2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 494 Pressure from Ahri

Don't take advantage of the bastard.

Online shoppers who missed the massive discounts of Singles' Day can't miss Orange Shopping Festival's continued big promotions on Double Twelve, and those who got the first wave won't miss the second.

Taking clothing sales as an example, the Double Eleven promotion is really just about clearing out inventory, and it's more geared towards spring and autumn seasons, which isn't very friendly to users in the north.

This year's Spring Festival shopping season saw Orange Products launch a number of winter clothing items, which is just the right time for those who want to stock up on clothes for the winter.

Although it's still mostly older styles and leftover stock, it's still a brand name, so the quality is more guaranteed.

The Double Twelve promotion was even more popular than expected. Just like last time, all the items with low discount rates were sold out after they were officially launched at midnight.

In the days before information was so readily available, promotions were actually much simpler than they are today, as long as you were willing to spend money.

With low prices, large-scale advertising, and no quality issues, coupled with good service, Orange Goods Club is simply unbeatable. Orange Goods Club's current advantage in large-scale promotions is that it has money in its pocket and a sufficient supply of low-priced clothing.

In addition, new e-commerce websites start from scratch and are not afraid of making mistakes. On the contrary, mistakes can help them improve. At the same time, users of startup websites are more tolerant.

Using the first batch of users as experimental subjects has always been a common practice for companies, and neither Flash Technology nor Orange Technology can escape this rule.

Compared to Taobao and JD.com, which have grown into giants, Orange Products is smaller and easier to manage and control.

However, just three days after Orange Products' Double Twelve promotion ended, on Saturday, December 15th, Orange Products clearly felt the pressure from Ali.

"Did Lao Ma find out that Lao Sun joined Orange Products Club?"

Media outlets associated with Ali (Ali) are taking the risk of paying breach of contract penalties to remove Orange Products Club's advertisements. In addition, according to inside information from a former Taobao employee of Orange Products Club, Taobao is organizing a major promotional event.

The campaign also focuses on apparel, which has become the top-selling category this year.

Tan Jincheng wasn't worried about this. For something as important as Orange Technology's Series C financing, the appearance of new shareholders could only be kept secret from the general public. As long as they could keep it a secret from those in the industry for even one more day, that would be a victory.

It took Taobao three days after the launch for it to realize that Orange Products Club had already been a great success.

"That must be the reason. They're willing to take down our ads even if it means losing money. I guess Old Ma got angry."

"Mr. Sun must be in a tough spot right now, right? Why don't you send him a message to comfort him?"

"What's there to comfort him about? He's only invested in Orange Products, he hasn't officially joined the company yet. You've already kicked him out, and you won't even let him find some other work?"

It's certain that Lao Ma will get angry, but there's absolutely no need to comfort Sun Tongyu. Having experienced so much at Taobao, his mental resilience shouldn't be that bad.

However, Sun Tongyu is now completely unemployed at home, and it is said that he can no longer enter Taobao headquarters.

It's clear that Lao Ma is very dissatisfied with Sun Tongyu's investment in Orange Products.

"Then we'll have to implement Plan B for our next promotional campaign, and we also need to be prepared for Alipay to stop letting us use it."

Tan Jincheng was quite relaxed about this, but Gu Qingqing, the CEO, was not so relaxed.

"Okay, let's implement Plan B. As for the possibility that Alipay won't let us use it anymore, it's not impossible. I'll talk to the bank again and ask them to give us more preferential policies."

Since Alipay is no longer available, the best alternative to OrangePay's own recharge wallet is quick payment via bank cards, especially credit cards.

There are actually a lot of benefits to discuss here. For a bank, the cost of successfully promoting a new credit card offline is relatively high. However, if you promote it through a channel like Orange Club, apart from offering some first-time payment discounts, the other costs are much lower than offline.

Banks are very happy with this cooperation model. Online card opening is still a relatively new thing, and banks are willing to give it a try.

"Okay, then you should go and talk to them as soon as possible. We need to be prepared." The bank's connections are mainly with Tan Jincheng.

In the current online payment field, Alipay, which has no license, is invincible. Tenpay is practically useless except for topping up QQ coins. OrangePay has also developed its own payment system, but judging from the usage rate in the first month, not many people have accepted it.

Indeed, credibility is very important in the financial sector. Orange Technology has a certain reputation, but users are cautious when it comes to spending money.

They look down on Tenpay, but compared to Tenpay's Orange Pay, it's nothing.

However, Tan Jincheng was too lazy to get involved in this area. Right now, nobody has a license for this kind of thing, so everyone's just skirting the edges. But once licenses are required, things won't be so easy. Orange Technology's goal is to be a relatively pure internet technology company. As for finance, Tan Jincheng didn't want to get involved because once they did, whether or not they continued with internet finance would be completely out of their control.

