Those Years When I Was Forced to Top the Forbes List

Chapter 51 Unknown Call
During the meal, everyone stood on beer crates and drank heartily.

"Damn it!" (First sound)

"Damn!" (Fourth tone)

Everyone took turns raising their glasses to toast, without any toasting words. They simply picked up their glasses, said "Cheers!", and drank the glass.

The more you drink, the more invigorating it becomes.

"yue...poof!!"

"Gan!!"

"Gou Hongyi, you threw up after only two bottles?!"

"Damn, did he just spit out the pot?"

...

Drinking two bottles of beer doesn't prevent Chen Xuebing from attending evening self-study sessions.

On the way back to school, I started planning my finances.

There's only one week left until New Year's Day.

February 8th is Lunar New Year's Eve, and construction should resume on the seventh or eighth day of the Lunar New Year.

It will only take six or seven weeks.

The issue is no longer about the funds for purchasing goods, but whether the order volume can keep up. Zhao Wanping has already settled his payments, and he still has about 10,000 yuan in his own hands, with less than 30,000 yuan held in Alipay.

This is the revenue from sales in the past few days.

At this point, data usage has become a critical threshold.

If things go smoothly, I can earn tens of thousands of yuan in these six or seven weeks and cover the start-up costs.

If things don't go smoothly...

Yes, around the Spring Festival, express delivery services also have to take a break, and cash flow will be suspended for a period of time.

No, I have to personally manage the finances while the construction site is underway.

Try to postpone the time limit for using funds on the other side to ensure sufficient cash flow on Taobao's side.

Just then, my phone vibrated in my pocket.

Chen Xuebing picked up his phone and glanced at it, his eyes filled with doubt.

An unfamiliar number, and from an unfamiliar number range.

"Hey?"

……

Huaxing Technology Building, Hangzhou.

The Taobao office area was filled with the loud noise of keyboards, and many people hadn't eaten yet.

In a semi-transparent office cubicle, a woman wearing suit pants is doing a handstand.

During Taobao's difficult early days, a single sentence from the chairman made handstands a mandatory course for every employee.

"Everyone should learn to stand upside down, because when you stand upside down, blood rushes to your brain, and you see the world from a completely different angle than usual. When you think about a problem, you can find an incredible perspective."

Ye Feng looked at the upside-down world and racked his brains with the employees outside the office, but to no avail.

Mr. Sun's "20-day update plan" has long been declared a failure. There are still 9 days left before the New Year's Day deadline set by the chairman at headquarters.

The "major New Year's Day update" that has been constantly touted from top to bottom has so far only resulted in a webpage layout optimization, and the development of new features is far from satisfactory.

The idea of ​​the Taobao seller post and payment points that General Manager Sun asked her to develop has been put into practice. She has already compiled the plan and sent it to her colleagues at Alipay, but it has nothing to do with this update.

The post also included a suggestion for a "membership system value," but it was too vague. She came up with several solutions, but none of them were satisfactory.

That seller is amazing.

He not only came up with an idea that could enable the entire Taobao creative maintenance department to achieve several months' worth of performance targets, but he also started a new thread afterward, offering suggestions from a different perspective.

Especially the "traffic access" section; when she saw it, her mind went blank.

[Taobao's advertising budget is vastly different from eBay's. Regarding traffic access, Taobao's current approach of abandoning exorbitant promotional costs and adopting a strategy of "encircling the cities from the countryside" is correct. However, I believe merchants should be involved. Here are my thoughts.]

This alone was enough to make her suspicious.

How come this "seller" is so incredibly powerful?
Could it be an internal employee?
Taobao's "encircling the cities from the countryside" promotion strategy is a major strategy of the entire company, which is discussed and decided internally multiple times. Moreover, most of Taobao's managers are currently bound by confidentiality agreements.

Moreover, the phrase "getting businesses involved" sparked her thinking, like a flash of inspiration, but it was like finding a knotted thread that was impossible to untangle.

How can merchants participate?

Leveraging business connections for promotion? Paying merchants? Merchants…direct from manufacturers…

Thought a lot.

She even asked President Sun to hold a strategy meeting to discuss the matter, but they couldn't come up with any feasible results.

...Just finish what you're saying!
This person is despicable. Their second post contained many incomplete sentences, which were both eye-opening and confusing, and ultimately wasted everyone's time.

"Dong dong dong."

"Sister Ake".

Ye Feng snapped out of his thoughts, lightly kicked the wall with his foot, fell to the ground, and stood up.

"Enter."

