Can following the rules be called rebirth?

Chapter 328, Section 326: The Future Has Arrived
A new year, a new life.

The next morning, Zhou Mingyuan left the Jiangnan Jiayuan residential community and headed straight for the bustling Nanhu Industrial Park.

On the first working day after the New Year's Day holiday, the industrial park was filled with a festive atmosphere, and the young people coming and going were full of energy.

Good morning, boss!

As soon as Zhou Mingyuan sat down in his office, He Min, whose office had been completely renovated, appeared in front of him.

"Oh, you've returned after completing your studies?"

The man stood up, pointed to the sofa not far away, and gestured for He Min to sit with him.

Both Zhou Mingyuan and Zhou Mingyuan went to Hangzhou on business trips, but Zhou Mingyuan was the only one who returned with gifts.

Du Jianuo and He Min were left in Hangzhou by him to follow Dai Ying around the clock and learn basic e-commerce knowledge up close.

"Sister Dai is such a kind person."

He Min smiled, her eyes crinkling, and walked into the house with her sleeves rolled up. She first brewed a pot of tea with practiced ease, and then sat down next to the man in a generous manner, telling him what she had learned.

"She really doesn't hold anything back!"

"Speak everything you know, and speak everything you know."

"nonsense."

Zhou Mingyuan, on the other hand, acted as if it were perfectly natural, straightening his back.

"Even if we don't change the shares, people still have to treat us as family."

"As far as I know, after Alibaba went public on the US stock market last September, the operating costs of all Taobao stores have increased significantly. In some stores, the operating costs have even accounted for more than 30% of the total revenue expenditure, requiring them to constantly spend money to buy traffic and find various entry points."

“Now that MALA ACTIVE has us, they don’t need to spend this money at all.”

"Really!"

He Min's eyes lit up: "Sister Dai invited me and Nuonuo for drinks tonight, and she also mentioned this matter."

"We are here to help those in need."

The assistant brushed aside her bangs and chattered away.

Do you know why Sister Dai contacted us?

In the beginning, Taobao prioritized credit.

A good credit rating will result in your product ranking higher in search results.

In the early days of e-commerce, stores only needed to focus on making products. If customers felt it was worthwhile after receiving the product, they would write positive reviews purely out of pure enthusiasm.

This is quite different from the cash rewards and benefits offered for positive reviews in later generations.

"Sister Dai said that MALA ACTIVE ranks quite high, and most of the time it is a homepage store. As long as you search for yoga pants, it will definitely be in the top three."

"But now that Taobao has started bidding for rankings, the staff will proactively call the boss to ask him to spend money."

"She found that with the decrease in natural flow, the same inventory pressure emerged."

For a Taobao store, it is essential to control the minimum inventory unit.

If you have hundreds or thousands of units of each product in stock, it puts a lot of pressure on the team.

This money is essentially a large amount of cash flow tied up in the goods.

Only two paths remain.

Either follow Taobao's lead and the merchant pays a fee every month.

Alternatively, businesses need to find ways to connect with social media or online influencers to attract traffic.

"So, with us around, we basically don't need to worry about sales."

He Min's tone couldn't hide her excitement.

As Zhou Mingyuan's personal assistant, she experiences different aspects of life every day.

The first time I wore a suit and tie, the first time I attended a business dinner, the first time I drafted a contract, the first time I toasted and shook hands.
This time, he even transformed into a boss and went to Hangzhou to investigate from beginning to end how to operate a Taobao store.

She learned a lot from Dai Ying.

For example, the e-commerce store opened in cooperation with Zhou Mingyuan will definitely be a brand store.

Brand stores and Taobao stores are not the same.

Most ordinary Taobao stores focus on volume sales.

Just like when Dai Ying first got into e-commerce, shop owners would go to the Sijiqing Clothing Market to find goods.

Take a small digital camera and a newspaper, find a good item, lay the newspaper flat underneath, take a picture, and post it on your online store to make a profit.

But at the beginning, you don't actually earn much.

For example, if a piece of clothing is discounted to 30 yuan, and you have to factor in the 8 yuan for two round-trip bus fare and 10 yuan for shipping, you might still lose money if you list it online for 50 yuan.

At that time, Dai Ying was not yet a model, and she often took the initiative to help with store affairs.

I put the clothes on Taobao, and as they hung there, my computer would occasionally beep with a notification that someone had inquired about them. I'd quickly process the order and they'd be sold.

