Chapter 121: The First Talent (Request Monthly Votes)

That afternoon, some FoxTa users who had browsed the overseas B2C website received pop-up ads and in-site messages.

The content briefly introduced the launch of the Overseas Shopping Assistant feature and how to use it.

This news delighted users who wanted to shop on overseas e-commerce sites but were hindered by their lack of English, unfamiliarity with product sizing, and inability to handle international direct shipping.

Zhang Peng was one of them; he loved buying sneakers, and Amazon Overseas, Eastbay, and Sneakersnstuff frequently dropped rock-bottom prices.

But he had no dual-currency credit card, didn’t understand customs procedures, and couldn’t speak English—previously, he could only browse those foreign sneaker sites in envy.

But today was different: after reading the in-site message, he immediately opened the Mall Rebates section, found the Eastbay entry, and jumped to the product page.

He skillfully entered the sneaker model number, and after entering the product page, Zhang Peng noticed a new “One-Click Buy” button in the upper-right corner.

He clicked it, and was immediately redirected to a new page—its layout resembled Eastbay’s product details page, but all text had been replaced with Chinese by the built-in translation plugin.

Though the translation was literal and awkward to read, understanding it wasn’t difficult.

The size column added a detailed table, letting users select the right athletic shoes based on foot length and width.

Zhang Peng was thrilled, selected his size and color, and proceeded to the order submission page.

He quickly filled in his delivery information and completed payment using ZhiFuBao.

The total price was 580 yuan, including the original product cost, first-leg shipping, plus a 70-yuan agency and forwarding fee (covering consolidation, splitting, reinforced packaging, and warehousing).

Of course, if customs inspected the package, he’d have to pay additional duties.

The shopping experience was seamless, indistinguishable from placing orders on Taobao or JD.com.

Zhang Peng studied it a bit longer—he used the one-click agency service; if he only selected the overseas transit warehouse service, he could save 10 yuan.

“Awesome! I’ll tell those bastards back in the dorm.”

Zhang Peng picked up his laptop and walked from the classroom building toward the dorm.

…

…

“Boss, the pop-up had 390,000 impressions. Following the new-user guide, 2,700 users completed their first overseas purchase, with 72% using the one-click agency service.”

Hu Yun stood beside Chen Yansen, reporting while holding his laptop.

“What’s the conversion rate for this test group?” Chen Yansen asked, looking up casually.

“1.7%. Most users dropped off between the pop-up and the Mall Rebates link,” Hu Yun replied immediately.

“Much better than the previous 0.2% and 0.3%. You and Zhuang Rui observe the data for one more day—if everything looks good, roll it out fully the day after tomorrow.”

Hearing the numbers were good, Chen Yansen made his decision right away.

“Understood,” Hu Yun nodded and turned to communicate with Zhuang Rui.

Although the overseas shopping business seemed to have only a 10–20 billion yuan scale, the real demand had yet to be unleashed.

Once Ali, JD, and NetEase entered the market, they quickly expanded it to hundreds of billions.

Chen Yansen had no such grand ambitions—he just needed to capture 1 billion yuan in sales from overseas shopping to boost FoxTa’s valuation.

Several days later.

Sui Liangdong in Yanjing noticed that recent organic traffic on What’s Worth Buying had increased, but overall conversion rates had plummeted sharply.

Unable to track users’ shopping behavior on third-party platforms, he resorted to the crude method of exporting user contact details for follow-up calls.

“Your product posts are great, but I don’t understand English and can’t tell which sites offer direct shipping, so I just ordered from FoxTa.”

“FoxTa’s Overseas Shopping Assistant is incredibly useful—even with the handling fee, the rebate covers half the cost, making it a steal.”

“What’s Worth Buying is just my product research site—I still have to go to FoxTa to buy, since you offer no service and no rebates. I won’t use you.”

Several consecutive follow-up calls nearly made Sui Liangdong explode.

