2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 495 "Congratulations, Mr. Sun!"

The competition was more intense than Tan Jincheng had imagined, or rather, the retaliation was more severe.

On December 16, Taobao announced that it would encourage more small and medium-sized merchants to participate in the year-end promotion by offering discounts on unit prices and shipping subsidies.

The subsidies are quite generous, especially for footwear and apparel, with even higher subsidies for high-level stores and branded clothing retailers.

Taobao defined it as the "first Taobao Shopping Festival," which is clearly a promotional tactic deliberately targeting Orange Products Club.

It is highly unreasonable for a full-category e-commerce website with a market share of over 70% to deliberately target a vertical e-commerce website with a market share of only 2%.

But if this vertical website manages to "poach" the CEO of the other party, that would be perfectly reasonable. We don't care about the results yet, but we have to make that gesture.

In addition, Ali also announced that Taobao will officially launch Taobao Mall in April next year, focusing on serving third-party brands and retailers.

"Isn't this Tmall? It's actually going to be launched next April. It seems the rumors are true. Old Ma and Old Sun must have had some disagreement on this."

There's certainly an element of his achievements overshadowing his superiors; the title of "Father of Taobao" must have put considerable pressure on Jack Ma. However, in Tan Jincheng's view, the more likely issue stems from a fundamental difference in their philosophies.

Of course, once a company goes public and people can cash out, it's normal for a group of people to leave. Lei Jun, for example, left Kingsoft just two months after the company officially went public.

This kind of resignation is more like the end of a phase of work, reaching a high point both physically and mentally, as well as financially.

It's the same principle as Flash Group deciding to slow down.

"This is clearly a suppression against us. As expected of the wealthy and powerful Ali, this subsidy really cost a lot of money," Gu Qingqing exclaimed.

Tan Jincheng has a personality that tends to worry about failure before winning. This can be seen from the fact that he was very frugal when he started his business, carefully raising money to buy Moutai, Tencent stock, and houses, all to prevent himself from losing everything if his business failed.

Sun Tongyu joining Orange Products Club is undoubtedly a huge benefit, but it also has its downsides. First, he's here to seduce Jack Ma, and second, there's his wife who currently works at Alipay.

This is indeed a sensitive matter, but fortunately his wife currently only works at Alipay, not as its president.

However, Tan Jincheng was too lazy to get involved in this matter. It was Old Sun's family affair, and as a mature professional, he was naturally able to resolve these issues once he decided to join Orange Products Club.

“Suppressing them is just a side thing. This amount of money is nothing to Ahri. It’s just a way for them to flex their muscles.”

Tan Jincheng smiled and said, "But don't worry about him. We just need to do our job well, mainly focusing on after-sales service and logistics."

Ali has gained a reputation similar to Pinduoduo in its early days, with rampant counterfeit goods. For consumers who are used to shopping on Taobao, large subsidies can indeed attract them, but this only applies to their usual shopping habits.

For example, if you want to buy Adidas, you would definitely prefer Orange Goods on Taobao, because there is a 99% chance that what you buy on Taobao is fake.

At Orange Products, you can buy absolutely genuine products. For roughly the same price, it's definitely better to buy from Orange Products.

This is why Ali couldn't wait to launch on Taobao Mall, which later became Tmall, in order to change the impression of counterfeit goods.

From a strategic perspective, the launch of Taobao Mall and the entry of major brand flagship stores have indeed changed Ali's image a lot. However, in the early stages of its launch, the high entry fees and the significant allocation of traffic also triggered a collective backlash from merchants on the Taobao platform.

Jingdong seems to have used this opportunity to attract many merchants to open stores on Taobao, but unfortunately the results were not very good.

"Were Jinpeng's stores also involved in this event?"

"Of course! It would be foolish not to take advantage of a good deal. We definitely have to seize the opportunity when Mr. Ma is giving us money."

For Taobao, Tan's shops can be considered top-tier shops. Apart from the two QQ lingerie shops that are not participating, the other shops are all eligible to participate in this Taobao Shopping Festival.

Moreover, it was one of the subsidies with a relatively large amount. With the help of Mr. Ma's money, Tan Jincheng simply added free shipping to Shenzhen and Guangzhou, as well as other developed cities in Guangdong Province, in addition to the previous free shipping benefits in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai.

Although it was only a short-term offer, this preferential policy significantly boosted sales for several already popular stores.

"You really don't miss any opportunity to take advantage. Now that Mr. Sun is no longer in charge, aren't you afraid that Taobao will shut down your store?"

"That's unlikely. Even if they knew these shops were FlashCheer, Taobao wouldn't ban them. If they really did, I'd be laughing my head off. I could ruin their entire operation."

