Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

On November 20th, the third day after Pinbei went live.

Excluding the Orange Mobile Phone, individual product sales for the Jiuyang rice cookers, Midea electric kettles, Mercury four-piece bedding sets, and Xiyue navel oranges all exceeded five million yuan.

In the Jiuyang flagship store, sales for electric fans, air fryers, space heaters, and electric hot pots all surpassed 100,000 units, with the store’s total sales reaching 50 million yuan.

And this was only after two days.

In the small appliance sector, Jiuyang was only considered a mid-range brand. Above it were brands like Philips, Panasonic, and Tiger, while competitors at the same level included Supor, Galanz, and Povos.

Seeing Jiuyang sell tens of millions worth of goods on Pinbei, Li Mingzhe, the General Manager of Supor’s e-commerce department, flew into a rage. He roared at his subordinate, ”Why aren’t we on Pinbei? Get Zhao Bo, the one in charge of channels, in here now!”

At the beginning of the year, the founder of Supor had transferred 20% of his shares to the French SEB Group through a private agreement.

Now, Supor’s department managers were all professional managers selected by SEB. For them, performance was the only currency for career advancement.

Three minutes later, a middle-aged man in a suit with his hair parted neatly to the side ran into the office, panting. He bowed his head and asked, ”Manager, you were looking for me?”

”Pinbei’s merchant recruitment team contacted Midea and Jiuyang. Why did they skip over Supor?”

Li Mingzhe stared coldly at Zhao Bo, his tone hostile.

Normally, when a platform invited a brand to join, it was the brand that had to suck up to the platform. But Supor was a top brand in the domestic small appliance market.

The business development teams of some smaller platforms would even slip money to the channel managers just to get Supor to open a store.

Li Mingzhe knew Zhao Bo. The man was slick and had a bad habit of soliciting kickbacks, but he was highly capable, which was why Li Mingzhe valued him.

To put it bluntly, Zhao Bo was his trusted confidant.

He was chewing him out so harshly as a signal for Zhao Bo to come up with a good excuse and shift the blame. Otherwise, he’d have a hard time explaining this to the board of directors.

”Manager, it’s not that I didn’t want to join. President Meng from Taobao, the one in charge of small appliances, sent word that if Supor joins Pinbei, they’ll throttle our traffic during the Double Twelve shopping festival.”

Zhao Bo’s mind raced, and he used something that had just happened today as an excuse.

Pinbei’s merchant recruitment staff had contacted Zhao Bo. He had hinted that they should offer a bribe, but they didn’t. So, Zhao Bo decided to play hardball and make them wait.

He never expected that as soon as Pinbei launched, its sales performance would be so astounding, attracting the attention of upper management and leading to Li Mingzhe’s interrogation.

”Which President Meng? I’ll talk to him myself at the Taobao merchant conference next week. Ignore him. Just get the Pinbei onboarding process finished immediately.”

Li Mingzhe waved his hand dismissively, clearly not taking a mere small appliance category manager seriously.

He was a businessman who valued channels above all else. If every platform forced brands to choose one or the other, how could they possibly do business?

Smaller brands might be afraid, but he wasn’t!

At the same time, he was quite pleased with Zhao Bo’s quick thinking.

In reality, the Ah Li of 2011 wasn’t that domineering yet. It was just a low-level category manager who, fearing Pinbei would affect his own performance metrics, had warned Zhao Bo in private.

「Meanwhile.」

Starting in the afternoon, the phones at Pinbei’s merchant recruitment department wouldn’t stop ringing.

Brands that had previously given the recruitment team the cold shoulder had done a complete 180. They were now incredibly eager to pay their deposits and sign the onboarding agreements.

This was why Chen Yansen had focused only on promoting Midea, Jiuyang, Xiyue navel oranges, and Mercury Home Textiles in the initial phase.

By concentrating traffic and creating a few classic success stories first, he was making a silent declaration to the outside world.

