Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

The next morning, after finishing breakfast, Chen Yansen returned to room 0418 and summoned the system panel.

Counting the 43 wisps of Human Dao Fire left from before, he now had a total of 12,338 wisps.

’Synthesize! Add points!’

As his will focused, thousands upon thousands of white wisps of mist condensed. In just a few seconds, they transformed into a single, chopstick-thick strand of golden mist that then burrowed into the space between his eyebrows.

Immense energy erupted in his head. A warm sensation instantly enveloped his entire brain, and golden specks attached themselves to his cerebral cortex.

Immediately after, the specks slowly seeped into his brain, greedily absorbing the golden mist like a sponge soaking up water.

A dozen or so seconds later, Chen Yansen let out a long breath. The sensation this time was much stronger than before. After all, he had just consumed over ten thousand wisps of Human Dao Fire.

His Spirit value rose to 12.48!

In a daze, Chen Yansen felt as if he could see his bedroom, his bathroom, and even the hallway outside his door.

He subconsciously closed his eyes. His surroundings were not pitch black as he had imagined, but a field of gray.

He could perceive the outlines and positions of his bed, desk, computer, phone, water cup, and shoes.

The ability felt innate, not relying on any of his physical organs.

Chen Yansen wasn’t sure if this was a talent that came with his strengthened Spiritual Power, or simply the result of memorizing his surroundings with his superhuman memory.

After a moment of thought, he grabbed his jacket and car keys and headed downstairs.

After getting in his car, he drove straight out of the East Gate of Xuyuan.

After leaving the vicinity of the school, Chen Yansen actually closed his eyes.

He was very familiar with this road, but the speed and position of the vehicles on it were constantly changing.

A minute later, Chen Yansen opened his eyes, his suspicion finally confirmed.

With his current Spirit value, he could live normally even with his eyes closed.

However, he could only make out the rough outlines of passing vehicles and roadside buildings.

Objects more than 10 meters away became increasingly blurry in his perception.

It made no difference whether his eyes were open or closed. This ability relied on his Spiritual Power, which was more than ten times that of an ordinary person.

He could sense someone walking past him, but he couldn’t make out their features.

’If my Spirit value increases to 100, or 1000, will I be able to see things clearly?’

Chen Yansen sat in his car, pondering to himself.

This ability was like a primitive version of an externalized Divine Sense. Objects within a ten-meter radius appeared in his mind like simple line drawings.

It allowed him to perceive the size, distance, and temperature of the objects around him!

’This damn system is actually somewhat useful.’

Chen Yansen gave a faint smile and then drove to the Science and Technology Park.

”Good morning, Boss!” the receptionist, Zhang Yi, greeted with a smile.

Chen Yansen nodded slightly, walked to the elevators, and went up to the 11th floor.

He had two offices: one on the 5th floor of Building 8, and another on the 11th floor of Building 6.

It might seem wasteful, but he didn’t want to have to go all the way back to his office in Building 8 after a meeting at Pinbei.

DING. The elevator doors opened.

Besides his office, the 11th floor housed Pinbei’s Marketing, Finance, and Legal Departments.

Walking into his office, Chen Yansen plopped down in his chair, turned on his computer, and began by reviewing the monthly business and financial reports sent by the various department heads.

Pinbei had been online for 13 days, with 54 million cumulative registered users and 9.1 million daily active users, which showed how high user stickiness was.

This was mainly thanks to the ”Bargain for 0 Yuan” and group buying features. After User A placed an order, they needed to pull in User B to complete the group, which naturally boosted the daily active user data.

Total platform sales reached 2.73 billion yuan. Excluding sales from Orange Mobile Phones, the remaining amount was 1.12 billion yuan, with an average transaction value of only 26.9 yuan.

This was also why Chen Yansen had introduced Jingdong’s self-operated products. By increasing the proportion of high-value items before users’ impressions of Pinbei’s products solidified, he could raise the project’s growth ceiling.

