Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

This statement deeply moved Dangdang Network’s users!

After all, Li Guoqing was a billionaire. By claiming he would ”shine users’ shoes,” he naturally won the support of a portion of them.

Within minutes, the keywords ”Li Guoqing shines shoes” shot up the trending topics list.

”That works too?” Liu Qiangdong was stunned.

He hadn’t even considered Dangdang Network a threat, but right as the big promotion began, Li Guoqing had hyped himself onto the trending list.

Meanwhile, in Yanjing’s Dougezhuang district, a bald, middle-aged man in a striped shirt was watering the surrounding flowers with a watering can.

”Son of a bitch! I can let Zhang Jindong walk all over Gome, but now even Liu Qiangdong thinks he can take a bite out of me? Isn’t he afraid of chipping a tooth?”

The bald man’s pupils constricted, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.

’Looks like I’ve been out of the game for too long,’ he thought. ’These young punks don’t take Gome seriously anymore.’

He had already put the word out: even if it cost Gome three months of profit, he would make Jingdong pay the price.

Far away at the Hang City Ali Headquarters, the members of the FoxTao team rubbed their drowsy eyes and threw themselves back into their work.

’Brother Sen, you’ve really put us through the wringer,’ Xu Kun sighed, grumbling to himself.

Pinbei’s preemptive strike had forced the entire FoxTao team to work overtime. He hadn’t gotten off work until two in the morning last night.

”Brother Kun, do you have any regrets?” Du Yaoyao from the editing team sidled over and asked in a low voice.

She, Xu Kun, Tang Qin from the design team, and Xu Dan from HR had given up the chance to follow Chen Yansen, choosing to join Ali Baba instead. Although the pay was good, their working hours were much longer than before.

Overtime pay? Not a single dime!

”Don’t overthink it. With our education and project experience, we’re lucky to have even joined Ali.”

Xu Kun forced a smile and offered some words of comfort.

’He, too, missed the days when Chen Yansen was his boss. A six-hour workday and full overtime pay—who wouldn’t love that?’

”Let’s see some spirit! As the leader in content-driven e-commerce, FoxTao must seize this opportunity! Use content recommendations and brand collaborations to set a new performance record!”

Wu Ming, the head of FoxTao’s business operations, announced loudly to the office area as he walked by with his assistant.

The price war between the six major e-commerce platforms was still raging!

By ten o’clock, Jingdong’s losses had already reached 20 million!

Sunning and Gome weren’t faring much better. The pain of their losses was so sharp it made them grimace. If this kept up until midnight, wouldn’t they lose 300 million?!

Just then, Pinbei’s ”10 Billion Subsidy” channel began offering users limited-time cash-back coupons: 300 off 2,000, 500 off 5,000, and 800 off 10,000. The move instantly captured the entire internet’s attention.

Pinbei’s already cost-effective home appliances, when combined with these cash-back coupons, were now about 10% cheaper than the prices on Jingdong, Gome, and Sunning.

Pinbei’s renewed assault threw the three companies into a state of panic.

”Match them! Increase the promotion’s intensity! Put a link for high-value ’Dong-Coupons’ on the main event page and bring those prices down for me!”

Liu Qiangdong declared heroically from his command post at the Yanjing headquarters.

’This is no time to back down!’

...

...

「Xucheng, Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park.」

In the first-floor lobby of Building 8, an 80-inch display screen showed Pinbei’s real-time sales data for the day.

”Brother Sen, as of eleven o’clock, Pinbei’s daily visitor count is 63 million, with organic traffic accounting for 3.1%. Large appliance sales have reached 140 million...”

Hu Yun reported nonstop while sitting in front of Chen Yansen, a laptop in his hands.

That 3.1% in organic traffic meant they had acquired nearly 2 million new customers without spending a dime, and high-value customers at that, who were extremely interested in digital products and home appliances.

Chen Yansen finally understood why Handsome Dong was so keen on waging price wars. He might be losing money on paper, but he was gaining a huge amount of free new customer traffic. In the long run, it was absolutely worth it.

”The Haier BCD-216SZ three-door refrigerator, 17,000 units sold; the Daikin S-Series wall-mounted air conditioner, 7,000 units sold; the Mountain Star WF0702WKR front-load washing machine, 4,000 units sold...”

Hu Yun read off the top ten best-selling large appliances one by one.

Chen Yansen glanced at the screen. A negative gross margin of 43 million was still within his acceptable range.

Jingdong, however, was about to buckle!

Watching the negative gross margin climb higher and higher, Liu Qiangdong gradually lost his composure. At noon, he couldn’t help but shoot a look at the Vice President of Procurement and Sales for large appliances.

The man understood instantly. He turned, walked over to the operations department, and had the category operators take down some of the most heavily subsidized products, marking them as ”out of stock.”

As time went on, Sunning and Gome also began to run ”out of stock.”

Fewer and fewer identical products were available for users to price-compare. Clearly, the losses were too severe, and everyone was struggling to hold on.

At 2:15 PM, the General Commerce Association issued a statement: this price war would not be considered malicious competition.

The subtext was clear: ’Go ahead and fight all you want!’

Around 2:30 PM, Sunning’s stock hit its daily limit up, and the company publicly announced that during this ”418 Home Appliance Festival,” Sunning’s business had seen a month-over-month growth of 637%!

At three o’clock, a rumor surfaced that Sunning couldn’t afford to play anymore, accompanied by screenshots showing that Sunning’s product prices had gone back up.

But ten minutes later, Han Pengde jumped in to refute the rumor, declaring they would fight Jingdong to the very end.

Liu Qiangdong immediately shot back: ”Bring it on! Jingdong has prepared 500 and 1,000 yuan ’Jing-Coupons’ for our users, free with every order!”

”As expected of Handsome Dong. Killing three birds with one stone, he’s got Sunning and Gome running in circles.”

Chen Yansen put down his phone and muttered under his breath.

Last year, Jingdong had raised 1.5 billion US dollars from institutions like DST Ventures and Tiger Fund. With that capital nearly exhausted, Liu Qiangdong had taken the initiative to provoke this price war.

First, it was to produce an impressive performance report in preparation for an IPO. Second, it was to thwart Sunning and Gome’s plans to expand online and solidify Jingdong’s industry position in the online digital and home appliance category. Third, it was to attract investor attention and seek the next round of financing.

It couldn’t be helped. Jingdong’s asset-heavy business model was destined to require massive upfront capital investment and made profitability extremely difficult to achieve.

After 3:30 PM, Jingdong, Gome, Sunning, Dangdang, and Yixun Network all experienced widespread ”out of stock” issues.

Forty minutes later, a user complained on Weibo that the e-commerce sites were not honoring their previously promised coupons.

At 4:55 PM, Sunning’s servers crashed, and users could no longer open the website’s homepage.

After the chaotic battle, everyone was outwardly furious but privately very satisfied.

Even Dangdang and Yixun saw their visitor numbers double today.

At 11:30 PM, the lights in Pinbei’s headquarters were still burning bright.

The question now facing the six e-commerce platforms was: should they continue tomorrow?

Chen Yansen glanced at the data. Not counting the 17th, they had lost 230 million today alone.

He estimated that the losses for Jingdong, Sunning, and Gome were at least 200 million each.

Adding Dangdang and Yixun to the mix, everyone had lost nearly a billion in a single day!

Suddenly, the phone on the table rang.

Chen Yansen looked at the caller ID and smiled faintly.