Come to Pinbei, and you’ll make money!

In the simple mindset of the Chinese people, no one would easily share a profitable opportunity.

That’s why when the merchant recruitment team contacted these brands, they were mostly rejected.

After all, back then Pinbei didn’t even have a prototype product. How could it guarantee sales?

But as it turned out, the first batch of merchants to join made an absolute killing!

Take rice, for example. There were only two types on the entire Pinbei Mall—a 2.5 kg bag and a 5 kg bag—both from the same rice processing factory in the Northeast.

In two and a half days, they had sold a cumulative total of 130,000 orders of rice!

Although the gross margin wasn’t high, the total gross profit was substantial, netting 200,000 yuan a day.

Across categories like food, apparel, small appliances, beauty, and home goods, there were only 500 merchants in total, yet five million users were flooding in every day.

Pinbei’s top merchants were raking it in, and even the smaller merchants were doing very well, with daily sales reaching over a hundred thousand yuan.

Suddenly, merchants were flocking to them, and the merchant recruitment department was severely understaffed.

Chen Yansen sat in his office, looked at the hiring budgets for various departments that Xiong Li had brought him, and approved them without a second thought.

Pinbei had just launched, and the company currently had just over 300 employees.

Based on the current volume of business, they would need to expand to at least 1,000 people to escape the predicament of constant overtime and insufficient manpower.

RRRING—!

The phone on his desk suddenly rang.

Chen Yansen picked it up, put it to his ear, and asked casually, ”What’s up?”

”Boss, our warehouse in Yiwu got smashed up. The computers, trucks, shelves, printers, and copiers—they were all destroyed. Fuck! Should we hit back?”

Liao Wei quickly explained the situation and then asked for Chen Yansen’s thoughts.

He didn’t elaborate, and Chen Yansen didn’t press for details.

Neither of them was a fool. They knew in their hearts that the culprits were most likely competitors.

Even though it was 2011, the courier industry was one where most of the bosses came from rough, gangster-like backgrounds. They were powerful newcomers who had originally been in the freight business.

It wasn’t just about pulling knives; when things got heated, it wouldn’t be surprising if someone ended up dead.

”Hit back with what? We pay our taxes legally. We’re legitimate businessmen. Call the police first! Were any of our employees injured?”

Chen Yansen immediately rejected Liao Wei’s suggestion.

”No one was hurt. I’ve already transferred equipment and personnel from nearby stations to clean up the mess in Yiwu.”

Liao Wei was a bit surprised to hear Chen Yansen’s response. He had expected the young man to be hot-headed, not so calm and collected.

”Since they’re getting desperate, let’s drop the price by another 0.5 yuan and see how they react.”

Chen Yansen snorted coldly and gave his order to Liao Wei.

The courier business wasn’t his main focus anyway. He could easily operate at the cost line and wear down the ”Three Passes and One Reach.”

”Alright, I understand.” Liao Wei hung up.

His earlier suggestion to ”hit back” was just to show Chen Yansen where he stood.

Since the boss wanted to go through legal channels, he wouldn’t have to resort to those shady tactics, and he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

That same day, Cloud Speed Express reported the incident to the police.

In 2011, there might not have been many surveillance cameras elsewhere, but they were everywhere at express delivery stations.

Liao Wei, having learned his lesson from the counterfeit liquor incident last year, had installed numerous surveillance cameras, both visible and hidden, at every station.

The wires to the obvious cameras had been cut, but there were also micro-cameras. Although the footage wasn’t perfectly clear, the builds and general appearances of the perpetrators were visible.

After all, the property damage amounted to hundreds of thousands of yuan, and the report had been filed personally by the legal team from Cloud Speed Express headquarters.

The local police station took the case very seriously.

Before midnight, all five men who had smashed the equipment were arrested.

Under brief questioning, they all confessed.

The five men were employees of Speed Peak Express. They had been incited by their station boss, who had promised to pay each of them ten thousand yuan.