There's a joke that all internet companies eventually end up doing micro-lending. Actually, it wasn't like that at first, but this stuff is just too profitable. You can't earn as much in a year as you would in several years selling clothes.

If the company has the capability to do this, who wouldn't be tempted to stay away? Even if Tan Jincheng isn't afraid, the shareholders might not agree.

It would be better not to do it in the first place.

If we earn less money, so be it. We'll have less bad reputation. Once the tide goes out, Orange Technology will be a breath of fresh air, and the gains will go beyond just financial benefits.

"Then let's split up and get to work. I'll contact the advertisers, and you can contact the bank."

Orange Products targets internet users, so its advertising plan A is mainly focused on online users, with relatively less emphasis on offline advertising. However, media outlets associated with Jack Ma have now forcibly removed Orange Products' advertisements.

Nowadays, the only online promotional channels available are a few large companies that can ignore Ali, but these companies have not made much of a mark in the e-commerce field, and their results are only so-so.

Therefore, the only option at present is to start with offline channels. Flash, which has a long-standing partnership with Focus Media, has significant cooperation in bus advertising, elevator advertising, and television media.

The CEO of Focus Media has a good relationship with Jack Ma, but he also has a good relationship with Boss Xiao Tan. Boss Xiao Tan approached Focus Media for cooperation when the company was still very small.

2007 is almost over, and it's been three years since we started cooperating with Focus Media. Over these three years, we've established a close relationship of mutual benefit in many areas.

Tan Jincheng's entire business portfolio has a deep cooperative relationship with Focus Media in terms of advertising, and he is already a major client of Focus Media.

Even though Focus Media's boss has a good relationship with Jack Ma, Tan Jincheng is not worried that Focus Media will break off its cooperation with Flashpoint. There is no relationship that is more important than their company's actual interests.

Unless Lao Ma invests in Focus Media, but Tan Jincheng isn't worried about that. He also plans to acquire some shares in Focus Media, since he'll need to do advertising for his car business in the future.

Regarding media investment, Tan Jincheng still uses Lao Ma as a cautionary example: it's necessary, but it shouldn't be taken too lightly either.

It must be said that having such positive or negative images as a reference can indeed help avoid many detours in company management.

"Does this mean you're not busy for the rest of the year? Or are you really going to stop working?"

After discussing matters with Orange Technology, Gu Qingqing asked Tan Jincheng curiously, as he had been busy with Orange Technology lately and hadn't been paying much attention to Flashpoint.

If there are any documents to sign, the secretary will bring them here.

"It's not that we're ignoring it, but FlashEx expanded too quickly in the early stages and needs to enter a period of consolidation. So the entire company must slow down from top to bottom, starting with me."

Tan Jincheng holds an even higher position in Flashpoint than he does at Orange Technology; he is the soul of the company, and his work style directly influences everyone within the organization.

Previously, Boss Tan had always appeared in the company as a workaholic, and the company's development seemed to be rushing forward with all its might. Boss Tan was aware of the major trends in 2008, including the snow disaster and the financial crisis.

However, there are still many uncertainties throughout the year. Pigs on the cusp of opportunity can fly, but they may also be too thin and get blown away.

"That's true. The scope of our business is too broad. If we don't take time to consolidate our operations, it's really easy for something to go wrong."

Electric vehicles, power batteries, mobile phone batteries, and apparel retail and trade are the four key business segments, requiring unlimited funds and effort, in addition to the investment in ByteDance's massive engine.

In this Series C funding round, he sold so many shares at once, and she also sold most of her shares at the same time.

They practically have the words "cash out" written all over their faces.

The funds that came out immediately went into ByteDance's engine. Huang Ming is still stuck in Hunan Province. What kind of research takes so long?
Although Tan Jincheng didn't say it explicitly, how could his bedmate not guess Flash's plans for next year? It was nothing more than pushing Flash Technology to go public, a promise made a long time ago when they brought in investment from Beicang District.

If nothing unexpected happens, he should be planning something big next year.

Listing a physical company is much more difficult than listing an internet company. Although the stock market is doing well this year, the fact that ByteDance has stopped investing in the secondary market suggests that even its own people are not very optimistic about the stock market.

Two months have passed since the Shanghai Composite Index broke through 6124 in October, and it is still fluctuating below 5000 points. Perhaps it really is not going to work out?
However, if the stock market continues its correction, it will be even more difficult for FlashTech to go public, and it's unclear how they should respond.

I missed one chapter yesterday; I'll make it up tonight or tomorrow.



(End of this chapter)