Those Years When I Was Forced to Top the Forbes List

Chapter 43 Start of Construction

At 5:30 p.m., Chen Xuebing was sweeping test papers in the classroom when his pocket suddenly vibrated.

He glanced at the caller ID and saw it was Xin Mengzhen calling, so he quickly answered.

Before I could even say hello, Xin Mengzhen's voice came through:

"The shop was approved this afternoon! Um... I'd like to try it out for you first. We're currently on the product upload page... The system is asking me to select product tags. Should I choose 'digital' or just 'communication equipment'?"

Chen Xuebing's mind, which had been in a daze from being overwhelmed by a sea of ​​questions, instantly cleared up. He took a deep breath, raised his wrist, checked the time, and immediately rushed out of the classroom.

"You're home, right? Wait for me!"

……

……

In the evening after school.

It was still that alluring boudoir.

Chen Xuebing sat in front of the computer with Xin Mengzhen beside him. The moment the backend interface opened, Xin Mengzhen looked on with anticipation, her long eyelashes and high nose almost touching Chen Xuebing's face, but Chen Xuebing had no impure thoughts.

A list with pictures appeared, showing "Up for Sale" and a 13-day, 21-hour countdown to its removal.

"It's available now!"

Xin Mengzhen was extremely excited, as if she had opened a path to a new world. Her beautiful fox-like eyes smiled as she looked at Chen Xuebing and happily said:

"Tell me quickly, how do I do it! I want to be your waiter!"

She's serious about learning how to open a shop from Chen Xuebing.

She wants to personally sell the goods.

"Okay, wait a minute."

Chen Xuebing nodded slightly, stared at the interface for a while, then opened the Taobao website and kept searching for "Xin Mengzhen's Little Shop" and the phone models he had listed. He quickly found the shop and the products, and only then did he feel relieved and chuckle.

"Damn it, only three hours have passed! I definitely got scammed!"

Then I opened Wangwang (a Chinese instant messaging platform).

There is no information yet.

While opening the auto-reply settings, he explained:

"The merchant backend only has Alipay and Taobao Wangwang. There haven't been any inquiries from buyers yet. I'll set up a reply, specifying the store's reply times. I'll go to the internet cafe to reply every day after school at noon, afternoon, and evening. If you have time to log in, then... Can you bring your phone number in the future?"

Xin Mengzhen nodded: "Yeah! I don't bring my phone because I'm afraid of losing it. It's not convenient to carry it on my body, and it's also in my backpack... When I first came here, one of my phones that I had used for a long time was stolen. There were still some contacts saved on it, so I had to get a new one. It was really annoying."

Chen Xuebing couldn't help but chuckle awkwardly: "I'm sorry, the people of Chongqing have disappointed you. When I have money in the future, I'll replace your phone on behalf of the person who stole it."

"Oh, that's not what I meant." Xin Mengzhen felt embarrassed when Chen Xuebing said that, but seeing Chen Xuebing's teasing smile, she snorted again: "I don't want to use a pirated phone."

"Tsk, what do you mean pirated? This is a counterfeit!"

Chen Xuebing began to seriously instruct the shop assistant: "When you reply to customers, don't treat our products as pirated. Just say they are overseas surplus stock or new goods from the OEM factory. Although Taobao doesn't check for piracy, customers will understand when they see the price. But you can't say these things openly!"

"Oh... is that alright? What if the customer wants to go to the store to have the machine checked?" Xin Mengzhen asked with some concern.

Chen Xuebing laughed: "We support inspection, but we don't support returns. We won't handle any issues that aren't under warranty. You bought a phone for several hundred yuan less and still expect it to be genuine? Even if you call the police, they won't take action. You're buying cheap goods online, what are you even thinking?"

These days, Taobao not only doesn't check for piracy, there's practically no genuine products here.

C2C is the main business of Taobao stores, which are all individual sellers. The classification of brand manufacturers and distributors is very strict, involving a lot of channel profit rules. How many of them have genuine sources of goods?
Even the price of the genuine product can't compete with others.