A young woman pushed open the door, poked her head in, smiled sweetly, and said succinctly, "Mr. Sun said there's no time left, so he wants you to contact the seller directly... if you can really negotiate some terms."

Ye Feng paused, then hesitated for a moment.

“I’ve already discussed this with Mr. Sun… I think we should look for solutions internally. The chairman has said it’s all about innovation.”

The young woman immediately clasped her hands together, her face pleading, "Sister, please don't try to be energetic. We haven't had a break for over a month. Look at us, everyone looks exhausted..."

As she spoke, she pointed to the work area outside, which was filled with the aroma of instant noodles, and added:
“We’ve made a total of five versions, but Mr. Sun isn’t satisfied with any of them. Today I found that Mr. Sun was browsing the deleted post in the forum management backend. He must want to know something. Maybe the solution that satisfies him is in there. You should ask him and let him give up. Otherwise, he will always feel that the current update plan is not good enough.”

Ye Feng peeked outside through the crack in the door and saw an employee yawning with his mouth open.

With everyone working overtime for extended periods, the work has clearly become less efficient.

She sighed and said, "Go ahead, I'll contact him. But tell Mr. Sun not to get his hopes up. I think he's just playing us for revenge for the last update."

Hearing this, the young woman hesitated for a moment, then went into the office, closed the door, and whispered to Ye Feng, "It might not be that. I heard, I heard... that your operations department rejected the listing application from that merchant who made us work overtime..."

Ye Feng's expression hardened.

"Which reviewer did this?"

The young woman quickly stuck out her tongue: "I didn't say that! I'm leaving, Sister Ake!"

The girl quickly left the office.

Ye Feng stood there in a daze for a while, then walked to his desk and computer, rubbed his forehead, looked through the files for a long time, picked up the phone on the desk, and dialed a number into the computer.

Got connected quickly.

"Hey?"

Hearing that the other person's voice sounded somewhat young, Ye Feng turned to carefully examine the seller's information again. He noticed the ID number field listed "1986," representing the year of birth. After hesitating for two seconds, he said:
"Hello, this is Taobao, Operations Department. Is this Mr. Chen?"

……

Chen Xuebing hesitated for a moment, then smiled and said:

"Oh, it's me. What's up?"

Although he smiled, his voice was rather cold. The other party clearly sensed his coldness and said hesitantly, "Mr. Chen, I'm calling specifically to apologize. Due to our oversight, there was a problem with your product listing review process..."

Before the other person could finish speaking, Chen Xuebing interrupted, "Oh, it's nothing. I'm already an eBay seller, and listing there is going smoothly. Is there anything else?"

This sentence really put the other person in a bind.

After several seconds, the other person's voice became even more hesitant: "I'm really sorry, Mr. Chen, on behalf of Taobao, I sincerely invite you to reconsider..."

"That's it? I accept your apology. If that's all, I'm hanging up. Business is pretty good here; I'm busy shipping orders." Chen Xuebing retorted, venting all the grievances his shop had suffered before the other party hung up.

In fact, he was about 70-80% sure that the other party's apology was not as simple as it seemed. Otherwise, when they heard that he was already an eBay seller, they would have just said a few polite words and hung up.

"Mr. Chen, there's one more thing. Your previous post gave us some ideas, and we've included it in one of our internal design and creativity competitions. There's a chance to win a prize. I'd like to call you back. Do you have time now?"

The other party stopped apologizing and their tone gradually calmed down.

Chen Xuebing exclaimed, "Wow!"

Targeting oneself is not called targeting oneself, it's called a process issue; plagiarism and deleting posts is not called plagiarism and deleting posts, it's called inclusion and selection.

To continue plagiarizing, they used his words to describe it as a "follow-up phone call."

No wonder he's Lao Ma's employee; he can spout one lie after another.

Chen Xuebing knew perfectly well what the other person wanted to ask, but hearing the young voice, he didn't want to waste time.

"If you want to ask about the second post, have your boss call me."

This sentence suddenly cut to the point, and the other person remained silent for several seconds.

Then, the female voice on the other end coughed and began to speak in a deliberately calm tone: "Mr. Chen, I am the head of the operations department."

Chen Xuebing frowned.

He sounds like he's in his early twenties, an operations manager?
"who are you?"

"Mr. Chen, as I said, the operations department is responsible for the removal and removal of products from shelves."

"I'm asking, who are you?"

"...You can just call me Ake."

Chen Xuebing hesitated for a moment.

Ake?

He was relatively familiar with Ali's history, and he did know her nickname; he had even read reports about her.

