2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 419 The Explosive Feedback Plan

The combination of Orange Technology and Yiwu was not a spur-of-the-moment decision by Tan Jincheng.

This was a plan that had been in place before. Originally, Zhang Xupeng was supposed to be the one to negotiate, but Tan Jincheng happened to be there, and since the other party was quite enthusiastic, it was just mentioned casually.

As a company grows larger, it needs to become stronger. Occasionally, brilliant ideas may emerge during operations, but specific planning can no longer be based on mere speculation. Doing so will only lead to increasing chaos within the company.

Having accumulated nearly 20 years of information, I have many ways to make money in my mind; some opportunities have already emerged, while others have not yet.

If you let your head dictate your decisions without making concrete plans, the company will only become increasingly bloated and lack a clear sense of priorities. This will make things very troublesome and complicated when risks arise in the future.

Whether it's Flashpoint or Orange Technology, their core businesses must be clearly defined. They can't just jump on any bandwagon that seems profitable, creating a mess, and then when those businesses stop making money, they end up supplying talent to society and ruining their reputation.

May Day is supposed to be a holiday, but Tan Jincheng's schedule is very tight. He spent the first two days at home dealing with financial reports, the third day he went to Yongkang, the fourth day he went to Yiwu, and the fifth day he was going to Shanghai.

Traveling from one city a day to another, from Zhejiang Province to Shanghai, Tan Lihua and his wife, who were experiencing this for the first time, didn't find it too tiring. On the contrary, they had a unique experience.

While Tan Jincheng was discussing business, he and his wife were taken around by others, and they were always surrounded by people to serve them, so they really didn't feel tired.

The second day of the Shanghai Auto Show.

The president of Flash Group appeared at the booth. Flash Group, which has the best electric vehicle export business, has accumulated a lot of old customers in the past year. Like the Canton Fair, the Shanghai Auto Show is also an important festival for foreign merchants to place orders.

As of April this year, the actual total sales of the Flash were 86.01 vehicles, 100 vehicles short of 14 million.

I asked the staff at the booth, and they said that overseas customers ordered a total of 2 vehicles yesterday. The reason why this is an accurate figure is that Flash Motors limited overseas customers to 2 vehicles per day during the three-day exhibition.

There's no way around it; the products sell perfectly well domestically, so they're definitely geared towards domestic consumers. In Tan Jincheng's view, implementing a distribution policy and engaging in quantity discrimination against foreign markets is normal behavior.

Although this behavior was criticized by the leaders of Beicang's foreign trade department, who questioned why they were not making money from US dollars.

These days, many Chinese people have a tendency to admire foreign things and fawn over foreigners. In the early stages of development, foreigners were indeed much more advanced than us, which led many foreigners to act arrogantly and discriminate against us in terms of prices or other ways.

However, Tan Jincheng, who came from more than 10 years later, had a different idea from people today. To foreigners, Tan Jincheng really didn't have any intention of flattering them. He just wanted to make money off them, but if they wanted to act like tyrants, they could get lost.

Tan Jincheng knew these people well and wouldn't tolerate them when doing business with them. As long as your product quality was good and the price was reasonable, you wouldn't have to worry about not having buyers.

There is competition among domestic sellers, but there is also competition among foreign buyers, so there's no need to fawn over them, not to mention that the domestic market is booming right now.

Judging from the export volume on the first day, the 6 orders placed in three days can all be sold out. The exhibition also offers some promotional activities, and the consumption of domestic car buyers will not be small either.

Based on this calculation, Flash Motors' total sales since its inception should be over 90 vehicles, let's say 100 million.

"It seems our event can be launched now. Let's start the promotion."

Holding the data in his hand, Tan Jincheng smiled and said to Zhou Ao.

Marketing for the exhibition is also very important, so Zhou Ao came with Lin Yumin. For the past three days, the two of them have been in charge of the daily operations of the exhibition. Lin Yumin is responsible for overall management, while Zhou Ao is responsible for coordinating publicity.

The person who came to the exhibition to promote Flashcar was Chun Ge. This was part of the contract renewal last year. The Super Girl contestants last year were really terrible. The girls who were selected were almost all forgotten within half a year.

This indirectly led to Chun Ge's fame reaching new heights, and this year's Super Girl competition has also started, but I don't recall any outstanding figures. It's truly a case of starting at the peak.

Just like the first season of Super Boy this year, it was a peak right from the start. 0713 has become popular again after more than 10 years, attracting a new batch of fans.

These talent shows seem to be like this: in the beginning, due to less capital and insider involvement, many outstanding individuals emerge, but once they become famous, their careers decline.

The electric vehicle brand is a bit low-end, which is somewhat unworthy of Chun Ge's growing fame year after year. Chun Ge's future positioning is in the fashion industry, but the Tianyu team does not object to Chun Ge endorsing Shanchi.

