Chapter 735: Fame brings trouble
Taobao’s name is still very famous recently.
But that's all.
"Fuck, I'm fighting a boss, and you're browsing Taobao?"
The teammates were almost pissed off by Shi Jinhao's answer.
"What's so good about Taobao? Did you know that this BOSS drops top-quality equipment? And it only refreshes once a week. If it's robbed, we'll suffer a huge loss!"
Shi Jinhao quickly apologized: "Oh my, my, I was annoyed by the QQ pop-up window just now, so I took a look and found that Taobao was having an event, with a discount of 88 yuan and free shipping for orders over 100 yuan across stores, and many things were on sale, so I took a closer look. I won't look anymore, let's fight the boss."
"Taobao offers free shipping for orders over 88 yuan? Is that true? Things on Taobao are cheaper than in physical stores, and now they also offer free shipping. Isn't that a huge profit?"
"Yes, this event is a limited-time sale, so I just took a closer look. Let's beat the boss quickly."
"Yes, yes, yes, let's beat the BOSS quickly, and then go shopping on Taobao."
A group of people just throw all their skills at the BOSS without paying any money, just waiting to defeat the BOSS so they can go shopping on Taobao.
After defeating the BOSS, the group picked up the exploded items, but without even having time to take a closer look, they were directly teleported back to the safe zone and went offline to browse Taobao.
"Eighty -eight yuan including shipping, I bought two bars of soap and a bag of laundry detergent, but it still doesn't cover the eighty-eight yuan."
"Are you stupid? Can't you ask others to buy it together? We all need it anyway, and it will be much cheaper if we buy it together."
“Yes.”
This person opened QQ, joined a group, and sent a link.
"This interface, hurry up, what do you want to buy? Tell me, free shipping if you place an order, it's much cheaper than in the supermarket ."
This kind of scene is happening all over the country.
Various links for adding extra items to a purchase were circulated in QQ groups.
Needless to say, users who had already registered on Taobao bought without hesitation. And those who had only a vague understanding of Taobao were also very tempted by this offer and registered Taobao accounts one after another.
Because Taobao can be logged in directly with QQ, and QQ is now very popular, there is no threshold for many people to register for Taobao.
Similar things happened in other places. Lu Yiming brought many of the tricks he had been cheated with during the Shopping Festival in his previous life to the year 2003 when the e-commerce culture was still pure. One can imagine how powerful they were.
After all, for ordinary people, it is an instinct to be greedy for small profits.
On the one hand, there is the sense of urgency and real discounts brought by the limited-time offer, and on the other hand, there is the convenience brought by one-click registration. Therefore, after the pop-up window passed, the number of Taobao's registered users increased at a rate of tens of thousands per hour, which even scared Jack Ma, who had been staring at the big screen nervously.
He couldn't help but come to Lu Yiming and said to him excitedly: "Mr. Lu, we did it! The number of registrations has skyrocketed!"
Lu Yiming took a quick look and said calmly, "This is just the beginning. It's just a small number of registrations. Don't get excited."
Baiyun No.1 Middle School.
Lin Yuzhen came up from playing with the children downstairs. Seeing Zhu Hanwen wearing an apron and busy in the kitchen, she smiled and said, "Uncle, you haven't cooked for a long time."
Zhu Hanwen complained helplessly, "I can't help it. Now your aunt is addicted to Taobao shopping. She doesn't go shopping every day, but visits Taobao stores instead. She even makes me cook for her. Do you think this is reasonable?"
Lin Yuzhen said with a smile: "Things on Taobao are much cheaper than those sold outside, so this can help save money for the family. Besides, it would be great if you could practice your cooking skills more, uncle."
"What money are you saving? I bought so many more things. I'm obviously wasting more money."
Sun Jiatong was immediately dissatisfied when she heard Zhu Hanwen complaining outside, and she shouted loudly: "How did I waste my money? When will I not need laundry detergent? This stuff doesn't go bad, so what's wrong with buying more? Besides, there are also diapers for children. Don't you know how many you need to change a day? The more you buy, the more you save."
