it's bigger."
“…”
After a moment of silence in the group, Jiang Qin arrived at the group buying headquarters, parked the car and went to the technical department.
In recent times, the temperature in Linchuan has risen a lot, and the snow on the road has almost melted. Only in places where there is no sunlight can old snow be seen.
Jiang Qin came to his own office, made a cup of hot tea, and waited quietly.
Soon, Sunai came down from the technical department on the fifth floor: "Boss, why does our technical department's office have to be on the fifth floor?"
There is no elevator inside the group buying building, and Nanako has been running up and down these days, feeling very annoyed.
"The technical department is full of older stay-at-home guys. Their lumbar discs are already bad. They age slower if they exercise more. As people's entrepreneurs, we should not only care about KPIs, but also the health of our employees."
Jiang Qin made a convincing argument, then changed the subject: "How is the work of the technical department going?"
"The internal management system has been optimized and has passed the security test. It can be put into use. In addition, I have added an anonymous boss mailbox function as you requested."
The boss’ mailbox is a channel through which formal employees at all levels can directly provide feedback to Jiang Qin.
Generally, no one uses this thing, because reporting to a higher level is a taboo in the workplace, and employees do not believe that there is such a thing as anonymity in the world.
But once someone takes the risk and uses it, it means that something is happening inside that has to be dealt with, so it is better than nothing.
"Well done, Nanako. The technical department will have three days off. I'll have Xu Yu transfer the bonus to your account tonight."
Jiang Qin changed the subject after he finished speaking: "But when you come back from vacation, your first priority is to build a good product management system. This must be completed before next month."
As they were talking, Wei Lanlan came up from downstairs. "Hey, Su Nai is here too, so I don't have to call you. Wait for me downstairs at 1:30."
"knew……"
Jiang Qin had a question mark on his face: "What are you doing at half past one?"
Sunai took a deep breath and said, "Go take the make-up exam for subject two."
"You haven't passed that damned subject 2 yet?"
"No."
Jiang Qin gave a thumbs up and said, "I advise you not to take the test. You can just hire a driver in two years."
Sunai narrowed his eyes and thought, what a big, big pie, the boss is really getting more and more bold.
Jiang Qin turned to look at Wei Lanlan again: "Did your brother take it?"
Wei Lanlan nodded: "I have already picked it up."
Lanlan's family lives in a mountainous area. The local educational resources are poor and few students can pass the exams. Most young people start helping with housework after finishing junior high school and go to work in factories when they reach a certain age.
Wei Lanlan had suffered a lot herself, so she had always wanted to send her youngest child to school so that he would not lose at the starting line. Jiang Qin now had some connections in all walks of life in Linchuan, so handling this matter was no problem at all. He helped to get it done with just two meals and even chose a very good school for him.
“Have the bosses who participated in the strategic marketing come yet?”
"I came here to inform you of this matter. Everyone is here and waiting in the conference room on the second floor."
"Okay, I'll go over and see him."
(End of this chapter)
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