PDLP Chapter 117 The Double 11 Battle
Chapter 117 The Double 11 Battle
Chapter 117 The Double 11 Battle (1)
Just as Lin Mu was fully preparing for Singles' Day, inside a private club, Baidu Youa.com, Tencent Paipai.com,
The operations managers of eBay's three platforms are holding a secret meeting.
Mr. Li, the head of Baidu Youa.com, spoke first: "You all know that Taobao Mall was reorganized into the Tmall project department this year, right?"
Wang, the operations manager of Paipai.com, frowned and said, "How could I not know? There's a brat in the Tmall project department who actually trespassed into Tencent's territory and collaborated with the Five Minutes team's QQ Farm. He made quite a stir and even created an online store with annual revenue exceeding ten million yuan. Our project department is extremely envious."
He got angrier and angrier as he spoke: "Damn it, later we went to work with the Five Minutes team, who are all our own people, and they actually raised their prices on the spot! Not only did they want to charge us a huge fee, but they also wanted a sales commission. It was a complete mess."
Mr. Zhang from eBay smiled, thinking to himself: That's because your Paipai.com is incompetent.
After collaborating with the soft white bread brand, QQ Farm introduced several new special plants that could be exchanged for snacks. However, they messed up the project, resulting in several months of waiting for the items to arrive.
Either the goods arrive, but you only receive a few packs, which is a complete waste of money and resources.
Even more seriously, some people suffered food poisoning after eating the snacks they had redeemed.
Ultimately, this is a problem of merchants' lax quality control and inadequate coordination.
If this opportunity had fallen to eBay, they definitely wouldn't have done such a sloppy job. Of course, eBay also has its own difficulties: traffic and funds are limited, and every penny must be spent wisely.
The Five Minutes team's prices are getting higher and higher, with the entry fee for cooperation alone reaching 100 million or more, which they simply cannot afford.
Mr. Zhang put aside his thoughts and said, "It's mainly because there's a guy named Lin Mu on Tmall. He's incredibly talented and knows a lot about marketing. I think he's already helped create several best-selling stores, right?"
Mr. Li, the general manager of Youa.com, was stunned. More than half a year had passed since his last meeting with Lin Mu. In the past six months, Youa.com had done quite well and occupied a certain market share, but he never expected that Lin Mu would be so successful after transferring to Tmall.
It's such a pity we couldn't poach him last time. If we had succeeded, it would have been like cutting off Tmall's two most important arms.
Mr. Li composed himself and said, "Alright, I'll get straight to the point. Tmall is going to launch Double Eleven, and we at AhNet plan to join the fray. We absolutely cannot let Tmall succeed! Otherwise, with Alibaba controlling Taobao in the low-end market and Tmall in the mid-to-high-end market, where will we have any room to survive?"
He added emphatically, "I will allocate 200 million yuan for advertising, plus preferential traffic allocation from Baidu, specifically to capture traffic during Double Eleven. Who among you is willing to join forces?"
Mr. Wang, the CEO of Paipai.com, took a bite of beef, sipped his wine, and immediately declared, "I'll definitely go with them!"
Mr. Zhang, the CEO of eBay China, also waved his hand and said, "I'll join too!"
November 10th, inside a university dormitory.
Zeng Wen had a roommate named Qiao Kai. His family was poor; his parents were farmers who toiled in the fields and were barely literate. After starting university, Qiao Kai's living expenses became extremely tight, and he had to carefully budget even for a single dish at the cafeteria.
On Zeng Wen's recommendation, he went to work in Li Zhi's factory as an assembly line worker. After leaving the factory, he worked as a packer for several well-known online stores in Hangzhou, going to whichever company offered the highest wages. This job also exposed him to a lot of information related to the internet and e-commerce.
Just recently, he learned from his work that Taobao is going to launch a Double Eleven event with huge discounts, many items will be discounted by 50%, and even mobile phones and washing machines will be sold at half price.
After working for the past six months, Qiao Kai had saved a total of 4000 yuan. He originally planned to take the money back home to help his family when he went home for the Chinese New Year, but his parents, after finding out, told him to keep it for himself. "We, as parents, are not capable enough to give you what other people's sons have; now that you have the ability to earn it yourself, we won't hold you back. You can use it to buy whatever you want."