Zhu Hanwen felt a headache after hearing this and said, "If we buy several barrels or boxes at a time, how long will it take to use them all?"
In just two days, Taobao gained 320,000 registered users.
Because it involves online payment, real-name registration is required. It can be imagined that these 320,000 users are definitely real users, not fake users with serious water injection.
The sudden success made Ma Jieke feel dizzy.
He warned himself: Stay steady and don't drift!
But I can’t help it. Who wouldn’t be proud of such achievements?
I just want to fly up to the sky and stand shoulder to shoulder with the sun.
September 11, 11:30 p.m.
Lu Yiming, Ma Jieke and Cai Chongxin, the three of them, sat in front of the computer, anxiously waiting for the upcoming results.
Although I have made sufficient preparations beforehand, it is still inevitable to feel anxious and nervous when the time comes.
Because the Taobao website goes online at midnight, we deliberately chose Friday, and tomorrow is Saturday, to take into account the users' work and rest schedules.
The pointer reached 12 o'clock and the clock rang.
Lu Yiming stared at the screen: "It's about to start!"
The purchase option that was originally locked finally lit up.
Ma Jieke, who had been monitoring the backend data, nervously pinched the corner of the table and suddenly shouted, "YES! Someone placed an order!"
Although it was early in the morning, there were still many users waiting in front of their computers to place orders.
The fastest-selling and best-selling items are naturally daily necessities such as laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid and toothpaste. They are affordable and necessary in daily life, so they are most popular among users.
In order to get free shipping, users will spontaneously find relatives and friends to place orders, so the products sell out faster.
In just one hour, sales exceeded 2 million!
Even though the sales volume reached hundreds of millions or even billions a decade later, in 2003, 2 million was already a huge sales volume. You should know that in its original history, Taobao's sales volume in 2003 was only 34 million.
That’s a whole year!
All I can say is that the combination of QQ’s platform promotion and Taobao’s preferential model produced a wonderful chemical reaction.
In the next three days, Taobao achieved sales of 33 million, shocking the whole country!
An online shopping mall created by a small team of dozens of people surpassed any large department store in the country in terms of sales in just a few days. Everyone found this result incredible and incomprehensible.
How many people are there in a department store?
How many people are there on your website?
How is it possible to sell so many things?
In fact, this is the charm of the Internet. Due to environmental constraints, department stores and large supermarkets can only accommodate a limited number of users per unit time.
Theoretically, e-commerce can accommodate an infinite number of users, and can simultaneously accept users and orders from all over the country and even the world.
With this report card, Taobao Mall, which had already attracted much attention, became famous overnight and completely established its position in the e-commerce field in Xia Country.
Lu Yiming and Ma Jieke also became famous in one battle.
Newspapers and news reports were full of reports on their story from the time they met to the time they started a business together. The story even became more legendary because Ma Jieke asked for five million dollars and Lu Yiming gave him five million dollars.
Taobao's valuation soon exceeded 400 million yuan, which was the valuation given by Goldman Sachs.
A small company that was considering bankruptcy a month ago is now valued at 400 million yuan.
You know, the current Internet winter has not yet passed.
Those who are optimistic about Taobao are now having a blast.
And those who hold Alibaba shares are even happier.
Those who refused to invest in Jack Ma back then are now regretting it.
I picked up the money for free, but I didn’t make good use of it!
Especially Lin Shuyi, now looking at the reports and valuations of Taobao in the newspaper, she regretted that she had rejected Jack Ma before. Most importantly, Lu Yiming reminded her several times, but she just didn't invest in Alibaba.
It’s like God is chasing you to feed you, but you refuse to open your mouth.
Are you angry about this?
What was even angrier than Lin Shuyi was the Ariel Group.
There was once a sincere invitation in front of them, but they did not cherish it. Now that they have lost it, they want to get it back, but they no longer have the chance.
In other words, opportunities nowadays are no longer free.
