Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

”You son of a bitch, you’re fucking ruthless!”

Meng Xin glanced out the window. A sliver of dawn was just appearing. He couldn’t help but yawn before muttering a curse.

It wasn’t until 9:30 AM that Ah Fu Essential Oil’s promotional placements on Pinbei and Tmall Mall returned to normal.

And as soon as netizens woke up, they were served a fresh helping of e-commerce drama.

The founder of Ah Fu Essential Oil was publicly feuding with Liu Qiangdong, and netizens were eating it up. But for the users who had purchased Ah Fu Essential Oil products on Jingdong, their moods instantly soured after reading Meng Xin’s Weibo post.

They thought they’d snagged the lowest price online, only to find out Ah Fu wasn’t going to ship their orders!

This group of people immediately contacted Jingdong’s Customer Service Department for confirmation, only to receive an ambiguous reply: ”The platform is currently communicating with the brand. Please be patient.”

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ—!

The phone on the table suddenly started vibrating.

Meng Xin picked it up. The caller was the very same beauty and cosmetics procurement and sales director who had been unreachable.

”President Chen, what’s the matter?” Meng Xin asked, feigning ignorance.

’He’d already offended them all anyway, so what the hell was there to be afraid of? He usually had to kiss up to these big shots, but now he couldn’t be bothered to keep up the act.’

”President Meng, as of 9:30, Ah Fu’s sales on Jingdong hit 12.7 million, with 213,000 orders. One of my subordinates made a mistake and moved Ah Fu’s products from the 30% off pool into the 50% off promotion. It was just a marketing bug. But you’ve been spouting nonsense on Weibo, and if this affects Jingdong’s investment attraction work, the company might just send you a letter from our lawyers.”

Chen Yongqiang, the beauty and cosmetics procurement and sales director, issued a veiled threat.

’A marketing bug?’

’Trying to fool me like I’m a three-year-old!’

Meng Xin scoffed. He didn’t believe a single word Chen Yongqiang was saying.

’We’re both old foxes. Who do you think you’re trying to fool with these fairy tales?’

”A lawyer’s letter? Who are you trying to scare? You used me as a pawn, don’t think I don’t know it! Ah Fu will not be processing those Jingdong orders. Sue us if you want. We’ll see who ends up losing more!”

Meng Xin immediately shot back.

’He’d been through the wringer in the business world for years. Was he supposed to be scared of a lawyer’s letter?’

The two went back and forth for a few awkward minutes before Chen Yongqiang hung up and reported the matter up the chain of command.

Half an hour later, Jingdong began canceling Ah Fu Essential Oil orders en masse, compensating each account with a 10 Hua Yuan no-minimum-spend coupon. The Customer Service Department was notified that for highly agitated customers threatening to complain to the Market Supervision Association, an additional 10 Hua Yuan in compensation could be offered, up to a maximum of 30% of the original order value.

The Singles’ Day Grand Promotion wasn’t even halfway through, and the first major consumer rights incident had already erupted.

Both Ah Fu Essential Oil and Jingdong were blasted onto the trending charts!

In response, Jingdong issued a statement: ”Ah Fu Essential Oil voluntarily participated in the 50% off promotion. They backed out at the last minute because they were threatened by another e-commerce platform and were offered a better promotional deal.”

Subsequently, they produced a screenshot of the e-contract showing Ah Fu Essential Oil’s participation in the ”Desert Storm” promotion to prove they were not at fault and that it was Ah Fu Essential Oil that lacked contractual spirit.

When Meng Xin found out, he was so angry he almost had to laugh.

The contract itself was fine, but when it came to the discount, he and the junior procurement agent had agreed on 30% off, not 50% off.

However, this wasn’t specified in the contract, leaving Meng Xin to suffer in silence, unable to voice his grievance.

Jingdong had turned the tables, flinging mud at both Tmall and Ah Fu.

Before long, Tmall responded: ”We don’t force merchants to make a choice. It is up to the merchants themselves to decide which platforms they use and which promotions they run.”

The subtext was clear: this had nothing to do with Tmall.

Netizens quickly flocked to the official Weibo accounts of Huang Zheng, Chen Yansen, and Pinbei, relentlessly demanding answers and determined to get to the bottom of it.

”Pinbei never interferes with its merchants’ choices,” Huang Zheng replied simply, passing the buck.

’So if none of them were at fault, does that mean the customers were?’

In reality, the unwritten ”choose one of two” rule wasn’t unique to Ah Li; Pinbei had it as well.

It was something that could only be understood, never explicitly stated.

If anyone asked, the official answer was always ”no.”

Any brand featured on the main promotional page for Tmall or Pinbei that dared to also participate in Jingdong’s ”Desert Storm” event would see their store traffic drop from 3,000 visitors to single digits in a heartbeat.

The moment the brand withdrew from the ”Desert Storm” promotion, their traffic would instantly jump back to its previous level of 3,000.

Although the three major e-commerce platforms weren’t openly at war, they were constantly making moves against each other behind the scenes.

By twelve noon, Pinbei’s cumulative sales had already reached 3.7 billion Hua Yuan.

