Chapter 165: Building Benchmarks, Merchants Flock In! Chaos Erupts

November 20, the third day after Pinbei launched.

Excluding the Sister Chengzi phone, the single-item sales of the Nine Yang rice cooker, Midea electric kettle, Starfall Home textile four-piece set, and Xiyue navel oranges all exceeded five million.

The Nine Yang flagship store's electric fans, air fryers, electric heaters, and electric hot pots each sold over 100,000 units, with single-store sales reaching fifty million.

Keep in mind, only two days have passed.

In the small appliance sector, Nine Yang was only a mid-tier brand, with Philips, Panasonic, and Tiger above it, and competitors at the same level including Supor, Galanz, and Pentium.

Seeing Nine Yang sell tens of millions worth of goods on Pinbei, Supor's e-commerce general manager Li Mingzhe flew into a rage and shouted at his subordinate: "Why didn't we get listed on Pinbei? Get Zhao Bo here right now!"

At the beginning of the year, Supor's founder transferred 20% of his shares to the French SEB Group via agreement.

Now, Supor's department managers were all career executives selected by SEB, for whom performance was their sole capital for promotion.

Three minutes later, a middle-aged man in a suit with a three-seven hairstyle rushed into the office, panting, and bowed his head: "Manager, you called for me?"

"Pinbei invited Midea and Nine Yang—why did they completely skip Supor?"

Li Mingzhe glared coldly at Zhao Bo and asked with an unpleasant tone.

Usually, platforms begged brands to join, but Supor was the top small appliance brand in China.

Some small platforms even paid off channel managers just to get Supor to open a store.

Li Mingzhe knew Zhao Bo—this man was smooth in dealings, had a few bad habits of taking bribes, but was highly capable, which was why he relied on him.

In short, Zhao Bo was his trusted man.

He yelled harshly to hint Zhao Bo should craft an excuse to shift blame, otherwise he couldn't answer the board.

"Manager, it's not that I didn't want to join—it's that Meng, the head of small appliances at Taobao, warned that if Supor joins Pinbei, they'll block our traffic on Double Twelve."

Zhao Bo quickly seized today's recent event as an excuse.

Pinbei's recruitment team had contacted Zhao Bo; he hinted they should pay up, but they didn't, so Zhao Bo decided to hold them off.

He never expected Pinbei's launch to generate astonishing sales, drawing senior management's attention—and that's why Li Mingzhe questioned him.

"Which Meng? Next week at Taobao's merchant conference, I'll go speak to him personally. Forget him—just finish the Pinbei onboarding."

Li Mingzhe waved his hand dismissively, treating a category manager of small appliances as nothing.

He was a businessman; channels mattered most. If platforms forced exclusive deals, how could brands operate?

Small brands might fear it—he wasn't intimidated!

At the same time, he was pleased with Zhao Bo's cleverness.

In reality, in 2011, Mama Ali wasn't yet so domineering—it was just the category clerk, fearing Pinbei would hurt his own performance, who privately warned Zhao Bo.

Meanwhile.

Starting in the afternoon, Pinbei's recruitment department phone rang nonstop.

Brands that had previously ignored recruitment now reversed their attitude 180 degrees, eagerly paying deposits and signing onboarding agreements.

This was why Chen Yansen had focused only on Midea, Nine Yang, Xiyue navel oranges, and Starfall Home textiles in the early stage.

Concentrating traffic to create a few flagship cases was an unspoken declaration.

Join Pinbei—you'll make money!

In the Chinese people's simple mindset, any way to make money was never shared lightly.

So when recruitment contacted these brands, most refused.

After all, at that time Pinbei didn't even have a product prototype—what guarantee could it offer for sales?

But the result? The first batch of merchants made insane profits!

For example, rice: only two SKUs on the entire Pinbei Shangcheng—5kg and 10kg packs—both from the same northeastern rice processing factory.

In two and a half days, rice sold 130,000 orders!

Although gross margins were low, the gross profit was substantial—netting 200,000 per day.

Food, apparel, small appliances, cosmetics, home goods—only 500 merchants total, yet five million visitors flooded in daily.

Pinbei's top merchants reaped enormous profits; even the tail-end merchants earned handsomely, with daily sales reaching hundreds of thousands.

Suddenly, merchants flooded in, overwhelming recruitment staff.

Chen Yansen sat in his office, reviewing the hiring budgets Xiong Li had delivered, and approved them without hesitation.

Pinbei had just launched; the company now had only 300 people.

At current workload, they needed at least 1,000 staff to escape overtime and staffing shortages.

"Ding-ding-ding!"

The desk phone suddenly rang.

Chen Yansen picked it up, placed it to his ear, and asked casually: "What is it?"

"Boss, our warehouse in Yiwu got smashed—computers, delivery trucks, shelves, printers, copiers—all destroyed. Fuck! Should we hit back?"

Liao Wei quickly explained the situation, then asked Chen Yansen's opinion.

He didn't elaborate; Chen Yansen didn't press.

Neither was foolish—they both knew the likely culprit was a competitor.

Though it was 2011, in the courier industry, most bosses were rough-and-tumble types, originally trucking operators who'd crossed rivers as bandits.