The biggest beneficiary is the Baiyun Libai Group. They were established less than ten years ago and their brand awareness is not yet high. However, they unexpectedly entered the vision of consumers across the country through Taobao's promotional activities and gained great fame.
After the brand became well-known, orders from all over the country came in like snowflakes.
Liby Group boss Chen Kaixuan looked at the report just delivered by the sales department and smiled so hard that his mouth stretched to his ears.
He took out his cell phone and called Lin Yuantao.
"Mr. Lin, good afternoon."
After receiving Chen Kaixuan's call, Lin Yuantao said cheerfully: "Mr. Chen, how come you have time to call me? Aren't you supposed to be very busy now?"
Chen Kaixuan laughed: "Yes, yes, I've been so busy. I've been adjusting the goods and supervising the production. I even think about the production line when I sleep. This is all the trouble you've caused me."
Lin Yuantao smiled and said, "I'm very free now, do you want me to help you?"
Chen Kaixuan said: "That's not necessary, I can still bear it now."
"You kid."
Chen Kaixuan said seriously, "To be honest, I have to thank you for introducing me to Mr. Lu. Otherwise, I would have missed this great opportunity to rise. How about this, Mr. Lin, we are going to hold a celebration banquet in a few days, please be sure to attend."
Lin Yuantao smiled and said, "I will definitely go."
As Taobao became more and more famous, Lu Yiming's name once again appeared in the public eye.
The youngest richest man in Asia was recently revealed on a TV show by Li Zixian that he holds half of Alibaba's shares. This means that Lu Yiming's wealth has increased by 200 million in just a few days. He makes money faster than winning the lottery, which amazed everyone.
In the Alibaba Group, Lu Yiming sighed in front of the windowsill.
Cai Chongxin asked curiously: "What's going on?"
Lu Yiming sighed and said, "Old Cai, you don't understand the troubles of rich people."
Cai Chongxin: “…”
I shouldn't have asked such a question! I'm being bullied in front of someone again. I'm so angry.
Jack Ma was working with the finance department to check accounts in the back office. When he saw Lu Yiming and Cai Chongxin chatting there, he immediately complained, "I'm so busy, can't you guys help me out and do something useful?"
Jack Ma then took people to calculate Taobao's revenue and complained: "After working hard for most of the day, I didn't make any money and lost nearly 8 million. The remaining money is only enough to burn for two months."
This result made Jack Ma feel a little depressed. He said: "It is really difficult to run a business."
Cai Chongxin is still a little hesitant about the free business strategy: "We are completely losing money to gain publicity. This business is losing more and more money. Can we really continue in this business?"
Although Lu Yiming had reminded them before, everyone still felt a little upset when they calculated the specific loss figures.
Ma Jieke complained: "Yeah, I'm a little bit discouraged after spending so much money without making any profit."
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "If you don't have money, just go and borrow it. There are so many rich fools in the world. If you catch one and cheat him, the money will come, right?"
How can e-commerce survive without burning money?
In the C2C war of the last life, how did Jack Ma outlast so many competitors?
It's because he is good at fooling people. He lures people everywhere to invest in him, and keeps spending money until all his competitors are scared away. Naturally, he can dominate the market.
Unfortunately, Jack Ma was not thick-skinned enough at that time, and could not be so shameless: "Not so good, burning other people's money to build your own business? Is this still a human being?"
Lu Yiming advised him: "Keep calm. The key to e-commerce is persistence. If you have no money, you can only rely on big customers if you want to survive."
Ma Jieke and Cai Chongxin both looked at Lu Yiming. Isn't there a ready-made dog owner right in front of them?
Lu Yiming's face was dark: "Why are you looking at me? I'm giving you advice, but you're plotting against me. Are you still a human being?"
This was of course a joke. Jack Ma was not actually planning to ask Lu Yiming for money, because Lu Yiming held two magic weapons, QQ and Alipay, and his influence on Taobao was already great enough. If Lu Yiming held more Taobao shares, Jack Ma was worried that his control over the company would be unstable.