Then we quickly packed and shipped the goods.

After shipping, I always look forward to customer feedback. If a customer gives me a five-star review, I'll be happy for a long time.

Back then, there was practically no such thing as returns. To put it bluntly, returns were troublesome, as the courier service was underdeveloped and there were very few courier stations in many places.

Most people get their goods from the wholesale stalls in Sijiqing, and the goods they get are all similar in style. Even the pictures used in online stores are stolen from various places.

Goods were supplied by stalls, images could be stolen, and express delivery was convenient. Later, Taobao allowed one-click listing, and gradually everyone turned to selling at low prices and in large quantities.

At that time, Dai Ying watched as her boss shipped hundreds of items a day and hired employees, earning only a few yuan per garment. After deducting rent and losses, her monthly income was not much.

In reality, low-priced Taobao stores are just about volume sales; they're just reselling wholesale goods and don't make any money.

Later, Dai Ying realized that the income was too low and unsustainable, so she thought about switching to Taobao modeling.

Shops that hire models tend to be upscale.

With Taobao also supporting Tmall, she wanted to learn how Tmall operates so she could start her own business later.

However, brand stores are different from individual stores; they require setting up a company, registering trademarks, and so on, requiring a greater investment in all aspects.

She calculated that she didn't have enough money, so she had to find a job to earn some.

But she didn't work just to earn money; she mainly went to learn from others.

Dai Ying worked in several brand stores, serving as a model, customer service representative, operations manager, and store manager, among other roles, and thus gained a thorough understanding of the ins and outs of brand stores.

"With her around, we have much less to worry about."

Zhou Mingyuan concluded.

"That's right!"

He Min nodded vigorously.

The grand year of 2015 felt like a dream in many ways.

The most ambitious time of one's life is often when one has just started working, let alone during an economic upswing.

Stepping out of the school gates and home, the whole society is filled with passion and hope.

The feeling that the future has already arrived is incredibly mesmerizing.

This applies to ordinary people as well as the business world.

Dai Ying's execution ability can be described as swift and decisive. The day after signing the contract, she had already found a storefront in Hangzhou and rented an office of nearly 100 square meters.

After showing He Min and Du Jianuo around, both of them were both surprised and delighted.

It seems that the pavilions and towers the boss mentioned have finally come to fruition, and we have reached a pragmatic juncture for moving forward.

After starting my own business, I visited factories and shops, and I saw a completely different world.

To understand how something is created and what its true value lies in. "Then, after selecting the items, they set up the shooting studio in advance, and then Nono would drive there to shoot."

The two engaged in a question-and-answer session, with He Min explaining the next steps for the shop's operations.

"Was it taken in Hangzhou?"

Zhou Mingyuan blinked, looking curious.

"Can't we film this little thing at home?"

"How can Party A and Party B be the same!"

When this topic came up, He Min raised her voice, clearly having done thorough research.

“I heard from Sister Dai that many big internet celebrities go abroad specifically to film.”

At first, her understanding of the job was simply to be a contractor who took orders and casually took sample photos in parks or coffee shops.

But after changing my mindset, I realized that this wouldn't work.

Don't assume that where a picture is taken is unimportant.

There's a saying in the e-commerce industry: what you're selling online is just a picture.

It's very simple.

If you just hang the clothes up and take pictures, people will think that the clothes are only worth 50 yuan.

It costs 200 yuan to have a professional model take the photos in a studio.

Online celebrities wear it for photoshoots, 500 yuan.

If it were filmed abroad, it would be worth 1000 yuan!
For each new product launch by top influencer Xue Li, she has to go abroad for a photoshoot.

This trip is to Hong Kong, and the next stop is Malaysia and Bali.

This batch might sell 10 units, the next batch might sell 20 units, and the batch after that might sell 30 units.

They didn't even have time to do any promotions; all they knew was that orders kept increasing and money was pouring in.

"Is there still such a thing?"

Details, the devil is in the details.

Hearing this, Zhou Mingyuan felt both learned and incredibly grateful that he had found a truly professional helper.

Dai Ying's role is far more important than the small amount of shares she gave away.

It's important to understand that many times, even if someone knows the future trends, understands the direction e-commerce will take, and knows where the real money-making opportunities are, it's still not enough.