Around 10 years ago, when the "counterfeit goods scandal" occurred, Taobao faced a barrage of criticism and even lawsuits from numerous brand merchants. Investigations were difficult, as any attempt to investigate would result in a massive backlash across the entire livestream. During this period, Taobao Mall was transformed into Tmall, which started a B2C model and began labeling stores as "official flagship stores," shipping directly from brand merchants to sellers.

The meaning is quite clear: if you want direct sales from brand merchants, just shop on Tmall and don't complain about the prices. So when Chen Xuebing thought of starting a business on Taobao, he immediately decided on counterfeit products.

Moreover, after learning more about the situation over this period of time, Chen Xuebing realized that he had been overthinking things. Taobao no longer offers no-reason returns. Once you receive the item, you can only seek mediation from the seller through customer service.

Many merchants even dare to label their product images as "genuine and guaranteed authentic" and then cheat their customers.

Chen Xuebing doesn't plan to do that, but he still has to label it "no returns or exchanges for non-quality issues" to avoid stockpiling inventory.

Actually, judging from browsing forums during this period, the quality of netizens in this era is significantly higher than in later generations, and there are probably fewer unreasonable and argumentative people.

He understood the customer's mindset to some extent.

He started shopping online very early in his previous life. Around this time, sports brands like Adidas, Nike, Kappa, and Puma became popular, and the three stripes on pants became a status symbol for young people. However, they were too expensive, costing eight or nine hundred, or even over a thousand, for a set. He also searched online for cheap and realistic knock-offs, just so he wouldn't be outdone.

In an era when material resources were not abundant and national brands had not yet risen, a high-quality replica of a foreign brand gave people a great sense of satisfaction, making them willing to go out for a stroll even when they had nothing else to do.

They don't understand terms like "parallel imports," "counterfeit goods," or "end-of-line stock." Just don't tell them directly that it's fake, as that might offend their sense of self-esteem about "intentionally buying counterfeit goods."

The same applies to mobile phones.

Their own products are at least better than 95% of the counterfeit products on the market. They truly solve user pain points and achieve "high-fidelity" products. Customers who want to buy mobile phones at low prices are looking for this kind of super A-grade product.

He even figured out how to get positive reviews from customers.

"When communicating with customers, we can make it clear that this isn't a domestically produced genuine product, but the appearance and configuration are exactly the same. If any stock is sold, we can call back and ask the customer to leave a review saying something like 'Not official, but exactly the same as the genuine product,' or 'Overseas surplus stock, great experience.' In return for the review, we'll send them accessories like universal chargers and earphones. This way, we can explain less in the future, and our target customers will know that the kind of high-quality replica they're looking for is right here."

“Oh…” Xin Mengzhen took it very seriously and immediately picked up a piece of paper and wrote it down.

Chen Xuebing took this opportunity to write an automatic reply.

Hello, thank you for choosing our Taobao shop. We understand your valuable time, so we have set up an automatic reply function. Our online hours are... We will reply to you as soon as we receive your message.

He actually wanted to write down the frequently asked questions below, but there wasn't enough space or word count.

After thinking about it, I added "dear~" in front of it.

The flavor suddenly came through.

Yes, the auto-response entries and character limit are also areas that need improvement.

Chen Xuebing casually opened the Taobao forum, preparing to post a comment on his own thread titled "Improvements to Taobao Wangwang".

But then I thought about it again and deleted the post.

If they treat me like this, why should I give them any advice?

Even if the official channels contact him this time and offer him compensation, he will not be willing to give Taobao any more advice!

Ha ha.

Online shopping platforms...aren't they also infrastructure?
Chen Xuebing pushed the keyboard with both hands and exhaled a breath of stale air.

It's finally done, let's get started!
"Hey." Xin Mengzhen suddenly called out to him, "Are you... hungry? I'll go cook you a bowl of noodles. There's some fresh vegetables in the fridge... I asked the housekeeper to leave some."

Upon hearing this, Chen Xuebing couldn't help but smile and turn to look at her.

Xin Mengzhen's obsidian-like eyes were filled with two stubborn messages: "I'm greedy" and "If you dare to ask me to do it, I really dare to do it."

Helpless.

"Okay! I'll make it for you, Miss Waiter!"

Chen Xuebing slapped the armrest of the chair and stood up. Xin Mengzhen's eyes were like crescent moons.

(End of this chapter)