She was a girl, not much older than him. She wasn't considered a beauty, but within the Alibaba system, she was considered pretty.

She named Taobao and Alipay, and Taobao's first transaction was an internal employee transaction—a Longquan sword, which she also brought from home.

Upon hearing that it was her, Chen Xuebing knew he could directly state his terms.

However, his mindset has changed. He no longer intends to use Taobao Affiliate Program, a crucial traffic strategy for the next few years. E-commerce has been incorporated into his future strategic plan. However, this phone call presents an opportunity for him in his current situation.

"Oh, I know you. What do you want to ask? Just say it."

"You know me?" The other person asked, somewhat surprised.

Although Taobao is gaining popularity, not many people know the name of its chairman. She doesn't think she has reached the point where she is known to everyone.

"I'm one of the ten founders of Taobao. I don't know you guys well, so how could I dare to give you advice?"

Chen Xuebing was just showing off. He knew quite a bit about the eighteen founders of Alibaba, but of the ten founders of Taobao, he only remembered the eldest, Sun Tongyu, and Ake. He didn't even know Ake's real name. If the other party had mentioned his name directly, he still wouldn't know who he was.

This pretentious remark was very effective, adding a touch of mystery to him.

It makes sense that mysterious people have some amazing ideas.

The other person no longer hesitated, and their tone became expectant: "I'm very interested in your second post."

If you're interested, that's fine.

Chen Xuebing's lips curled up: "Why are you bringing up the second post? You haven't even settled the fee for the first one yet. Even if you're hiring a creative company, shouldn't you pay off the old debts before bringing up a new contract? Besides, you've blocked me for so long, and I've missed out on a lot of business while waiting for it to be published."

"Sorry." This time, the other party didn't make excuses and went straight to the point: "How do you want to pay for your idea? We can give you a bonus, or we can hire you as our employee."

Chen Xuebing laughed when he heard this.

Wow, I'm rewarded with a trip to work.

"No need for payment. I can't afford your company's 'blessings.' What I need is traffic—the top ranking in the digital search category. My product links need to appear on your homepage for at least half a month. Also, I requested the credit rating; give me the highest level, a five-crown store rating. That's not too much to ask, is it?"

"too exaggerated."

Ake works in the operations department, which manages traffic, so she naturally knows the value of this condition. It's like using the entire Taobao credit rating to endorse him.

"Five-crown stores are unlikely to appear within the next year or two, according to the rating mechanism. There are only a dozen or so crown stores at present. Merchant credit ratings cannot be faked, and I cannot give you that condition."

Chen Xuebing smiled but didn't say anything, waiting for her to sit down and return the money.

When the other party joined Taobao, it seemed like they had graduated less than two years ago, and now they are probably no more than 25 years old. Looking at it now, they are indeed a bit inexperienced in negotiation.

Too hasty.

"The homepage can't possibly take that long."

The naive young girl hurriedly gave the bottom price.

Chen Xuebing then slowly said, "Then ten days for the homepage and fifteen days for category search."

The other party can definitely manipulate these things. The homepage already has paid advertising slots and category rankings, so they should be able to buy them within two years.

It's just very expensive.

"Can we talk about the content of the second post now?"

Chen Xuebing firmly shook his head: "No credit allowed."

A brief stalemate.

The other person sighed.

"We are planning a major update for New Year's Day, Mr. Chen. I would like to hear your opinions and suggestions for changes as soon as possible. But rest assured, whether your suggestions are useful or not, we will compensate you for this recommendation. We apologize again for our previous oversight."

Chen Xuebing raised his eyebrows.

Knowing to solve the problem first shows they're not stupid.

They adopted his suggestion and refused to let him list the product. If this kind of behavior—big stores bullying customers—were to spread around, it would affect their reputation, especially with a fierce competitor. By mentioning eBay right away, he was reminding them that they had ways to spread this news, and eBay would definitely love to hear about it.

Now that we have a stance, there is room for discussion.

But... so you only remembered to contact me after updating on New Year's Day?
renew…

Reflecting on his experience running the store during this period, Chen Xuebing made a decision.

"New Year's Day, there are still nine days left, right? My shop will be up and running tonight. If my sales are good in seven days, I'll give you a piece of advice."

"Seven days?... We need time to update."

"This suggestion is just a few words and doesn't require any preparation time. As long as you do these few words, your update won't need many other adjustments and will generate a lot of buzz."

Chen Xuebing's assertive words silenced the other party for a moment.

However, the answer was also very straightforward.

"Then I'll contact you next week."

.

(End of this chapter)