It wasn't rare for them to pull knives—or even kill—in a fit of rage.

"Hit back? We pay taxes legally—we're legitimate merchants. First, call the police. Any employees injured?"

Chen Yansen immediately rejected Liao Wei's suggestion.

"No one hurt—I've already redirected equipment and staff from nearby stations to clean up the mess in Yiwu."

Liao Wei was surprised—he'd expected Chen Yansen, young and fiery, to react violently, but now saw he was remarkably calm.

"Since they're panicking, drop prices another 0.5 yuan and see how they react."

Chen Yansen snorted coldly and ordered Liao Wei.

Delivery isn't his main business; he can afford to match costs and outlast Sanyi Da.

"Alright, I understand." Liao Wei hung up the phone.

He'd just said he'd call over merely to show Chen Yansen his stance.

Since the boss wanted to go the legal route, he wouldn't use any black methods, and he secretly sighed in relief.

That same day, Yun Su Express filed a police report.

In 2011, surveillance might have been sparse elsewhere, but delivery stations were everywhere.

Liao Wei, having learned from last year's fake wine scandal, installed numerous surveillance cameras at every station, both visible and hidden.

The obvious surveillance lines had been cut, but micro-cameras remained; though the footage was blurry, it still clearly showed the build and general appearance of the five attackers.

After all, it involved hundreds of thousands in property loss, and the case was reported directly by Yun Su Express headquarters' legal team.

The local patrol office took it very seriously.

Before midnight, all five men who had smashed the equipment were arrested.

After a simple interrogation, they all confessed.

These five were employees of Su Feng Express, incited by their station boss, who promised each of them ten thousand yuan as reward.

They hadn't expected Yun Su Express to have so many cameras; even after destroying many, they were still caught on film.

After receiving the news, Liao Wei immediately reported the investigation results to Chen Yansen.

Chen Yansen knew that, given Su Feng's scale, the station boss wouldn't risk spending his own money to hire people to smash Yun Su's stations and warehouses.

The likely mastermind behind it was Su Feng headquarters.

He thought for a moment and instructed Liao Wei not to settle—since Su Feng wanted to play, then send all the attackers to jail and see who cracked first.

"Understood, boss." Liao Wei replied.

News of the attack on Yun Su Express's Yiwu station spread, and the owners of Sanyi Da stations all cheered.

But soon after, the patrol office arrested the culprits.

These men secretly cursed Liao Wei for being treacherous—how had he installed so many cameras at the delivery stations?

Yun Su Express's relentless stance made them realize Liao Wei was no longer the same man as before.

Of course, given Chen Yansen's nature, he would never easily let Su Feng off the hook.

He directly hired a lawyer to sue Su Feng headquarters along with the station owners.

Whether he won or lost the lawsuit didn't matter—his main goal was to ruin and destroy the opponent.

At the same time, Chen Yansen sent the surveillance footage to Wang Zihao, instructing him to contact Youku, Tudou, and the three major portals to push the video to trending first.

"Five Su Feng couriers smash Yun Su Express station!"

"Would you dare use a delivery company like this? They assault recipients!"

"Su Feng courier attacks customer after complaint!"

Besides the attack on Yun Su Express's station, Wang Zihao dug up Su Feng Express's past scandals.

Even news from two years ago, with financial backing and traffic manipulation, was pushed to the top of trending lists.

Su Feng Express's reputation, within a short time, surpassed Sanyi Da, SF Express, and JD Logistics.

But all of it was negative publicity!

"Manager Liao, it's just the lower-level Miandejia Alliance members acting foolishly—why must you go all the way to exterminate them?"

Su Feng Express's boss, Chen Feilei, called Liao Wei.

"Are you trying to fool ghosts? I don't believe these couriers would still hold out after knowing they'd spend three years in jail."

Liao Wei hadn't wanted to answer, but couldn't hold back—he cursed back.

"Fine, then let's see who blinks first." Chen Feilei wasn't worried at all—he hadn't shown his face in this affair and could easily distance himself; what was there to fear?

As for those fools, if they failed at their task, getting sent to sew shoes in prison was their just due.

Chen Feilei had done this many times before; he wasn't afraid of Liao Wei's threats.

But he still didn't know that Chen Yansen had already exposed the surveillance video of Su Feng Express smashing the delivery stations, along with the horrific scenes of recipients being beaten by Su Feng couriers.

It instantly sparked an online outcry.

Many online shoppers told merchants directly: if they used Su Feng Express, they'd refuse delivery.

Chen Yansen wasn't just pursuing a few couriers—he intended to completely destroy Su Feng Express as a company.

If you don't strike hard enough, these annoying problems will never end!

The next morning, Yun Su Express's support equipment arrived; Liao Wei reacted swiftly, and that day's parcel collection was unaffected.

But Yun Su then announced further price cuts for mid- and large-scale clients in December, making other delivery company owners restless—they longed to smash Yun Su's warehouses and stations again.

Yun Su's nationwide price cuts rapidly captured massive business, followed by rapid staff expansion.

In just one month, Yun Su's station count surged, and the number of couriers expanded to over seven thousand.

(End of Chapter)