In terms of registered brands, there was 1 S-tier brand, 197 A-tier brands, 516 B-tier brands, and 921 C-tier brands.

S, A, B, and C were classifications for Pinbei’s registered merchants, created by the category operations team by referencing FoxTao’s merchant-tiering experience.

S-tier brands were internationally renowned big names with counters in China and abroad, a presence in physical supermarkets, and their own built-in traffic and popularity. Examples included L’Oréal, Kohler, Dyson, Madam Fang, and Haier.

As for Pinbei, aside from Song Yuncheng using her past experience with brand marketing collaborations to bring Haier on board, they hadn’t managed to sign a single other S-tier brand.

This was partly because Pinbei’s low average transaction value made the big brands look down on it, and partly because Pinbei had just launched and lacked influence in the industry.

A-tier referred to well-known domestic brands with over 50 counters in CBD shopping malls in first-tier cities and wide distribution in supermarkets. Examples included Xtep, Anta, Sanyo, Vatti, and Yu Nifang.

B-tier brands were those with regional renown, a certain level of fame in a specific area, or outstanding online performance. Examples included Adolphe, Gujing, James, and Kang’erda.

C-tier brands were pure white-label products that targeted the low-to-mid-end market, relying on extreme cost-effectiveness and online marketing.

On Pinbei, brands of different tiers received different amounts of traffic.

Besides a brand’s own influence, price was also a key factor.

For products of the same type, a weight was calculated based on Brand × Price × Conversion Rate × Gross Margin. If a B-tier brand’s weight value was greater than an A-tier’s, the B-tier brand would receive more exposure than the A-tier.

Meanwhile, C-tier brands that met sales targets could also submit an application to Pinbei to be upgraded to B-tier.

It was like Florasis, which was later made popular by the number one male streamer. It was originally a white-label brand (C-tier), but after its sales and popularity increased, its strength was actually on par with a B-tier brand.

Chen Yansen glanced at the report. The proportion of A and B-tier brands was too low.

In his previous life, the reason Pinduoduo had found it so difficult to change user perception was its excessively high proportion of C-tier brands.

To put it bluntly, the vast majority of people had never even heard of these brands. So when users wanted to buy high-value items, why would they ever think of Pinduoduo?

Chen Yansen didn’t want to repeat the same mistake. From the moment Pinbei launched, he had deliberately included 99-yuan rice cookers and 129-yuan four-piece bedding sets in the product selection to retain high-value users.

BEEP BEEP BEEP—!

A message popped up in the bottom-right corner of his screen.

Seeing it was from Song Yuncheng, Chen Yansen clicked it open.

”Boss, Chery Automobile has completed the onboarding process. Their marketing department wants to replicate the previous brand promotional event from FoxTao, with a budget of about 10 million.”

”Okay. Have Zhuang Rui design a fixed event template for these kinds of requests.”

Chen Yansen agreed immediately.

At this time, Chery was under immense inventory pressure. The inventory cycle for its downstream distributors generally exceeded 80 days, with some even reaching 150 days, putting them at an extremely high risk of a broken capital chain.

This was why Chery’s marketing department was looking everywhere for sales outlets. Besides Pinbei, they had also approached Taobao and Jingdong, attempting to expand their sales channels online.

After all, their previous marketing campaign on FoxTao had been remarkably effective. Afterward, Chery had participated in Taobao’s Singles’ Day Auto Festival and sold over 200 cars.

”Okay, understood.” After replying, Song Yuncheng left her desk and went to the product department to find Zhuang Rui.

Chen Yansen closed the spreadsheet and opened the November performance and financial report for Cloud Speed Express.

Operating revenue was 110.4 million yuan, and operating costs were 146.2 million yuan, for a loss of over thirty million yuan.

But excluding expenses like truck depreciation and hub rental fees, the actual profit was over 13 million yuan.

