2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 486 Sun Tongyu's Selfish Motives
"It's a pity we came a bit too early. The Forbidden City would be even more charming if it were snowing."

Since they came to the capital city supposedly for logistics development, they can't just say they'll go back immediately after arriving; they have to put on a show.

Wang Wei did indeed take a proper trip around the capital city to see where would be a suitable location for SF Express's northern base. Time was precious, and it wasn't easy to come all this way, so he had to do something about it.

Tan Jincheng and Gu Qingqing had nothing major to do. They spent the day pretending with Wang Wei, and since the next two days were the weekend, they booked a trip to the Forbidden City.

“Yes, the Forbidden City becomes the Imperial Palace after a snowfall,” Tan Jincheng remarked, gazing at a palace.

Boss Tan also has a few hobbies, such as being interested in ancient architecture. In his previous life, whether he was single or had a girlfriend, he would visit such scenic spots whenever he had free time.

If you ask him to explain why, he definitely can't, but it just feels so beautiful.

"How about we bring Auntie and Jinyue over here and take some Hanfu photos? What do you think?" Gu Qingqing suddenly suggested.

A little girl dressed in beautiful ancient costumes taking a set of very beautiful photos in such a place would be a great way to commemorate her birthday. Since we're already here, staying a couple more days wouldn't be a bad idea.

"Hmm? That's a good suggestion. Maybe we can even catch the snow."

These days, the term "Hanfu" is still quite rare, and most people use "ancient costume" to describe it. However, in Tan Jincheng's family, the term is quite popular. Influenced by the clothing ideas of later generations, Tan Jinyue has quite a few exclusive Hanfu outfits.

There are many outfits for spring, summer, autumn and winter. It would be a bit difficult for Tan Jincheng to design this. He just wanted to give the designer some advice, to improve the clothes based on the culture of ancient clothing, so that they would look similar to those of later generations.

This is not difficult for designers; on the contrary, Boss Tan's suggestion can give them more creative inspiration.

"Right, Jin Yue probably doesn't have any memory of snow. It would be even better if it snowed, but it's still quite beautiful even if it doesn't snow."

Tan Jincheng nodded in agreement, but there was no rush about the snow. He would let her see as much as she wanted this year. It didn't necessarily have to be at the Forbidden City, but taking a set of birthday photos here would be fine.

"Then let Sister Suman bring them over. Should we also call your parents over? We can prepare some Hanfu photos for them here, so they can take some beautiful pictures."

"Forget about that. My dad's been really into his agritourism business lately. Every time we talk on the phone, it's about these things. I doubt he has the time to come over."

Gu Hongshun and his wife thought they could live a carefree life after the demolition compensation, but they never expected that their good days would not last more than a few years. Their future son-in-law gave them a second career, rekindling their passion for business.

They even wanted to expand the agritainment business further and add more types of services.

"But Uncle, you could ask him if he has time. He doesn't spend much time with Jin Yue, so he should spend her third birthday together."

This year, the family will probably spend the New Year in Beicang again. Tan Jincheng doesn't want to suffer on the road due to the snow disaster. Going back to his hometown would also mean snow everywhere, and he would have to brave the snow to visit relatives and friends, which makes him feel bad just thinking about it.

Today is Sunday, November 18th.

Orange Products' Double Eleven mega sale was supposed to last a week, but it actually ended after midnight tonight. There will be many more mega sales events afterward, but the discounts won't be as big as this week's.

This week's promotions are really generous. For an e-commerce website that is still in trial operation, the number of low-priced items, 2000 pieces of each item per day, is not small.

In addition, the one-yuan flash sale events held at specific times every hour are not the kind that deceive consumers and lure people in; rather, they are events with a genuine and sufficient supply of goods.

The slogans for the flash sale events are all: "No tricks, real flash sales."

From the early days when they were poor and could only give away raincoats and celebrity autographs, to the extravagant 6000 million yuan giveaway, no matter the stage, Mr. Tan has always been full of sincerity when it comes to promotional activities.

"From the 11th to the 18th, Orange Products should be able to accumulate more than 80,000 registered users, and the actual GMV should exceed 100 million yuan. What do you think, Mr. Sun?"

The publicly released data still contained some inaccuracies, but the actual data was indeed not bad. Boss Tan was in a great mood and sent the approximate true data to Sun Tongyu via Dingding.

Boss Tan wasn't afraid that Sun Tongyu would leak his private conversations and these real data, so he wasn't afraid that the other party would know some of the real data.

Compared to Tan Jincheng, Sun Tongyu was more afraid of his conversations with Tan Jincheng being leaked before he left the company.

If word gets out, Lao Ma will probably hate him to death.

"No, Mr. Tan, I haven't officially agreed to let you join Orange Products Club yet, and you're talking to me about Orange Products Club's data every day. Is that appropriate?" Sun Tongyu said helplessly.