You bastards!

How dare you treat my users like this!

But he now knew the key detail: FoxTa had launched a plugin called the Overseas Shopping Assistant, helping users with zero language skills shop overseas effortlessly.

At this time, there were few overseas shipping companies in China, most newly founded with negligible order volumes.

Sui Liangdong had no idea rebate-based overseas shopping could work this way; after trying FoxTa’s Overseas Shopping Assistant, he was instantly deflated.

He had only one option: partner with or establish a third-party logistics company to copy FoxTa’s Overseas Shopping Assistant and stop users from flowing to FoxTa.

After weighing his options, he approached Zebra Logistics.

This cross-border logistics company, founded less than two years ago, specialized in “collection and forwarding” services and had previously had almost no orders.

Meeting Sui Liangdong, they hit it off immediately.

A few days later, they launched their official promoted overseas transit service to retain users.

MeiliShuo, Mogujie, and TaoFenBa also quickly copied the service, carving up the overseas shopping rebate market.

When Chen Yansen learned of this, he merely smiled faintly and paid it no mind.

In the shopping guide lane, these platforms that merely copied and imitated could only be left in the dust—users looked down on them.

One week after FoxTa’s Overseas Shopping Assistant launched, its conversion rate rose from 0.3% to 3.7%. Though still far below the domestic business’s 15–20%, it added 40 million yuan in sales.

Over a month, that amounted to 100–200 million yuan, greatly increasing the likelihood of hitting the 10-billion-yuan revenue target.

Meanwhile, the payment license Chen Yansen applied for under Senhai Technology’s name had been approved.

He didn’t wait long before transferring it to Senlian Capital.

IDG, Thinking, and Tencent called to inquire—after all, this was company asset. Though in 2011, payment licenses were obtainable by any qualified entity and not rare, Chen Yansen’s method of borrowing someone else’s chicken to lay eggs made them frown.

Chen Yansen didn’t mince words—he cited the 2010 “Administrative Measures for Non-Financial Institution Payment Services,” arguing that since IDG was foreign capital, holding the license under Senhai Technology might carry future policy risks.

The three investment firms found his argument somewhat reasonable, but they also knew Chen Yansen had indeed used company resources.

Then, Chen Yansen casually mentioned April’s revenue—and the three representatives fell silent.

Compared to a payment license, FoxTa’s 760-million-yuan sales in April stunned them—remember, e-commerce’s peak season was in the second half of the year.

If Chen Yansen could hit his 10-billion-yuan revenue target by year-end, the company’s valuation would exceed 6 billion yuan—they’d make a fortune.

What did a payment license matter?

Hundreds could be issued each year—let Chen Yansen take it!

Before long, May Day arrived.

Since May 1st was a holiday, FoxTa paid salaries to employees on April 29th.

After Chen Yansen finished washing up, the Human Dao Flame increased by 393 threads; since the Aurora R&D team joined, monthly flame gains kept rising.

By May, the B2C commissions from February and March would arrive, likely adding another 500 threads of Human Dao Flame.

Chen Yansen had long experienced the benefits of boosting Spirit—he now decisively allocated the points to Spirit.

But strangely, the effect of this point allocation was noticeably weaker.

Once everything settled, he called up the system panel: Spirit was at 10, and Human Dao Flame remained at 236 threads.

The Talent section now had a new entry: [Photographic Memory]: The mountains of books, the seas of learning—take it all in with one glance!

Chen Yansen had no time to ponder—he returned to his bedroom, picked up an untouched copy of Concrete Mathematics, and an odd sensation swept over him: line after line of obscure text drilled into his eyes.

A page of over a thousand characters—he glanced at it once, and when he closed his eyes, he could recite the entire content from memory.

Photographic memory!

Chen Yansen smiled. Now his learning efficiency was even higher—8.43 and 10 differed by only a sliver, yet without this Talent bonus, the effect was worlds apart.

(End of Chapter)