Chapter 667 The dog is coming!
"Boss Pang, there's a problem."
"?"
Alipay’s consumption subsidies were launched with great fanfare, and its collaboration with Ele.me and Koubei.com was also highly publicized, attracting countless people in the industry in an instant.
Whether related or not, as long as it has something to do with Internet business, we pay attention to it.
Especially people like Zhang Xuhao who are in the middle of the battle can't wait to witness the end of group buying.
Zhang Tao, who has already been discharged from the hospital, even mobilized all the staff of Dianping.com, intending to join the battle and trigger another group buying war to take advantage of the situation.
The outside world believes that group buying is now a large and powerful company with a group buying supply chain as its foundation and will not be unable to withstand the encirclement and suppression campaign.
But then again, this time Alibaba is the host, Alipay is the leader, and with the addition of "others" in the field of life services, even if group buying can stabilize, it is bound to bleed.
There is no smoke of gunpowder in the business war, but everyone is sweating for Jiang Qin.
But when the subsidy activity was actually launched, something really shocking suddenly happened!
The group-buying business suddenly became extremely prosperous. Not only did they lose users, but even their New Year Festival and in-store promotions were not affected at all.
Alipay spent more than three months mobilizing resources from all sides and invested a large amount of money to enter the market, but it was like a drop in the ocean, with no trace left.
The current situation began to become strange and unpredictable.
This isn't like playing a game, there's lag.
Logically speaking, Alipay couldn’t have had such a dull start with such thorough preparations! The first weekend in early February, coupled with the winter vacation buff and the Chinese New Year, Alipay’s consumer subsidies should have had a strong effect, but the growth trend was still slow.
In addition, a group of old users are using Alipay less frequently.
The worst thing is that the catering sector, where they invested heavily, has almost zero growth. Only supermarkets, convenience stores, fresh food and other retail sectors are still maintaining a good growth trend.
From the beginning of "let the bullets fly for a while" to later, a bad feeling suddenly came.
At 26:00, Zhang Xuhao was still waiting for the bullet to fly for a while, but the atmosphere in Alipay had begun to change. As soon as he entered the conference room, he saw Pang Rui sitting at the front of the conference table, puzzled by the growth data.
The marketing manager pushed the door open and came in, holding a document and looking a little panicked.
"Boss Pang, there's a problem."
“GroupPin opened its online ordering system to merchants in first-tier cities before our subsidy campaign began.”
"What?"
The marketing manager hurried to the front, inserted the USB drive into the computer, pressed the remote control in his hand, and the online ordering interface of a certain store appeared on the projection screen in the conference room.
"From the moment a customer enters the store, they can scan the QR code at the door and wait for a table. After entering the table number, they will automatically jump to the online menu. They no longer need to order in the traditional way. After they have ordered, they can choose to place the order, and then... they will automatically jump to Cloud QuickPass for settlement."
"With this set of procedures, customers will never approach the bar from the moment they enter the store to the moment they leave, let alone pay with the white box."
"in other words."
"They simply bypassed the QR code payment process."
After hearing these words, the scene suddenly fell into silence.
People have imagination, and everyone here is a talent who has been deeply involved in this industry, so they certainly know what this means.
Alipay spends a lot of money on settlement, but group buying locks in customers right from the moment they enter the door.
You have a plan, but I have a ladder.
Zhang Xuhao was the first to be confused: "Impossible, online ordering doesn't need to be popularized? Can we just post a QR code and start doing it?"
Chen Jiaxin also frowned: "Your market feedback actually missed such an important detail?"
The marketing manager pursed his lips and said, "Their online ordering system is directly embedded in the cashier backend. Previously, they promoted their own cashier system everywhere through group buying and asked everyone to wait for their payment box to go online. In fact, it was a smokescreen. What everyone was waiting for was not the payment box, but the ordering code."
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhang Xuhao felt as if his brain was congested.
He seemed to see the group buying people pushing and pulling the waiters of a certain store, and told them to learn how to use our ordering system.
Look, this is for ordering, this is for checking out, and this is for income. Hey, there is also an online ordering function here, how magical! I will teach you about it “by the way”, and you can learn from it “by the way” as well.
Perhaps many waiters themselves did not realize at that time that what they learned was not how to operate the cashier, but how to use the ordering system.
In fact, the cash register system itself has an order-taking function, the purpose of which is to allow merchants to check their accounts.
In other words, they just left a QR code scanning channel in it.
As long as the ordering code is not posted when joining the group buying, no one will know that this thing is actually used in this way.
Payment boxes cannot be put on the shelves in batches in a short period of time, but QR codes are too simple.
It was all a cover-up! Their marketing campaign used such ridiculous methods to complete the first and most important step right under the nose of Alipay.
At this moment, everyone in the conference room felt like they were poured with cold water, and my arrogance to dominate the market was completely extinguished.
They made full preparations both online and offline, using discounts to attract customers, creating a huge flow of traffic to Alipay, and then using Ele.me and word of mouth to retain users, forming a three-way encirclement that was originally foolproof.