Ever since they met, this kid has been sending him data from Orange Products every day, acting like he's the person in charge of Orange Products at all. "It's not important. Just consider it Mr. Sun getting familiar with Orange Products' business in advance, so he can quickly take over after officially joining the company."

Tan Jincheng tapped on his phone: "Just imagine, when you join the company, you'll know everything about Orange Products. How amazing will that be? It'll be a huge deterrent to the veteran employees."

The title of Taobao CEO was naturally well-known to the original employees of Orange Products Club. Some of them had even met Sun Tongyu before and were his subordinates, but not everyone would necessarily respect him.

For Orange Products Club, no matter how much success Sun Tongyu had achieved before, he was a leader who was parachuted in. To gain the trust of employees, he needed not only fame, but also ability.

His ability to understand Orange Products Club very well from the start and to allocate resources reasonably demonstrates his competence.

"Don't give me that. Even if you don't send me these, I can still guarantee that I have a very good understanding of Orange Products. I've discovered that you really know how to play these childish tricks."

Even Sun Tongyu didn't notice that the message he sent already revealed his "I agree" attitude. As for the term "you kid," it was a phrase that often appeared in their previous chats, and Tan Jincheng often called him Old Sun.

It wasn't offensive at all; on the contrary, it felt rather friendly. Work is work, and online chatting is online chatting.

"Haha, of course I believe that, but this data will definitely be useful to you. What should Orange Products pay attention to next? The big promotion period is about to end."

"There should be some follow-up promotions after the current promotion ends, right?"

Sun Tongyu has accepted Orange Products Club in her heart, so she won't be too pretentious about any sense of ceremony. She will try to learn more about the current situation of Orange Products Club.

"Yes, there will be more promotions later. These promotions will last until December 12th, which means it will last for a month. This month is the grand opening promotion period for Orange Products Club. We will stabilize our existing customer base while trying to increase the number of new user registrations."

Tan Jincheng didn't mention the Double Twelve New Year's Shopping Festival mega sale. He wasn't sure how much affection Sun Tongyu had for Taobao. Knowing about such a mega sale in advance, he knew that Taobao, with its power, could completely crush Orange Products' mega sale.

In addition, Taobao is more effective at organizing the Spring Festival shopping festival by offering a full range of products, while Orange Products Fair, which only combines footwear and apparel with agricultural products, can barely maintain the event's popularity.

For Orange Products, the Double Twelve Chinese New Year Shopping Festival is more of a gimmick. If other websites snatch this gimmick in advance, then it will be of no use.

I believe Sun Tongyu will understand when he finds out about the promotion.

"A month-long promotional period! That's a huge investment. That's the mobilization power of a vertical website!" Sun Tongyu couldn't help but exclaim.

Taobao is made up of countless small and medium-sized businesses. To organize such a large-scale event, a lot of preparation is needed in advance. Recently, the internal team has also discussed the Orange Products Fair model, which is a large-scale promotion.

However, not many merchants responded; it's not that small merchants lack vision, but rather that their costs are insufficient to compete with Orange Products Club.

Small businesses have much higher sourcing and shipping costs than Orange Products. Orange Products can make a lot of money selling a brand-name discounted item for 79 yuan, while small businesses may not be able to make much, or even make any at all.

As for credibility, it simply cannot compare to Orange Products Club. Orange Products Club has the backing of brand owners, which small businesses do not.

Another point is the delivery speed of the express delivery. Orange Products focuses on the Yangtze River Delta region and South China as its key promotional areas. With the help of the powerful SF Express, its delivery speed is incomparable to that of the slow and sluggish Shentong Express.

In addition, in terms of service attitude, SF Express is currently the best among the three giants, and the service attitude of its front-line couriers has received rave reviews online.

At present, only ZJS Express can rival SF Express in speed, and that's only in the northern region.

Tan Jincheng used Wang Wei as a tool in this scheme, claiming it was to build SF Express's northern express delivery network. And you know what? Wang Wei's public appearances did make ZJS Express a little nervous.

If Taobao wants to launch a week-long promotional event like Orange Products Fair, it will have to invest heavily in subsidies for these small and medium-sized businesses, using a proactive approach of burning money to suppress Orange Products Fair.

When it comes to burning money, Ali is not afraid of Orange Products Club at all. Sun Tongyu and Taobao executives have also thought about this, but for personal reasons, Sun Tongyu did not bring it up.

As for Taobao's internal meetings, these issues were also discussed, but without exception, they did not attach enough importance to Orange Products Club, believing that it was unnecessary to burn money for a 2% expected market share.

In terms of e-commerce attributes, OrangePin, which operates in the vertical e-commerce sector, should compete more with vertical e-commerce companies like JD.com. Taobao is preparing to wait and see before making any decisions.

In addition, we should wait and see how Vancl, which will be launched at the end of the year, performs.

If there is a real threat, we can just take them out together.

(End of this chapter)