Chapter 104: The Frenzied Group-Buy and the Line-Cutting Fee

On the way back that evening, Wang Zihao suddenly said, "I just saw Zhou Yuwen."

"Who?"

Chen Yansen paused slightly, feeling the name was familiar, but for the moment couldn't place it.

"Ms. Liu's ex-fiancé," Wang Zihao explained.

"So what if you saw him," Chen Yansen shifted his posture, leaning comfortably against the seat, and said casually.

"Do you think he'll tell Ms. Liu that he saw me at Galaxy Star?" Wang Zihao said uneasily.

"Weren't you having a great time just now?"

Chen Yansen clicked his tongue and shot back.

"I regret it. A place like Galaxy Star isn't really suited for a pure-hearted little guy like me," Wang Zihao said, his face full of remorse.

Chen Yansen rolled his eyes and ignored Wang Zihao.

That bad habit of yours can be cured after a few more trips to a KTV lounge.

Twenty minutes later, the car stopped downstairs at the faculty apartment building. Chen Yansen got out, took the car keys Wang Zihao handed him, and said, "See you tomorrow."

"Sigh, if only I could be as dashing as Brother Sen," Wang Zihao muttered softly, watching Chen Yansen's retreating back.

The next morning.

Chen Yansen walked into Room 206. He had barely sat down for two minutes when Zhao Maolin brought good news: the collaboration with the online Shangcheng looked promising.

Telecom had purchased a batch of phones last year, and now had some leftover stock — many brands, mixed models, with an estimated value of over 8 million yuan.

Those phones had originally sold well, but after the New Year, Huawei, Shanxing, Ku Sect, and Motorola all rolled out their spring new models. The new phones far surpassed last year's old models in screen, system, memory, camera, and other aspects.

So those old phones became unsold stock.

Headquarters had originally planned to bundle the phones priced under a thousand yuan with a top-up promotion, and pair those over a thousand yuan with 59-yuan or 79-yuan calling plans, selling them at half price, half giveaway.

Now that Zhao Maolin had volunteered to take the job, headquarters didn't hesitate and handed him this pile of inventory — whose value was shrinking by the day — to handle.

"We'd originally agreed to clear them at 60% of the launch price, but somehow some guy meddled, and in the end it became 70% off. Are you confident? If not, I'll turn it down."

Zhao Maolin asked, testing the waters.

Take the Huawei c8600, a Telecom custom model, for example — launch price 1,499 yuan, already on the market for a year. Even at 70% off, and even if Chen Yansen returned the full commission, the selling price would still be 1,050 yuan.

Honestly, a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen with 320×480 resolution, 256 MB of RAM, and 512 MB of storage offers absolutely no value for money.

"Zhao-ge, is there a product list?"

Chen Yansen didn't decide on the spot, planning to get a clear picture first.

At the same time, he wasn't sure whether this was one of Zhao Maolin's tricks.

"Yes, I'll have Wenwen send it to your email. Take a look when you're free. Let's go over the contract today first."

Zhao Maolin replied casually — right now he only cared about connecting the phone-top-up entry point.

"Alright, I'll set up a group chat in a bit," Chen Yansen agreed readily.

Ten minutes later, he opened the email Gu Wenwen had sent. It listed densely packed product info for over 60 models — all old 2009 and 2010 models, with stock ranging from a dozen or so units to five or six hundred.

Chen Yansen calculated based on the commission payout ratio of Super Rebate and found the final price offered little discount — at most thirty to fifty yuan cheaper than offline phone specialty stores.

But those offline phone stores had inflated list prices to begin with.

Chen Yansen thought it over for a moment, gave Zhao Maolin a heads-up, and said bluntly he couldn't do it.

Fox Tao's users aren't stupid. A phone whose market price is only 1,100 yuan, listed at 1,499 yuan, with a final price not much lower — that would easily annoy users and damage their trust in Super Rebate.

Not worth it!

"Better not to do it — saves those idiots from taking advantage. They could've easily given another 10% off, but they just had to make trouble."

Zhao Maolin breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this and laughed as he cursed.

Chen Yansen smiled, said nothing more, and after hanging up, handed this Telecom business over to the Key Account Investment Department to handle.

After the New Year, Fox Tao had held a recruitment fair on campus. Before the spring hiring season, it had poached plenty of talented people from various departments and, through its social-recruitment channels, added five new members to the Key Account Investment Department.

Most of these people had been in the industry for seven or eight years, even ten-plus years — all seasoned veterans with abundant brand-side and platform resources.

In such an environment, Song Yuncheng was growing rapidly. Every day, besides pushing forward the onboarding of b2c platforms, she could still find time to discuss marketing plans with brand-side contacts.

That afternoon, after finishing her calls, Song Yuncheng returned to her seat and excitedly reported to Chen Yansen: "President Chen, the Chery case is settled. We're signing the contract this week — 4 million yuan in ad spend, plus a 15% commission."