They hadn’t expected Cloud Speed Express to have so many cameras. Even though they had destroyed quite a few, they were still caught on video.

As soon as Liao Wei received the news, he immediately reported the investigation’s findings to Chen Yansen.

Chen Yansen knew that given Speed Peak’s size, a station boss wouldn’t bother paying out of his own pocket to hire people to trash a Cloud Speed station and warehouse.

It was highly likely that Speed Peak headquarters was behind it.

He thought for a moment, then instructed Liao Wei not to settle. If Speed Peak wanted to play games, then they would send the perpetrators to prison and see who caved first.

”Yes, Boss,” Liao Wei replied.

When news spread that the Cloud Speed Express station in Yiwu had been vandalized, the station bosses of the ”Three Passes and One Reach” companies all cheered.

But it wasn’t long before the local police station made the arrests.

The group couldn’t help but curse Liao Wei for being so treacherous, installing so many cameras in his stations.

Cloud Speed Express’s relentless stance also made them realize that this Liao Wei was different from the man he used to be.

Of course, with Chen Yansen’s personality, he wasn’t about to let Speed Peak off the hook easily.

He immediately instructed his lawyers to sue Speed Peak Express, including its headquarters.

Winning or losing the lawsuit wasn’t important. His main goal was to ruin their reputation and crush their business.

At the same time, Chen Yansen sent the surveillance footage to Wang Zihao, telling him to contact Youku, Tudou, and the three major web portals to get the video trending.

”Five Speed Peak Couriers Vandalize Cloud Speed Express Station!”

”Would You Dare Use a Courier Company Like This? They Assault Customers!”

”Speed Peak Courier Assaults Customer at Their Home After a Complaint!”

In addition to the incident of them vandalizing the Cloud Speed station, Wang Zihao also dug up some of Speed Peak Express’s past scandals.

Even news from two years ago was pushed into the trending topics with the help of money and traffic manipulation.

In a short period, Speed Peak Express’s fame instantly surpassed that of ”Three Passes and One Reach,” Shunfeng, and Jingdong.

Except, it was all negative press!

”President Liao, it was just some franchisee acting foolishly. You don’t have to be so ruthless, do you?”

Chen Feilei, the boss of Speed Peak Express, called Liao Wei.

”Who are you kidding? I don’t believe for a second that those couriers would keep their mouths shut knowing they’re facing three years in prison.”

Liao Wei hadn’t wanted to answer the call, but he couldn’t resist firing back with a curse-laden retort.

”Fine, we’ll see about that.” Chen Feilei wasn’t worried at all. He hadn’t been directly involved, so he could easily deny any connection. ’What’s there to be afraid of?’

As for those idiots, they were sloppy. They deserved to go to prison and work the sewing machines.

Chen Feilei had done this sort of thing many times before; he wasn’t the least bit afraid of Liao Wei’s threats.

But what he didn’t know was that Chen Yansen had already released the video of Speed Peak Express couriers vandalizing the station, along with gruesome photos of a customer who had been beaten by a Speed Peak courier.

This immediately sparked outrage among netizens.

Many online shoppers told merchants directly that they would refuse any delivery sent via Speed Peak Express.

Chen Yansen wasn’t just going after a few couriers. He intended to completely destroy the entire Speed Peak Express company.

’If I’m not ruthless enough, this kind of trouble will never end!’

The next morning, the replacement equipment for Cloud Speed Express arrived. Liao Wei acted quickly, and the day’s parcel pickups were not affected.

But then Cloud Speed announced another price cut for its medium-to-large-sized clients in December. This made the bosses of other courier companies so agitated they felt like smashing Cloud Speed Express’s warehouses and stations all over again.

Cloud Speed’s nationwide price cuts quickly won it a large volume of business, which was followed by rapid personnel expansion.

In just one month, the number of Cloud Speed stations surged, and its courier workforce expanded to over 7,000 people.