Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

The next day, at the crack of dawn, the sky was just beginning to lighten.

Chen Yansen slowly opened his eyes, threw back the corner of his blanket, and slipped on his slippers before walking out to the living room. A torn Avatar cosplay costume was tossed carelessly on the floor.

He sat down at his desk, opened his laptop, and logged into the data backend. Just five hours after Pinbei’s major promotion had started, real-time sales had already surpassed two billion Hua Yuan.

’Looks like hitting the five-billion target will be a piece of cake!’

Chen Yansen muttered under his breath after a quick glance.

Major e-commerce platforms like Tmall, Pinbei, and Jingdong had been setting the stage for a month. Whether it all paid off would be decided today.

「Meanwhile.」

Meng Xin, the founder of Ah Fu Essential Oil, hadn’t slept all night. He couldn’t get through to the director of beauty procurement and sales at Jingdong, so he tried sending a WeChat message to Liu Qiangdong, but that too vanished without a trace.

Even someone as slow on the uptake as him had figured it out by now.

For adults, not answering calls and not replying to messages often made one’s attitude perfectly clear.

”Son of a bitch, Liu Qiangdong! If you’ve got a problem with Ma Liyun, don’t use me as your damn weapon!”

Meng Xin cursed, his face dark as he gritted his teeth.

As a leading online beauty brand, Ah Fu Essential Oil had sold 28 million in the 2011 Taobao Double 11 promotion, ranking it in the top five for its category. This year, it set a new record during the 618 promotion, achieving an impressive 37 million in sales, second only to Yu Nifang, Procter & Gamble, and Perlaia.

Therefore, to increase company revenue, Meng Xin had unhesitatingly opened stores on Pinbei and Jingdong, hoping to gain more traffic and orders.

Last night, just as he was about to leave work, he received a call from Hu Li, Pinbei’s merchant operations manager. She was demanding to know why the promotional price for Pinbei was 30% off the retail price, while Jingdong was getting a 50% discount.

Meng Xin was completely dumbfounded.

Under his strict control, the promotional prices for Ah Fu Essential Oil were supposed to be consistent across all platforms—Tmall, Pinbei, and Jingdong—as well as their own official stores and specialty shops.

For one, this prevented customers from price-shopping across the internet.

For another, it reduced friction and conflict between the different sales channels.

Otherwise, if they sold it for 69 on Taobao and 79 on Jingdong, did they really think the platform representatives would agree to that?

Upon hearing this, Meng Xin immediately went to verify it. To his surprise, Jingdong, without a word of warning, had forcibly changed Ah Fu Essential Oil’s promotional price to a 50% discount, bringing it down to 39 Hua Yuan, and was even throwing in free gifts.

Meanwhile, the same product was selling for 69 Hua Yuan in the main beauty sections of Tmall and Pinbei.

Without a moment to think, Meng Xin urgently told his operations team to change the price back.

”Boss, Jingdong locked the merchant backend! We’re blocked from changing the price!” The operations staff member tried to adjust the price, only to find he had no permission at all.

A chill ran down Meng Xin’s spine. Hu Li had given him only ten minutes. If he couldn’t solve the problem, Pinbei would immediately delist all of Ah Fu Essential Oil’s products, including those featured on the Ten Billion Subsidy Channel.

Based on his projections for the Double 11 event on Pinbei, Ah Fu Essential Oil stood to lose over 20 million in sales.

He hurriedly had his operations team contact the Jingdong procurement and sales manager, but the person wouldn’t answer their phone or reply to texts, simply playing dead.

Meng Xin was frantic, pacing back and forth!

Immediately after, the beauty representative from Tmall Mall also began pressing him. ”Does Ah Fu still want to participate in Taobao’s Double 11? Either lower your price or delist all your products from Jingdong.”

’Delist?’

’I’d f*cking love to, if only I had permission!’

For a moment, Meng Xin wanted nothing more than to drive through the night, storm the Jingdong Headquarters Building, and demand an explanation from Liu Qiangdong.

But on second thought, ’would the procurement and sales team dare to pull a stunt like this without Handsome Dong giving the order?’

Meng Xin knew with chilling clarity that if he didn’t resolve this problem quickly, the company’s entire Double 11 promotion and its Q4 performance would be ruined.

In just one hour, Ah Fu Essential Oil had sold eight million worth of products on Jingdong.

Although he explained the truth to the merchant operations teams at Pinbei and Tmall, Ah Fu Essential Oil’s products remained hidden from search results.

From Hu Li’s perspective, regardless of Meng Xin’s reasons, Ah Fu Essential Oil’s actions had already harmed the interests of both her company and its users.

Even though Ah Fu was a top beauty brand, according to their contract, Pinbei had the right to deduct cash from the store’s security deposit to compensate users who had purchased the product at a higher price.

Tmall Mall, on the other hand, didn’t make Ah Fu Essential Oil pay compensation, but the representative’s tone was anything but polite. ”Ah Li can build Ah Fu Essential Oil up, and Ah Li can just as easily crush it.”

In the Tmall representative’s eyes, Meng Xin was simply causing him trouble. How could he not understand how crucial Double 11 was?

Mr. Ma and President Zhang were both watching!

If the big bosses noticed, his year-end performance review would be slapped with a ’3.25’ (the lowest score, with 3.5 being average and 3.75 the highest). Two of those in a row, and he’d be ”happily” collecting his severance package.

As for Meng Xin’s explanation, he couldn’t be bothered to care!

This left Meng Xin with only two paths: side with Jingdong, or side with Pinbei and Tmall Mall.

From a business perspective, there was almost no comparison.

Although Jingdong was also a major online sales channel, its sales volume was 70 to 80 percent lower than that of Pinbei and Tmall Mall combined.

Meng Xin decisively abandoned Jingdong. At 3:15 AM, in his capacity as the CEO of Ah Fu Essential Oil, he posted a statement on Weibo: ”Effective immediately, Ah Fu will be pulling out of Jingdong. Ah Fu Essential Oil will not be responsible for, nor will we ship, any Double 11 orders placed on the Jingdong platform.”

Handsome Dong had backed him into a corner, and Meng Xin wasn’t giving Jingdong an iota of face in return.

He had made his defiant stand, but his contacts at Pinbei and Tmall Mall had long since gone to bed.

Meng Xin sat alone in his office, chain-smoking cigarettes. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until this whole mess was resolved.

The period from midnight to 8:00 AM accounted for at least fifty percent of the total orders and sales generated during the promotion.

In other words, because of Jingdong’s dirty move, Ah Fu Essential Oil’s sales for the major promotion were likely to be cut in half.