Although both are owned by Tan Jincheng, Flash and Orange are different. If Flash's stores are shut down because of Tan Jincheng, it would actually be a good thing for Orange or Flash.

If Tan Jincheng were to be shut down, he'd probably be laughing in his sleep. The transfer fees for high-end shops aren't even at their peak yet; the combined transfer fees for these shops would at most be around 200 million yuan.

Being banned is a loss for Flash, but definitely a good thing for Orange.

Whether or not the person in charge of Taobao for this shopping festival knew that the actual controller of these stores was Tan Jincheng, it was impossible for him to do such an absurd thing, unless he was crazy.

At most, they might manipulate traffic support, but that's not all. Top-rated stores aren't selling well, while smaller stores are doing well.

"Oh, by the way, Mr. Wang mentioned the deliverymen fighting the other day. What do you think about that?"

Besides normal business counterattacks, Ali has also made many underhanded moves, such as subtly discrediting Orange Products in terms of advertising and cutting off some of Orange Products' advertising channels.

This time, they incited some express delivery workers offline to cause trouble for SF Express deliverymen, because slower delivery will definitely affect their reviews.

Meanwhile, Zhejiang Province's express delivery companies, led by Shentong, which already hold a large share of the online shopping market, are happy to see this situation and are turning a blind eye to it.

SF Express has invested heavily in building its logistics system in the Yangtze River Delta region this year, which puts considerable pressure on them.

"Just fight back, tell the deliverymen not to be afraid. As long as they don't beat someone too badly, Orange Products and SF Express will cover for them if anything happens. You can also hype up this kind of offline fight."

Offline underhanded tactics are common, especially in the face of direct competition from internet companies. Wang Xin, who is still addicted to social networking sites, is probably most familiar with this.

Oh, right, there are also offline promotion teams for Alipay or WeChat Pay.

It's just a fight and some dirty tricks, come on over. We can just go back a few more times to pick up the people.

The promotional activities, which involved playful banter, went back and forth between the two sides. In reality, just as Tan Jincheng had imagined, the so-called first Taobao online shopping festival offered substantial subsidies, but in practice, it was practically useless.

Taobao's apparel category saw a significant increase in GMV in a short period, but the impact on Orange Products, which specializes in branded goods, was negligible.

Orange Products' daily limited-quantity items still sell out quickly within a short period after being listed at midnight, leaving those who failed to snag a few items furious.

Before the Double Twelve Chinese New Year shopping festival, Orange Products conducted a small survey.

These days, the pursuit of foreign brands and famous brands is even more exaggerated than it was a decade or two ago. On the one hand, consumer values ​​haven't had time to change over the years, and on the other hand, domestic brands are indeed difficult to compete with foreign brands in terms of both design and quality.

Even in the home appliance industry, which has already dominated the domestic market, this is still the case. Despite the fact that the quality is no less than that of foreign brands, many people still prioritize well-known brands like Xiao Ri Zi when choosing home appliances.

Unfortunately, the price was too high, so we had to settle for second best.

According to previous surveys, those big logos that Tan Jincheng found out were incredibly tacky are still quite popular now. Most consumers really want to wear such designer clothes during the Chinese New Year, feeling it's a very prestigious thing.

Orange Products provides them with a great platform where they don't have to worry about counterfeit products, and the prices are still affordable for them.

The real data relieved the staff at Orange Products. Although Ali wasn't yet deified like he would be a few years later, he was incredibly successful this year, and Jack Ma's reputation was absolutely phenomenal.

Although it's not entirely clear why Ali would specifically launch a promotional campaign for a small website like Chengpin Hui, which has been online for less than two months, it has energized the entire staff.

That's awesome! Having Ahri specifically target them is definitely an honor for the staff of Orange Products, showing that their work has been recognized by the market.

Despite being full of energy, I was still quite nervous. What if I actually got killed?
Fortunately, everything is as before.

December 24th, the last Monday of the month, is also the eve of Christmas in the West.

Alibaba announced that former COO Li Qi, CTO Wu Tong, Executive Vice President and Taobao President Sun Tongyu, and Senior Vice President Li Xuhui will resign from their current positions at Alibaba.

The reason given was that they were "officially entering a period of study and rest."

The news caused a huge sensation even late at night. Compared to Lei Jun's departure from Kingsoft, the fact that so many senior executives of Ali, a company closely watched by the capital market, resigned at the same time was a huge surprise to the market.

A careful observer will notice that most of these senior executives are responsible for the Taobao business.

Tan Jincheng learned of the news immediately when Sun Tongyu told him: "Congratulations, Mr. Sun, you're finally free."

(End of this chapter)