However, when it comes to implementation, there are still many blind spots that require time and experience, and many things that he is completely unaware of.

It's difficult to jump over in one go.

Is rebirth a cheat code?
Yes.

Being able to predict the future ensures his success in the financial or investment field, allowing him to easily earn his first pot of gold.

But whether it's a coffee shop or a Taobao store, the parts that require human effort and hard work still require the same tuition fees to be paid.

This is the real world that speaks of logic.

If you foolishly plunge headlong into it without Dai Ying's help, you might end up taking many detours and suffering many losses.

Traffic and fame wait for no one.

If the new store really flops, not only will Du Jianuo's reputation be affected, but the entire Jieyou Media will likely also experience a chain reaction.

If the monetization path prepared by the boss doesn't work, many short-sighted livestreamers might as well take orders from trading platforms!
They're giving out real money.

After all, this was 2015, an era where an internet celebrity could emerge every two days.

No one knows if they will stay famous forever, and no one is 100% sure if they can make money after becoming famous.

Beautiful women can become famous, ugly women can become famous, and ordinary people might also become famous by doing something trivial.

At the beginning of the new year, a meme called "Ye Liangchen" went viral online.

His various catchy quotes are circulating on WeChat Moments and Weibo. Young male celebrities and big stars have been pushed off the Weibo hot list by him. Comedians are forwarding his memes, and grave diggers have launched the highest level of doxing.

In this era, becoming an overnight sensation is nothing new.

Even in the New Year's address of top leaders, the new term "Internet Plus" appeared for the first time.

When consumers mention internet celebrities, they may think of many different kinds of people.

For example, the rumored girlfriends of celebrities and tycoons, the beautiful women with eye-catching figures, outstanding looks and huge fan bases on social media, or non-celebrity influencers who become famous overnight due to negative news and have a constant stream of appearances.

In the wave of the internet connecting everything, becoming famous has become a less difficult thing.

Whether people accept it or not, the economic benefits behind numerous internet celebrities have quietly become an important new economic force.

Yes, boss, look.

He Min took out her phone, opened the Taobao shops she had saved, and moved them in front of Zhou Mingyuan.

That's the Weibo account of "Cherie," an internet celebrity with 119 million followers.

Looking at most of the content posted by the other party, it consists of high-value photos of her wearing different outfits.

After clicking "Follow," your Weibo account will automatically receive a push notification.

[Thank you for your attention, baby. This is the link to my custom clothing store.]

Opening the webpage link leads to a shop called "Qian Furen Jia Xue Li Customization," and the first large photo is a fashion street style shot of this blogger.

With her Korean-style hairstyle, V-shaped face, and black coat, a young and beautiful girl comes to life.

Previously, media reports indicated that this was a store with annual sales exceeding 100 million yuan.

Although this news has not been confirmed, it is not difficult for Zhou Mingyuan and He Min to discover it.

This store has a gold crown rating.

I randomly opened a product that was being sold, a black down jacket priced at over 400 yuan.

The transaction volume in the past week has already exceeded three digits.

This is clearly a sales volume that many shop owners would envy.

The logic is no different in another popular online store called "vcruan".

Among countless beautiful personal photos, I randomly selected a black hat priced at 109 yuan.

Zhou Mingyuan discovered that the transaction records within the same time period were also similar.

The order volume brought about by the power of fans is evident.

"Look! They don't take photos casually in their shops. Aren't photos very important?"

"It really is."

While sitting with his legs crossed and scrolling through his phone, Zhou Mingyuan stumbled upon a Weibo post.

This was the content of Alibaba CEO Zhang Yong's speech at the recent Internet Conference.

Over the past year, we have witnessed the power of the new economy. Its vitality has brought about many new species, species that we could not have imagined in previous years. We have been discussing the internet economy and the fan economy, but in the changes of 2014, a new group emerged: a brand-new group on the Taobao platform, which we call the internet celebrity group. This is a manifestation of the power of the new economy.

Zhang Yong stated that this type of group was naturally discovered through internet connections and communication.

The pursuit of idols, like-minded people, and celebrities by the younger generation has created a new economic phenomenon that is unique in the world.

It has become a phenomenon for online celebrities like "Cherie" to monetize their fame and promote their Taobao shops.

Taobao has become an important platform for online celebrities to realize economic benefits, and the online celebrity economy has rapidly become a new economic force.

The future is here.

(End of this chapter)