They even hoped to arrange more, because Flash's marketing capabilities were simply too strong, plus they now have their own website, giving them their own exclusive marketing territory.

FlashTech's account on Kaixin.com is always up to something, with occasional activities and events. Despite being a purely company-run account, it's much more active than most other accounts.

Novel ideas can often arouse the enthusiasm of netizens. Take this trade fair as an example. Several days in advance, FlashTech's account created all sorts of photoshopped images of the three spokespersons, some normal, some funny, and even some spoofs.

At the same time, they launched their invincible voting campaign, giving fans the power to choose the spokesperson for the trade fair.

Goodness, he's even better at manipulating fans than the entertainment company. He's got the timing all figured out. They already had a lineup planned, yet he still pulled off this kind of event.

But it has to be said that this tactic is really effective. Fans, especially those of Chun Ge, went absolutely crazy. Opportunities to see their idols in such large-scale offline events are rare.

When the results came out, Tan Jincheng couldn't help but exclaim that if this were broadcast live, the number of rockets sent would skyrocket.

All I can say is that it's damn easy to make money off fans, especially mindless fans.

“Okay, I’ll go and make the arrangements right away and start our publicity plan.” Zhou Ao was a little excited when he heard this.

The "100 million vehicle sales reward plan" is a marketing and promotional plan formulated by Tan Jincheng for this exhibition and the upcoming peak sales season. In Zhou Ao's opinion, the boss is really rich and powerful, and also has great ambition.

The sales volume of the Flash in 2005 was 3.8 units, with a total sales amount of 6118 million yuan.

To celebrate its total sales exceeding 100 million units, Flash has developed a detailed user feedback plan to express its gratitude to users for their support and to ensure that Flash continues to grow into the second-largest electric vehicle manufacturer and seller in China.

"In 2005, the first batch of 3.8 customers who purchased the Flash can go to the nearest Flash self-operated store or primary dealership and deduct the full amount from the invoice to use for trading in their old vehicles or to buy new vehicles for their family members."

The new vehicles in the trade-in program are limited to lithium battery vehicles. The highest market price for the entry-level Flash Spur model is 2299 yuan, while the lowest price for the entry-level lithium battery model is 2999 yuan.

In other words, those users in 2005 could buy a lithium battery-powered electric vehicle for as little as 700 yuan!

When the boss proposed the marketing plan, Zhou Ao's first reaction was that the boss must be crazy. This was equivalent to giving away 3.8 electric vehicles to users for free. Did he really need to go to such lengths to promote lithium battery models?
Based on market prices, the sales amount for the first batch of users is actually much higher than the company's sales amount in 2005. The market terminal sales amount should be at least 7600 million yuan and at most 8700 million yuan.

Spending tens of millions to promote lithium battery vehicles is beyond just being extravagant these days; it's hard to imagine how the market will react once the news gets out.

But Zhou Ao could already imagine it.

They said they wouldn't resort to sneak attacks, but our boss Tan is still such a scoundrel; he not only launched a sneak attack but also unleashed a major one.

2007年5月5日晚间，注册时间成立于2005年5月9日的闪驰科技于公司官网还有各大平台的宣传账号上公布了一则省。

"Two years ago, the Flash series went on sale, priced at 1999/2299. 3.8 units were sold, totaling 6118 million. This was Flash Technology's first revenue. With this revenue, we were able to develop and achieve the Flash Group's current annual sales target of 50 billion, and become the world's second largest electric vehicle company!"

To express its gratitude to its first batch of users, Flash Group decided to refund the entire 6118 million yuan on May 9, 2007, the company's second anniversary! The company stated that without the support of its users, there would be no Flash today.

The process of obtaining the vehicle is quite simple: just present your official vehicle purchase invoice at the nearest designated store and exchange it for any lithium battery model.

Mr. Tan is really going all out to promote lithium battery vehicles. Mr. Lei, I'll use your idea first, as it will benefit Xiaomi's future phones.

As more people become aware of lithium batteries, mobile phone batteries will be more readily accepted in the future. This reasoning makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

It's not certain that all 3.8 vehicles will be replaced. Some people may have already thrown away their invoices, since it's been two years. These days, there aren't many reimbursement channels for self-purchased cars. Others were purchased by Flash Motors employees through their own internal channels.

If the invoice is lost, then it definitely can't be exchanged, otherwise things would get chaotic. In reality, the exchange amount would be roughly equivalent to the sales volume in 2005.

You can buy an electric car for as little as 700 yuan, and it's even a lithium battery version with a longer range. Anyone can see how good it is. You can make a fortune by reselling it.

Tan Jincheng plans to use these 3+ vehicles to tap into the lithium battery vehicle market.

Just as the Shanghai Auto Show was in full swing and the May Day holiday was approaching, the news released by FlashTech caused a great sensation.

Thunder roars in silence.

"Damn it, this kid said he wouldn't do sneak attacks, is he out of his mind?"

(End of this chapter)