This showed that raising the couriers’ salaries wouldn’t cause any operational difficulties for the company at all.

Besides, Cloud Speed Express was in a phase of rapid expansion, with large upfront investments and a business volume that hadn’t yet caught up.

Once they established a firm foothold in the East China Market, they could still be profitable even if they lowered the delivery fee to 2 yuan per order.

Chen Yansen then checked the on-time delivery rate, positive feedback rate, and customer retention rate, all of which had improved by more than 20% compared to October.

This proved that the Cloud Speed Couriers weren’t incapable of doing their jobs well; they had just lacked the motivation to do a good job due to their previous low income.

After studying the couriers’ daily pickup and delivery volumes, Chen Yansen thought for a moment before calling Liao Wei. ”Starting in December, the Cloud Speed Couriers, like the headquarters staff, will be on an overtime pay system.”

Liao Wei listened and replied with a wry smile, ”Boss, I’m worried that the people under me will slack off. What if they dawdle during the day just to milk the overtime pay at night?”

He had worked his way up from the bottom and was keenly aware of the dark and cunning side of human nature.

”Set a baseline standard based on the median number of pickups and deliveries. Whether a policy is good or not depends on its execution. If someone is really trying to game the system, just fire them.”

Chen Yansen retorted with a smile.

He understood Liao Wei’s concerns, but he believed that as long as the plan was well-structured, paying employees more would definitely be a good thing for the project’s development.

”Fine... Alright, I’ll draft a proposal first.” Seeing that Chen Yansen had made up his mind, Liao Wei knew he couldn’t persuade him otherwise.

With that, Chen Yansen hung up the phone.

「Meanwhile.」

Pinbei’s ”Bargain for 0 Yuan” module was upgraded. In addition to the original mobile phones, small home appliances, household goods, snacks, and fruits, a new and easier-to-obtain 30-yuan cash prize was added.

”@everyone Help me out! Pinbei has a new cash bargain feature. My friend got it after inviting only 5 people. It’s super easy!”

”You there? Help me slash the price!”

”One slash, one yuan! Online and begging for help!”

For a time, university students and white-collar workers were the first to jump on it. Getting 30 yuan in cash just by roping in a few colleagues was so easy it was hard to refuse.

”Congratulations! Your friend slashed 19.9 yuan!”

”Congratulations! Your friend slashed 9.9 yuan!”

”Congratulations! Your friend slashed 0.1 yuan!”

For the vast majority of people, only 0.1 yuan would be left after three slashes. The fourth slash would cut off 0.09 yuan, and faced with that final 0.01 yuan, most people would invite more friends to keep slashing.

What they didn’t know was that if the first four people were new users, pulling in just one more new user would get the progress bar to 100%, earning them the 30 yuan in cash.

If the first four people were active users, they would need to pull in another 4 to 5 new users.

The acquisition costs for new users, old users, and users who hadn’t placed an order had all been clearly defined in the code before the event went live.

Calculated based on a netizen population of 500-600 million, 90% of users at this time had not yet registered for Pinbei.

With such a powerful promotion, Pinbei’s 30-yuan ”slash the price” links spread like a virus to every corner of the internet.

QQ groups, WeChat groups, BBS forums, and the news comment sections of Weibo, NetEase, and Sohu were all flooded with Pinbei’s invitation links.

Some people even went to Taobao to threaten sellers, saying they would leave a negative review if the seller didn’t help them out. The merchants were full of complaints about it.

The methods were vulgar, but the results were undeniable.

On December 1st alone, new customers acquired just from the ”Bargain for 0 Yuan” feature reached over 3 million. Chen Yansen only had to spend less than 5 million yuan in marketing costs, making the cost per acquisition (CPA) less than two yuan per user.

’No wonder Huang Zheng was cursed out so badly but still insisted on pushing the ”slash the price” feature. This thing is truly a master at manipulating people.’

Chen Yansen murmured to himself as he looked at the data sent by Hu Yun.