Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

No. 335, Guoding Road, Eleme headquarters.

”As of 7:30 PM, the delivery order count for Xuhui District is 713. Currently, only 29 riders are still online, which is only thirty percent of our workforce in the area.”

Wang Yuan, head of the Market Department, reported the numbers, his brow tightly furrowed.

Compared to yesterday’s numbers, Eleme’s market share in Xuhui District had plummeted by ninety percent, and they had even lost seventy percent of their delivery riders.

The mood in the meeting room instantly became oppressive.

Zhang Xuhao took off his black-rimmed glasses, lit a cigarette, and took a deep drag. As the smoke filled his lungs, his frayed nerves eased ever so slightly.

He looked to Kang Jia beside him and asked, ”You’re the head of the logistics department. Nearly all our riders in Xuhui District have jumped ship to Kuai Pao. Tell me, what should we do?”

As one of Eleme’s co-founders, Kang Jia was primarily responsible for merchant partnerships, ground-level marketing and expansion, and delivery operations.

In the project’s early days, he had delivered food by day and written code with Zhang Xuhao by night. Among the riders who had just left Xuhui District were many old hands who had struggled alongside him for three or four years.

But when faced with Kuai Pao’s lucrative offer—a 1,600-yuan base monthly salary, full social insurance and housing fund, accident insurance, quarterly bonuses, and inclement weather subsidies—these very same people had been swayed in an instant.

In a single afternoon, more than sixty of them had quit. The remaining twenty or so were merely waiting to see how Eleme headquarters would respond.

”Raising salaries is our only option. Otherwise, the market we worked so hard to build in Yangpu, Hongkou, Jing’an, and Xuhui District will be completely lost to Kuai Pao in less than two weeks.”

Kang Jia said with a helpless shrug.

Deng Ye, who was in charge of administration and finance, chimed in, ”Based on Eleme’s current order volume, if we match our riders’ salaries to Kuai Pao’s, our logistics department’s monthly labor costs will increase by thirty percent.”

”Whatever Kuai Pao offers, Eleme must offer too! Kang Jia, notify the managers of all our rider stations. Starting in February, all of Eleme’s delivery riders will receive full social insurance, a housing fund, and accident insurance.”

After a long moment, Zhang Xuhao shot to his feet and instructed Kang Jia.

He knew that if they didn’t act fast, every last one of Eleme’s riders would jump ship to Kuai Pao within a week.

”I’ll draft the new employment contracts as soon as possible.”

Deng Ye nodded, responding at once now that he saw Zhang Xuhao had made up his mind.

”No problem. I’ll go make some calls right now. The priority is to stabilize morale and keep our rider team from collapsing.”

Kang Jia gave a slight nod.

The first clash between Kuai Pao and Eleme ended in a total defeat for the latter.

「Meanwhile.」

News of the two delivery platforms fighting over customers was reported and shared by social media influencers, quickly shooting into the top 20 trending topics.

”So jealous of everyone in Hu City. Order a free milk tea from Eleme in the morning, then a free fried chicken cutlet from Kuai Pao in the afternoon. Living the dream!”

”@Kuai Pao Delivery @Chen Yansen When is Kuai Pao Delivery launching in Jinling? I can’t wait!”

”Even though Eleme is a local Hu City company, I gotta be honest, Kuai Pao’s service quality is just better!”

”The CEO of Kuai Pao is from Hu City, too. Besides, am I supposed to check the founder’s hometown before I order takeout?”

”First time ordering from Kuai Pao Delivery. The rider called and said my food got stolen, but the platform immediately sent me a 12-yuan voucher with no minimum purchase. Not bad.”

Users flocked to the comments section, all chiming in with their own opinions.

The majority of commenters were from Hu City. While their feedback was all over the place, most users who had ordered from Kuai Pao Delivery shared the same general impression: the deliveries were prompt, the riders were neatly dressed, and they were always smiling and polite.

This prompted people in Hu City who ordered food but had never downloaded Kuai Pao to flock to the Orange Application Mall, Wandoujia, and the Tencent Appstore to search for, download, and try the app.

An hour later, even more comments from Hu City users flooded Weibo.

”Eleme’s delivery speed is terrible. I usually only dare to order things like milk tea or savory snacks. I’d never order a hot meal or soup because it’s always cold by the time it gets here. Kuai Pao is completely different—my food arrived in under half an hour.”

”There’s a notice on the app’s homepage that promises delivery within 29 minutes of the restaurant finishing the order. When it comes to timeliness, Eleme should really take a page out of Kuai Pao’s book.”

”Learn? How are they supposed to learn? I chatted with a Kuai Pao delivery guy today. They get a base salary, full social insurance and a housing fund, and quarterly bonuses. Their electric vehicles, uniforms, helmets, and delivery containers are all provided by the company for free. They’re guaranteed to make at least seven or eight thousand a month.”

”How much? Seven or eight thousand?! Hey, guy who posted that, can you delete your comment? Asking for a friend... he’s feeling a little depressed after reading that.”

In Hu City in 2012, many recent graduates from community colleges or less-prestigious universities didn’t even make 4,000 yuan a month at their first job.

As the online discussions raged, Pei Yi, Kou Zhen, and the others were in their office, staring at the day’s real-time data.

”21,000 orders! Sales of 679,000! Hu City is on another level. The average order value is a huge step up from Luzhou.”

Kou Zhen said with a smile.

”This first step went more smoothly than I expected. Thank God we had the guys from Cloud Speed backing us up. Otherwise, issues like order backlogs and system overloads would have cost us both merchants and users.”

Pei Yi replied, leaning against his desk.

”Over sixty of Eleme’s riders from Xuhui District have already joined Kuai Pao. That should significantly ease our delivery pressure tomorrow.”

Kou Zhen chuckled gleefully.

He hadn’t expected that they would dismantle Eleme’s rider team before they had even begun their major push on the merchant and user fronts.

Simply put, even if Eleme got orders in Xuhui District tomorrow, they would have hardly any riders left to deliver them.