Lu Yiming reminded Jack Ma: "For the development of Taobao, it is not a good thing for a single shareholder to hold too many shares. Lu Yiming knows that Taobao needs to introduce more strategic shareholders to help make the pie bigger."
Jack Ma was thinking about going international, so he asked, “How about we accept Goldman Sachs’ offer?”
There is no doubt that Goldman Sachs also wants to get a piece of the pie from Taobao, and with the backing of American capital, it is like a talisman for Taobao.
But after hearing this, Lu Yiming shook his head directly: "It's beneficial in the short term, but I'm not optimistic about this decision."
Both Joseph Tsai and Jack Ma were puzzled.
Lu Yiming explained: "E-commerce involves electronic payments, which are related to people's pockets. The country cannot allow a company with foreign background to intervene in it."
In the previous life, Alipay was separated from Taobao by Jack Ma for this reason.
Moreover, it is unrealistic for Taobao to go international. Europe and the United States claim to have free trade, but in fact, local protectionism exists everywhere. Therefore, no matter how well Taobao does, it is doomed to be unable to enter the North American market and compete fairly with local North American e-commerce companies such as Amazon.
The same is true in reverse.
Goldman Sachs may be a talisman for Taobao now, but once trade frictions and disputes arise between the two countries, the talisman may also become a death warrant.
Just when Lu Yiming was thinking about who to find to trick him, Su Yunwei called.
"Xiao Ming, congratulations on your Taobao success."
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "Thank you, Auntie."
Su Yunwei said, "Xiao Ming, your Taobao insists on the free strategy, which must be quite expensive, right?"
Lu Yiming said bluntly: "To be honest with you, although it has been very busy during this period, I have lost a lot of money in the end."
Su Yunwei said, "You must be short of money, right? Are you still accepting investments? I'm ready to invest a little."
Lu Yiming teased: "When Jack Ma was looking for investors, I seemed to have suggested it to you, right? But you refused to do it at that time, and even wanted to laugh at me. Why, have you changed your mind now?"
Su Yunwei was also very depressed. She still felt that Jack Ma was unreliable, but Alibaba was really about to take off. If she didn't get on board, she would have no chance.
"Stop talking nonsense! Help me get Alibaba shares."
Facing the request from his future aunt, how could Lu Yiming dare to refuse? He immediately said, "Okay, okay, I'll help you."
After hanging up the phone, Lu Yiming smiled and said to Jack Ma: "Don't worry, I found a new father for you."
Jack Ma's mind was full of black question marks: "???"
Lu Yiming said: "The executive vice president of Su Group, my girlfriend's aunt."
Cai Chongxin laughed and said, "Does this count as seeking benefits for your own people?"
Lu Yiming clarified: "This has nothing to do with me. She came to see me."
Jack Ma couldn't wait to ask, "When will she come over to discuss cooperation?"
After all, it was the sponsor who came to give the money, and Jack Ma was afraid that the other party would change his mind after a day, so he wanted the money to be in his pocket immediately to avoid any more trouble.
"Tomorrow."
The next day, Su Yunwei personally flew to Hangzhou. This time, she only talked to Ma Jieke for 10 minutes before she decided to spend 200 million yuan to acquire 15% of Taobao's shares, a valuation higher than Goldman Sachs! She was rich and generous!
In Lu Yiming's opinion, Su Yunwei's identity is perfect.
The Su family is now a patriotic overseas Chinese. Although they went abroad in the past, they also donated a lot of money to the country.
Now the family's business development focus is to be moved back to China from America, so Su Yunwei's identity can be said to be very clean, much cleaner than most of the self-made wealthy people in the country, and her money can be taken.
This incident once again caused a sensation. The Su Group actually invested heavily in Taobao, and it was obvious that it was very optimistic about the domestic economic development.
And the total amount was 200 million, which is an incredible number.
As the saying goes, "Fame brings trouble." Soon, Su Yunwei's identity was exposed. When people learned that she had a close connection with Lu Yiming, they were all excited.