But they never expected that group buying would skip all the steps and make the payment box useless.
The frequency of use of Alipay has decreased, so the traffic they expected naturally does not exist. As a result, if Ele.me and Koubei do not have any users left, they will have no chance to retain them.
"wrong."
“That’s not right.”
Pang Rui opened her eyes: "I really didn't expect Jiang Qin to do this, but even so, our growth rate can't be close to zero. There will always be people who will go a few more steps for discounts, right?"
Hearing this, the others also raised their heads, with a hint of confusion in their eyes.
Yes, real money is invested, and even if it is suppressed by other means by friendly businesses, it is impossible for it to be completely ineffective.
What era is this? Consumers are crazy because they don’t even want discounts anymore.
The marketing manager was silent for a long time and then looked up: "In fact, offline catering stores do not recommend using the white payment box to scan the code for payment. Some even remove the white payment box."
"When we sent people to investigate, these stores had even torn down our posters, and some hadn't even torn them up completely, causing many customers to not even know that these stores could use Alipay to settle payments..."
“Why is this happening?!”
"because……"
The marketing manager organized his words: "Because group ordering online saves them almost half of their manpower. Compared with this, the subsidy we give is simply a drop in the bucket."
"Stores where the boss is still there found that they didn't need so many waiters after using online ordering, and costs were greatly reduced. In some stores where the boss is not there, the waiters found that they can run the store normally even if they use their mobile phones all day long. As for the subsidies, those are taken by the bosses, so what does it have to do with them?"
"To put it simply, using Alipay requires paying half of your salary or working an extra day, but using group ordering online doesn't require that. Who would care about that little bit of subsidy?"
After hearing these words, the whole place fell into endless silence.
They suddenly realized that the online ordering system developed by group buying was a liberation of productivity, not just a breakthrough for Alipay.
Zhang Xuhao couldn't help but say: "We can also make a food ordering system, right? This is not difficult!"
"Yes, but under the same conditions, no one can compete with Pintuan in the O2O field. After all, the supply chain in first-tier cities has been integrated by Pintuan, and it can offer lower discounts than us. We have to pay several times more than Pintuan to beat them."
"But the cash register systems are all independent. If you use Cloud QuickPass for cash register, you can't use Alipay for cash register. If we don't follow up, there will be no Alipay in the future O2O market!"
Zhang Xuhao kept calling "we", which was actually just adding fuel to the fire and asking Alipay to continue its attack.
Because only in this way can Ele.me, which is connected to Alipay, get traffic.
The marketing manager looked at Pang Rui and said, "Boss Pang, I don't recommend doing this."
"Tell me why."
"Our plan was based on the fact that group buying was frustrated by our subsidies and we had no power to fight back. However, group buying users have not left. Alipay has the ability to compete with UnionPay for the market, but I'm frank that Ele.me cannot do that without Koubei."
The logic of the marketing manager is easy to understand. If group buying is at a disadvantage, Alipay, as the dominant player, can lead two weak players. Even if the two weak players have never won, they can still continue to create trouble.
But group buying is no longer at a disadvantage now, and it would be a miracle if Ele.me couldn’t compete with Koubei.
After hearing this, Zhang Xuhao was so furious that his lips trembled and he almost slammed the table and left.
Chen Jiaxin pursed her lips in silence, thinking that lies don't hurt people, but the truth is a sharp knife...
Pang Rui didn't say anything, because she found that after just one round of fighting, the team had thrown the dilemma back to herself.
She and Jiang Qin had met quite a few times, but only now could she clearly feel how frightening it would be to be his opponent.
The scariest thing was that she felt Jiang Qin was really weird.
Logically speaking, when your opponent makes a move, you start racking your brains to think of a countermeasure. Then you are so awesome, you think you are a business genius, and you finally think of a way to break the deadlock. But you still have to spend time preparing, right?
But for some reason, she always felt that he had already thought about his opponent before she had even thought about her own moves. This was really a ghost...
Pang Rui knew that she couldn't panic and couldn't make decisions easily, otherwise she would be forced into Jiang Qin's rhythm.
And judging from the performance in business wars over the years, such as the group buying war and the takeaway war, Jiang Qin is invincible in his own rhythm, and his words are like the roar of a lion, and they are definitely not empty words.
She decided not to attack the catering market first, but to stabilize the retail market that she had already gained.
Do you also scan the code to order when you go to supermarkets and convenience stores? Impossible! The next second, a message from Kyoto Market caught Pang Rui off guard.
"Mr. Pang, some Linchuan brands, such as Snack Convenience Store, Xianhui Xiansheng, Beilan Dessert, and Xitian Milk Tea, have started using the QuickPass Yellow Box."
"How is that possible? They started in the middle of the month, and it will take time to mass produce them. Besides, there's also the New Year's Day holiday!"
"We snatched one back and sent it to you by express. The production date marked on the box is... September."
"Cloud opening materials?"
“No, it’s a product from another IoT R&D company.”
(Please give me a monthly ticket, please give me a monthly ticket...) (End of this chapter)
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