Leveraging its network of over 3,400 forward-distribution warehouses across the country (some converted from existing express delivery hubs) and the instant delivery capabilities of its Kuai Pao Deliverymen, Pinbei had already delivered 500,000 orders before the second half of the Singles’ Day promotion even began.

The speed was beyond anything customers could have imagined!

Although Ah Li put out similar reports every year about some customer receiving their package in a dozen minutes or so, any discerning observer could tell it was just a publicity stunt.

The number of those orders was minuscule!

Pinbei, however, was a different story. Between 9 AM and 12 PM, relying on its advanced warehouse operations model and the logistical capacity of Cloud Speed and Kuai Pao, it had effortlessly completed 500,000 deliveries.

This was because these items—shampoo, body wash, toilet paper, laundry detergent, phones, tablets, and small appliances—had been shipped to the forward-distribution warehouses as early as two weeks prior.

With the final delivery distance from the warehouse to the buyer’s home being no more than ten kilometers, the efficiency was naturally astounding.

「Meanwhile.」

Delivery companies like Best Express, Shunfeng, Tiantian, and Guotong were all experiencing overflowing warehouses. Their stations were completely packed with outgoing parcels, piled up like mountains.

Cloud Speed wasn’t faring much better.

Liao Wei’s eyes were bloodshot. He had only gone to sleep after 2 AM and was already awake by 7 AM.

In the East China, North China, Central China, Southern China, and Northeast regions, the number of parcels collected in the morning alone had exceeded 20 million.

To put that in perspective, Cloud Speed Express’s total daily capacity was only 10 to 12 million parcels. At the current rate of collection, the final volume for the day was projected to hit 40 million.

Liao Wei was about to lose his mind.

This posed an enormous challenge to Cloud Speed’s warehouse sorting capacity and last-mile delivery coordination!

What’s more, many areas in North China and East China were hit with rain and snow, obstructing road transport and delaying flights. The busier things got, the more prone they were to chaos.

How could Liao Wei possibly sleep? He personally took command at the Hu City headquarters, organizing the nationwide dispatch of logistical resources. He also went through Zheng Shengyu to leverage their relationship with Air China, incorporating its air freight capacity into their transport network.

”We should’ve bought more planes!”

Liao Wei slapped his thigh and exclaimed.

Previously, Cloud Speed had purchased eight used passenger jets from Air China, had them converted into cargo planes in Temasek, and had only just put them into service a few days ago. Now, they were proving their worth.

But compared to a volume of over 40 million parcels, those eight cargo planes were merely a drop in the bucket.

They helped, but it was still an immense struggle.

That was why he had no choice but to borrow Air China’s spare capacity. However, the cargo load of a passenger plane was a far cry from that of a dedicated freighter, so it could only serve to slightly alleviate the pressure.

The results of the 2012 Singles’ Day far exceeded everyone’s predictions.

Pinbei’s sales target was 5 billion!

Ah Li had done 6 billion in sales last year, and their target for this year was 10 billion!

Jingdong’s single-day target was 2 billion!

But all the platforms, including Sunning, Gome, Dangdang, Yixun, and Amazon, had underestimated the explosive power of the Singles’ Day promotion.

Goods began to pile up at distribution centers across the country. Sorters worked in relentless shifts, each one drenched in sweat. Many were so exhausted they collapsed the moment they stepped out of the station.

Delivery companies were even offering the high wage of 300 yuan a day to hire temporary sorters, but many people quit after less than two hours, clamoring to leave.

Meanwhile, customers were still placing orders nonstop.

In 2012, the delivery industry still relied primarily on manual sorting, which was slow and error-prone. Automation was scarce, and a single sorting center could only handle a few hundred thousand parcels a day. When suddenly faced with tens of millions of packages, they were simply overwhelmed.

Ever since electronic waybills became common, Liao Wei, acting on Chen Yansen’s instructions, had deliberately accelerated the rollout of automated sorting equipment. Now, 40% of their sorting warehouses were automated, with an error rate of less than 0.1%.

Even so, Liao Wei was still under immense pressure.

At midnight, Pinbei’s final sales figure for the promotion was locked in at 7.03 billion!

The order volume had reached a staggering 23 million!

Upon hearing this news, Liao Wei gave a wry smile. It wasn’t hard to imagine that Ah Li, the king of e-commerce, would see an order volume of no less than 40 million, possibly even surpassing 50 million.

When you added in the dozens of other e-commerce platforms like Gome, Dangdang, Yixun, Paipai Network, various shoe-selling sites, Jumei Youpin, and Vipshop, the total business volume was estimated to exceed 100 million parcels!

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At Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park, a deafening cheer suddenly erupted from Building Six, shattering the pitch-black silence of the night.

A total sales figure of 7.03 billion meant that the Q4 performance bonuses for all Pinbei employees would be multiplied by 1.4. A bonus of 100,000 Hua Yuan would instantly become 140,000.

Chen Yansen leaned back in his chair, watching the wildly cheering young employees. The corners of his mouth turned up in a faint smile.

’You guys might make a killing, but I’ll never be the one losing money.’