Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

On Double Twelve, Taobao and Jingdong went all out in a fierce competition.

Taobao’s slogan was the ”Nationwide Shopping Spree,” offering 50% off and free shipping on all items. Wealth Treasure also launched a ”Top up 100, get 100 back” promotion.

Ma Liyun was a shrewd operator. He was using Ah Li’s marketing budget to promote his own Wealth Treasure, aiming to increase the payment tool’s market share.

Even frequent online shoppers had an instinctive distrust for third-party payment software like Wealth Treasure.

Most people paid with their online banking or transferred just a few dozen yuan into their Wealth Treasure account at a time, topping it up only after the balance was spent.

But Ma Liyun had high hopes for Wealth Treasure and certainly wasn’t going to sit around and wait for users to come to him. That’s why he activated ”cash-burning mode” for this Double Twelve promotion.

Chen Yansen topped up his own Wealth Treasure account with 100 yuan, and Taobao immediately credited him with a 100-yuan cash bonus. Aside from being unusable for virtual products, it had very few restrictions.

The cash-back bonus could be used on any single purchase of 100 yuan or more, but each person could only participate once.

It was no different from a giveaway!

There were 120,000 spots available during the promotion. This initiative alone cost them 12 million yuan.

Even Chen Yansen, who was accustomed to the intense competition of the internet industry, couldn’t help but be impressed. ’No wonder that a few years from now, netizens will be shamelessly calling Ma Liyun ’daddy’,’ he thought.

The promotional method was simple yet extravagant.

The individual amounts weren’t huge, but the effect was tremendous!

Jingdong, refusing to be outdone, created a marketing slogan of its own: a flash sale on a Smart car, market price 115,000 yuan, for a dirt-cheap ”cabbage price”; upgraded services like extended warranties and on-site repairs; and beautiful female couriers making home deliveries for buyers in first-tier cities.

In addition, 20, 30, and 50-yuan no-minimum-spend coupons were placed in a conspicuous spot on the main event page, released in limited quantities at the top of every hour.

Given Jingdong’s user base at the time, while the 50-yuan coupons were a little hard to get, the 20 and 30-yuan ones were ridiculously easy to claim and use.

When it came to marketing strategies, both Jingdong and Taobao’s tactics were direct and aggressive.

As for Pinbei, its promotional slogan was quite simple.

Shop on Pinbei, every day is Double Eleven. Use Pinbei, shop smarter!

In addition to its existing features, the app now had a new Ten-Billion Subsidy channel.

It was located right in the center of the app’s home screen and in the upper-middle section of the PC website, generating up to 20 million unique visitor impressions per day.

The products featured here were all hand-picked, then run through a price comparison system to ensure they were the lowest on the entire web.

Furthermore, the promotions team also set up 5 and 10-yuan no-minimum-spend coupons, as well as spend-and-save bonuses of 20, 30, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000 yuan.

While the overall scale of its promotions couldn’t match Jingdong’s or Taobao’s, the discounts on individual items were much more aggressive.

However, major e-commerce sales in this era hadn’t yet evolved to the near-impossible complexity of later years, which would be compared to taking the college entrance exams. Most of the complicated marketing tools—like store-specific coupons, single-item coupons, multi-buy discounts, brand-specific credits, category-specific bonuses, and universal bonuses—had yet to appear.

When people shopped back then, they just checked for store coupons and grabbed one if available. If not, they would go through New FoxTao to get a few yuan in cash back, and then they’d complete their purchase, perfectly satisfied.

Compared to a decade or so later, both the platforms and the merchants were far more straightforward.

There were some gimmicks, but not many.

Chen Yansen stood up and walked to the window, gazing at the brightly lit Building 6 across the way.

This was Pinbei’s first major sale!

Everyone was taking it extremely seriously.

They all planned to wait for the day’s sales figures before heading home, so the administration department had booked hotel rooms for everyone in advance.

Chen Yansen pushed the door open, took the elevator down to the first floor, and headed toward Building 6.

「The early winter wind howled as the weather grew colder.」

Besides Pinbei and Orange Technology, there were a few other companies in the Science and Technology Park, but they had all closed for the day, leaving their office buildings completely dark.

Just as Chen Yansen reached the second floor, he heard a customer service representative exclaim excitedly, ”I got it! You really have to be quick to grab this 100-yuan bonus from Wealth Treasure!”

”Jingjing, you’re amazing! Help me get one, I missed out on both rounds.”

another representative with a frustrated look on her face hurriedly asked for help.

”Sure, give me your account info,” Tian Jing agreed readily, her eyes crinkling into a smile.

Chen Yansen’s brow furrowed in exasperation. He shook his head but didn’t say anything.

For these eighteen and nineteen-year-old college students, the chance to easily make 100 yuan was indeed hard to pass up.

Although the 100-yuan top-up balance couldn’t be withdrawn as cash and could only be used for purchases, some Taobao shop owners were already privately advertising in shopping groups that they could help users ”cash out” the bonus for 85% of its value.

Chen Yansen continued on, arriving at the office area for the Investment Attraction team.

”Brother Sen!”

”Boss!”