Qiao felt both warm and bittersweet at her parents' words.
In fact, as the son of a poor family, how could he not want to enjoy life like the children of rich families?
He also wanted to wear nice clothes, expensive watches, and smartphones, and he wanted to live a good life, but because he didn't have the money, he could only endure it.
This Singles' Day, he plans to buy something for himself; if he's lucky, he hopes to snag a washing machine to take home to his parents so his mother won't have to work so hard washing clothes by hand anymore.
In the dormitory, several roommates were chatting together. Zeng Wen looked at Qiao Kai and said, "Qiao Kai, did you know there's a big event tomorrow? Lots of things will be on sale."
Qiao Kai nodded: "I know, it's Singles' Day on Tmall. I want to try and see if I can snag a washing machine for my family."
Zeng Wen laughed and said, "It's not just Tmall, eBay, Paipai.com, and Youa.com also have Double Eleven promotions. Paipai.com is the most generous; they give you QQ coins back for every order. They say you get 10 QQ coins back for every order, and there are 500 million slots available on a first-come, first-served basis. I plan to go to Paipai.com to grab some deals first; it's practically like getting free money. You can even cash out QQ coins in the game."
Another roommate chimed in, "I plan to go to eBay first. They have a lot of books starting at 1 yuan during Singles' Day. I happen to want to buy a complete set of Jin Yong's works."
The last roommate said, "Do you guys think these Double Eleven promotions are all copied from Youa.com? I first saw it on Baidu, and Baidu Youa.com's Double Eleven promotion had many brand-name clothes at 50% off. Since they're 50% off, I'm going to buy a Nike shirt."
In 2009, college students were most familiar with sports brands like Nike and Adidas. Luxury brands like LV were not well-known and they didn't care much about them.
Zeng Wen laughed and said, "Sure! Our little dorm room has all of those websites: Paipai.com, Youa.com, eBay, Taobao, and Tmall. Let's each grab our own and see who ends up with the biggest profit!"
Time passed slowly, and soon it was midnight. At this time, the dormitory lights had long been turned off, but in order to snag some Double Eleven goods, Zeng Wen and his group of four went straight to an internet cafe and stayed all night.
As soon as it hit 12 o'clock, everyone immediately put down their CS games, quickly opened their browsers, rushed to their respective target websites, and kept refreshing the pages.
Qiao Kai was the first to rush into the Tmall Double Eleven page. As soon as he entered, a pop-up window appeared, filled with a dazzling array of products: Vivo music phones, low-power washing machines, Seven Wolves clothing, as well as various snacks and daily necessities.
Qiao Kai didn't hesitate and clicked the link directly to the washing machine page.
He stared at the screen, secretly calculating in his mind: He had heard of music phones before, and he had heard that smartphones were particularly powerful. He also wanted to buy one, but the price made him hesitate.
If the price drops below 1000 yuan after a 50% discount, he might grit his teeth and buy it. But right now, his priority is to snag a washing machine.
Qiao Kai had already added that limited-edition washing machine to his shopping cart. He immediately opened the cart, selected the item, and clicked "Pay".
A spinning loading icon appeared on the webpage. Qiao Kai felt a chill run down his spine with nervousness: Could he possibly win the bid?
The next second, the page redirected to the payment interface, prompting him to enter his payment password. A surge of joy instantly welled up in Qiao Kai's heart. His brows relaxed, his body felt light as a feather, his heart pounded wildly, and his blood flowed faster.
To prevent any mishaps, he suppressed his elation and quickly entered his payment password. After entering the password, the page displayed "Purchase Successful".
"Great!" Qiao Kai couldn't help but exclaim in a low voice.
But then he panicked: "Wait, by the way, does this washing machine ship free?"
He was in such a rush to buy that he forgot to ask customer service or check the product details. Now he's frantically contacting customer service to inquire, because for a large item like a washing machine, the shipping costs alone would be a lot if free shipping wasn't included, which he simply couldn't afford.