2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 477 GMV Far Exceeds Expectations (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

To gain control of Changfeng, there is no better way than to negotiate an equity transfer with Xiangcheng Trust.

Acquiring more than 45.9% of the shares in the secondary market or from other controlling shareholders to become the largest shareholder is extremely difficult.

It's both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is that you only need to reach an agreement with Xiangcheng Trust once, which simplifies the process and also ensures maximum confidentiality.

The downside is that Changfeng is a state-owned enterprise, and it used to be a star enterprise that accounted for half of the GDP of a prefecture-level city. Even if it has declined and is about to go bankrupt, Xiangcheng Trust will face considerable resistance no matter how much it wants to take over.

A once-star state-owned enterprise and a listed company, while Flash is a private enterprise and not even a local company in Hunan Province, the difficulty of acquiring a former star state-owned enterprise is self-evident.

Every locality is extremely cautious about transferring the equity of star state-owned enterprises. They will not sell unless absolutely necessary, like Andar, which has been dragged out and rendered useless. Everyone who understands this reason knows why.

In addition, there are debts, triangular debts, and employee issues, which are also major problems for bankrupt state-owned enterprises. In particular, the employee issue is the most difficult aspect of acquiring a bankrupt state-owned enterprise.

If you can't solve the employee problem, it will be very difficult to complete the acquisition.

The reason why Andar's acquisition didn't have this problem before is because Andar had already changed hands several times since the beginning, when it was acquired by Flash, and all the problems that needed to be solved had been solved. During these changes of ownership, even the most difficult employees had become less demanding.

Later, Tan Jincheng voluntarily increased the price to 500 million yuan, part of which was given to these employees. At this point, they not only did not object to the acquisition of Flash, but were also grateful.

After changing hands several times, even the most individualistic employees have had their edges smoothed out by life.

The biggest breakthrough for Flashgate in acquiring Changfeng should be the Hunan Provincial Government. After all, for trust companies, their shares in listed companies are facing multiple unfavorable factors such as financial deterioration, stock market crash, and financial crisis. It would be great if someone could take over.

But what reason could they use to contact the Hunan Provincial Government?
In Hunan Province, neither Flash Group nor Orange Technology has any business and offers any benefits. If they want the Hunan Provincial Government to agree to their request, this matter might even require coordination from Zhejiang Province.

Even when it comes to coordination, you have to give people something in return, right?
This is really a headache, but I don't have any clue how to solve it for the time being.

"Sigh, I should have known better than to tell Huang Ming to come back sooner. That way, if he had stayed in Xiangcheng, we would have had a reason to donate more money to Hunan Province during the snow disaster and increase our goodwill. What a miscalculation."

After thinking for a long time without coming up with any good ideas, Tan Jincheng slapped his forehead.

Tan Jincheng was the only person in the huge office. Today was November 12th, and the GMV data for Orange Products' first day yesterday was already on his desk.

This data is, of course, the most authentic data, unlike the inflated data released to the outside world.

The fact that they dared to release the GMV for 12 hours, even if it contained some exaggeration, is enough to show that it was quite good. In fact, the real data was somewhat beyond Tan Jincheng's expectations.

From 2003 to the end of 2007, online shopping entered a period of rapid development. However, due to limitations in computer penetration, payment methods, and logistics systems, online shopping was still a very inconvenient experience in Tan Jincheng's memory.

The transportation system was not very developed, and Taobao's logistics system was not standardized. In the early days, some sellers would even deliver goods themselves without going through the logistics system when they encountered customers in the same city. This delivery method posed a safety hazard.

When you buy clothes online, it's common to find that the seller hasn't shipped the item, and you can't track the courier's location. It usually takes a week for the item to arrive, and if it arrives within three or four days, you're overjoyed.

Therefore, customer service personnel are extremely important in online shopping systems these days. Generally, before a buyer has the intention to purchase, they will contact customer service to ask how many days it will take for the goods to arrive. If customer service does not respond in time, the order may fall through.

The kind of self-service ordering that existed during the heyday of online shopping in the past, where customers could place orders without contacting customer service, is extremely rare.

OrangePin is a vertical e-commerce website, so the requirements for customer service are relatively high. Half of the project team members are shop assistants poached from Taobao, as well as trained customer service personnel. These personnel work in shifts 24 hours a day.

Currently, the customer service team is the hardest working group. The new website will have all sorts of questions, including inquiries about product quality, unit price, shipping methods, etc., and they even need to educate consumers about payment methods.

The 24/7 three-shift work system, requiring constant responses, puts a lot of mental pressure on us, and to make matters worse, we receive the lowest salary in the entire project team.