The ones calling him ”Brother Sen” were Zhang Yifeng, Li Hui, and Yuan Wei. The members of the Investment Attraction team who had joined more recently all called Chen Yansen ”Boss.”

Chen Yansen gave a slight nod in acknowledgment.

He pulled over a chair, sat down, and asked Zhang Yifeng, ”How are the fruits from Xiyue selling?”

”We’ve sold 270,000 orders of sugar tangerines and 190,000 orders of Emperor mandarins. The local agricultural association also said they’ll let Pinbei handle the sales for next spring’s kumquats, Wogan mandarins, and sugarcane.”

Zhang Yifeng replied with a smile.

He, Yuan Wei, and Li Hui had previously spent over half a month in Xiyue. Backed by the stellar sales performance of navel oranges, they had successfully convinced the major fruit growers in the surrounding areas.

When they returned to Xucheng, their suitcases were stuffed with contracts.

”Once Double Eleven is over, spend more time drumming up business in the digital and home appliance industrial zones in Shencheng City. Contact Teacher Cao before you go. Pinbei’s positioning is different from Taobao’s. We have to go straight to the source factories to bypass the middlemen, secure the best prices, and establish a product advantage.”

Chen Yansen patted Zhang Yifeng on the shoulder, giving him earnest instructions.

In his opinion, if Pinbei wanted to break into the top three e-commerce platforms—or even claim the number one spot—it wasn’t enough to just rely on Penguin’s user traffic, the viral growth from group buying, and the ”Bargain” feature for user acquisition.

The core of the strategy was more complex: focus on lower-tier markets to find the right target users; strengthen supply chain management to create a stable supply-side advantage; and optimize logistics and delivery to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

Clound Speed was his hidden gambit, while cooperation with the industrial zones was his overt one.

”Brother Sen, don’t worry. I get it.” Zhang Yifeng nodded emphatically.

Over this period, he had come to understand the difference between working in investment attraction at FoxTao versus at Pinbei.

Back at FoxTao, his contact with merchants was limited to the level of operations managers, store managers, or online heads. He never got to interact with the brand owners, factories, or industrial zone resources.

For example, with a 399-yuan air fryer on FoxTao that had a 60% commission, he had been worried the merchant would lose money.

Only now did he realize that the factory price for an air fryer was less than 60 yuan.

Last week, a new hire on the home appliance team, formerly a category manager at ”Store No. 1,” negotiated a deal with a factory in Cixi for an air fryer priced at 99 yuan with free shipping.

It had only been listed for three days and had already sold a staggering 370,000 units, completely selling out the factory’s entire monthly production capacity.

For this Double Twelve sale, the factory had to run three shifts to produce an extra 200,000 units. Any sales beyond that had to be converted to pre-orders.

Chen Yansen chatted for a few more moments with Yuan Wei and Li Hui.

Before long, a few young women from the administration department came up, carrying large bags of KFC.

”One for everyone! There’s pizza, barbecue, and hot pot still to come. This is just the appetizer!”

Xu Xingxing called out from the top of the stairs.

Hearing this, the people on the second floor gathered around with wide grins.

Chen Yansen was getting up to leave when he saw Song Yuncheng approaching, so he waved her over.

The two of them grabbed some drinks and sat down in the lounge area on the terrace.

”The Chery E5 sold 734 cars, the Aux 1-horsepower air conditioner sold 12,475 units, the YA-MAN beauty device sold 3,278 units, and the 43% Moutai sold 1,945 orders...”

As soon as Song Yuncheng sat down, she started rattling off the day’s sales figures for the merchants she managed.

”Looks like President Song’s commission next month will be pretty hefty. How about treating me to dinner at Mingli?”

Chen Yansen asked with a smile, swirling his drink.

”No.” Song Yuncheng’s face flushed as she refused point-blank.

Treating him to dinner wasn’t the problem. The problem was that as soon as they got back to the hotel, Chen Yansen would find all sorts of ways to torment her.

Every time she thought about all his wild moves, Song Yuncheng would blush to the tips of her ears.

”Then I’ll treat you,” Chen Yansen said with a laugh.

”The moon is nice and full tonight,” Song Yuncheng said, turning her head to deliberately change the subject.

”So are you,” Chen Yansen teased.

Song Yuncheng followed his gaze. When she saw where it landed, she understood what he meant and shot him a playful glare.

「Meanwhile, far away in Yanjing, Liu Qiangdong also hadn’t left the office.」

He sat in his office, eyes glued to the real-time sales data for the day. When the sales figure surpassed one billion yuan, he couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

To put things in perspective, Jingdong’s total sales for the entire Double Eleven festival were only 1.06 billion yuan. Double Twelve’s traffic was much lower than Double Eleven’s, and it was only 8:00 PM, with four hours still left in the sale.

’Right, how much did Jingdong sell through Pinbei?’

With this thought, Liu Qiangdong found the report link sent from the data center and clicked on it.

When he saw the summary total at the very top, his expression froze, and a wave of embarrassment washed over him.

Of Jingdong’s one billion yuan in sales, 16%—nearly a fifth—had come through the Pinbei channel.

’Pinbei has been live for less than a month,’ he thought. ’Just how many daily active users does it have?’