"Any ROI requirement?"

Chen Yansen looked up and asked casually.

In 2011, for the other party to dare place ads on a shopping-guide site was a rather bold strategy.

Even though Fox Tao performed well in home furnishings, major appliances, and digital categories, with an average order value close to 1,000 yuan, compared to cars costing tens of thousands each, the gap was still very obvious.

"The contract doesn't mandate it, but the other party's expectation is 1.5. The final ROI ratio will affect the follow-up collaboration."

Song Yuncheng explained slowly.

"Get Zhuang Rui and the activity team's Wang Yunxia to put together a version of the plan. Also, you need to think things through for the user on order tracking, car pickup procedures, and after-sales issues — got it?"

Chen Yansen instructed.

"Got it, I understand." Seeing him nod, Song Yuncheng followed his instructions and got up to find the product and activity planning staff.

Though she wasn't fully confident about this campaign, since she'd taken the client's money, she had to come up with an effective plan.

Chen Yansen took a look around the second floor — sixteen offices in total, all rented out by him. The total headcount had broken 160, with customer service and investment still being the largest departments.

As the number of partnered merchants grew, Xu Dan recruited seven more editor girls from the College of Literature and Communication. As before, apart from Li Bin, the editor group was entirely Misses.

At this stage of development, Fox Tao's various teams had clearly defined responsibilities.

Investment mainly partnered with platform merchants like Taobao, JD, Suning, and Gome, serving sellers through brand group-buys, category days, and major-brand special campaigns.

The Key Account Investment Department was responsible for bringing in b2c platforms, implementing major-brand marketing plans, and negotiating collaborations for special categories.

The editor group was responsible for liaising with merchants, checking commission ratio settings, and updating front-end titles and main images.

Li Bin was in charge of price comparison and controlling user experience.

The Category Operations Team is responsible for reviewing merchant applications and increasing the variety and richness of Returned products.

In addition, there are the Technology Department, Activity Group, Design Group, Administration Department, Product Group, and Legal and Finance divisions.

Each department performs its own duties to ensure the project runs at high speed.

Over a hundred brand group buys go live daily; despite traffic dispersion, output has not decreased, because daily active users on the site have grown 50% compared to last year, while user retention and repurchase frequency are also steadily rising.

Three days later, Lashou launched its first brand group buy on FoxTao, copying Gao Peng's model exactly.

Clearly, Lashou, which had just secured 50 million US dollars last year, was spending far more lavishly.

A few selected products had commission rates of around 40%–50%; within thirty minutes of going live, they sold 1 million in sales.

Total sales for the day reached 14 million!

While brands like Chery Auto might spend money on guide websites without making much impact, group buying and guide services naturally complement each other.

Their user bases overlap heavily—both are netizens who love discounts.

Once the industry learned that Lashou sold 14 million in one day on FoxTao, it immediately halted spending on TV and outdoor ads.

Compared to FoxTao's visible, tangible CPS advertising, those commercial placements that couldn't even be accurately measured for exposure were pure waste of time and money.

At the end of the three-day campaign, Lashou's total sales reached 31 million—nearly half a month's revenue—and brought nearly 100,000 new users to the site.

Chen Yansen also earned a lot; just the new user fees, Lashou had to pay him 4 million, not counting the Mao Li from the brand group buys.

As soon as Lashou went offline, QQ Group Buy went online.

This made Wang Xin, who had been hesitating whether to increase investment in guide channels, regret it bitterly, slapping his thigh.

Tens of millions in revenue had already shaken the market share of the group buying industry.

Both Gao Peng and Lashou had already joined FoxTao's Shangcheng rebate module, causing group-buying users to habitually redirect from FoxTao before placing orders.

After all, spending thirty extra seconds on a 100-yuan food group buy could save another 3–5 yuan—very worthwhile.

Meituan, 24 Quan, and Wowo Group Buy, which had not yet joined, were desperate; to secure early entry, some even bribed recruitment staff with "queue-jumping fees," handing out 50,000 or 100,000 yuan at a time.

Chen Yansen quickly stepped in, strictly ordering recruitment staff not to accept "queue-jumping fees" from group buying platforms, and threatening immediate police reporting if any were found—this finally quelled the restless recruiters.

"These bastards really are willing to throw money around."

Chen Yansen cursed under his breath.

He couldn't help recalling his past life, just a few years into the industry, when he had to bribe recruitment staff with 100,000 just to get a chance to view samples ahead of queue.

Yes, merely to view samples!

Want to schedule direct live-streaming placement? Sorry, you need to pay more!

Having experienced this himself, Chen Yansen knew exactly how to eliminate such chaos.

After his cleanup, the situation quickly returned to normal, and all major group buying platforms became much more restrained.

(End of Chapter)