Right now, the salaries of customer service staff plus bonuses for new projects are barely enough to keep things afloat. A few years later, it would be impossible to set up a large customer service center in a big city, as the compensation wouldn't be enough to support a living there. No wonder Dong Ge (Liu Qiangdong) chose to locate the customer service center in his hometown; besides gaining a good reputation, it also saves a lot of costs.

As for outsourcing like Tencent did, that doesn't seem feasible. E-commerce websites still need to pay attention to customer service. It seems that if Orange Products grows bigger, the customer service center will have to be moved.

In 2006, the total transaction volume of the national online shopping market was 312 billion yuan. This year, it is a certainty that Taobao alone will exceed 400 billion yuan in total sales for the year, while the total transaction volume of the national online shopping market is expected to approach 600 billion yuan.

Taobao alone accounts for over 70% of the online shopping market share. It has to be said that the internet is truly a monopolistic and distorted market, where one company thrives while the others tremble in fear.

If FlashTech could capture over 70% of the national electric vehicle market share, they would be living a very comfortable life, and they could even build some cars.

From a dominant market share of over 70%, with almost the entire country knowing only about Taobao, to a market share that dropped to around 40% in 2023, one wonders what Jack Ma thinks about this change over the past decade.

OrangePin's GMV in the first 12 hours after its launch yesterday is naturally incomparable to Taobao's daily average of over 1 million orders.

From an expectation perspective, Tan Jincheng would consider a GMV of 300 to 500 million RMB on the first day of the Orange Products beta test to be better than expected, and several investment institutions of Orange Technology also thought so.

Apparel is the highest-selling category on Taobao. Orange Products focuses on vertical e-commerce with apparel as its core business. It is quite difficult for a brand-new website to challenge the king of a major category.

However, the actual GMV far exceeded the expectations of Tan Jincheng and a group of investment institutions. The GMV of Orange Products Fair reached 1171.95 million yuan in 12 hours, more than double the highest expectation.

On average, sales can reach about 100 million yuan per hour. It just goes to show how damn easy it is to make money online. For offline electric vehicle stores, selling 100 million yuan a year is already a very happy thing.

OrangePin's 12-hour GMV not only satisfied investors, but also the entire project team. In addition to GMV, other conversion rates were also very good, and most importantly, the number of registered users exceeded 3.

Is 3 registered users a small number? If it had been two years later, it would have meant the website was going to fail. But in 2007, this number was not low at all. Taobao only had around 5000 million registered users.

All the data points indicate the potential of Orange Shopping on its first day of launch. Traffic will return to normal after the promotional period ends, but if it maintains this momentum, it should be able to gain about 2% market share in the online shopping market next year.

Around five o'clock, Gu Qingqing also came upstairs. The two prepared to go home together. Although she was influenced by Tan Jincheng during the day and felt more relaxed, Gu Qingqing was no longer so nervous after being comforted and released in the evening.

It has to be said that when you're feeling tense, a primal release is more effective than anything else.

But she was still nervous before the official data was released. This morning, Tan Jincheng hadn't even gotten out of bed yet, but she arrived at the company early.

"How's it going? Are you satisfied with the data?" Gu Qingqing smiled and pushed open the door to enter. She was the only one in Boss Tan's office who dared to come in without knocking.

"Hmm, not bad. Your value is going to go up again." Tan Jincheng replied, putting down his mouse.

He was just reading online reviews. It was a vertical e-commerce website launched by an internet company with social mini-game attributes, and it was even partnering with Tencent, an e-commerce newbie. To be honest, apart from the two investors, not many outsiders were optimistic about it before it was launched.

Unexpectedly, the performance on the first day of its launch far exceeded expectations, and it was inevitable that Gu Qingqing, as the second largest shareholder, would see her net worth rise accordingly.

"In fact, it was your marketing that made the difference. The investors and I should be most grateful to you."

Without these super low-priced brand clothing promotions, and without Tan Jincheng's various antics after the launch to thoroughly generate buzz, all the prior preparations would have been useless.

Especially events like one-yuan flash sales, which are like lotteries. Everyone knows that the chances of winning such a good thing are extremely slim, but everyone wants to try, just in case they win.
Buying a designer outfit and a set of brand-name cosmetics for just one dollar is something no one can resist.

The hourly flash sales are an important way to maintain website traffic. What's even more ingenious is that Tan Jincheng also organized a group of online trolls to drive traffic to various forums and QQ groups every hour just before the flash sale.

It's hard for you not to come!

(End of this chapter)