Chapter 176: 1.27 Billion—Breaking Into the Top Three E-Commerce Players

"Cumulative registered users: 99 million; daily active users: 21.6 million; single-day orders: 6.9 million. The conversion rate has slipped a bit, but user retention is 14% higher than Fox Taobao's."

Hu Yun, seated in the conference room, reported as he looked at Chen Yansen.

In the thirty-something-square-meter room, besides the two of them, there were Cai Qiming from the design department, Zhang Wenbo and Xiang Pengfei from the tech department, Song Yuncheng, Zhang Yifeng, Li Hui, and Yuan Wei from the merchant recruitment department, Wang Zihao from the ad placement department, and Zhuang Rui from the product department.

Everyone had barbecue and beer in front of them, their eyes fixed on the big screen behind Chen Yansen.

As of 23:00, PinBei's daily UV visits reached 27.8 million, with 10.2 million orders and 1.17 billion yuan in sales.

Of that, Sister Chengzi phones contributed 280 million in performance, the JingDong self-operated segment brought 170 million in sales, and the rest was PinBei's true Double Twelve level.

Chen Yansen turned to glance at it—the average order value was 114.7 yuan, but stripping out Sister Chengzi phones and the JingDong self-operated portion, it dropped to 83.3 yuan.

Although it was still far from JingDong's 300–400 yuan average order value, compared to Taobao Shangcheng's 99.7 yuan on Double Eleven, PinBei's level wasn't low at all.

The tech department used two sets of algorithms for brand and product display.

Products under 10 yuan were shown through search, product waterfall feeds, and subcategory pages; products above 10 yuan and big-brand goods were gradually shifted toward the Hundred-Billion Subsidy channel.

This way they could both capture the lower-tier market and meet the consumption needs of mid-tier users.

"Knock knock knock—!"

A knocking sound came from outside the door.

Then, only after hearing Chen Yansen's response did Xu Xingxing push the door open with a bag of red envelopes, poke her head in, and ask: "Class monitor, the red envelopes are all ready."

"Come on, let's draw first! The red envelopes have 100, 600, 800, or 1000 yuan—depends entirely on luck."

Chen Yansen stood up, grabbed a handful of red envelopes from the bag, and gestured for everyone to grab one.

Tonight's overtime benefits, besides late-night snacks, overtime pay, and a hotel, included random cash red envelopes.

"Sister Yuncheng first!"

"Right, right—Director Song is PinBei's employee number one, she should go first!"

"Sister Yuncheng, draw a 1000-yuan one and show everyone!"

Everyone laughed and egged her on.

"Then Director Song goes first!"

Chen Yansen walked over to Song Yuncheng with a smile.

Song Yuncheng casually drew one from the dozens of red envelopes, opened it—there was only a single bill inside; she'd clearly drawn the lowest amount.

Zhang Wenbo and Xiang Pengfei teased Song Yuncheng about her bad luck first, then each took a red envelope—and both also got 100 yuan.

"Xu Xingxing, you didn't stuff them all with 100s, did you?" Zhang Wenbo said with a long face, joking with Xu Xingxing.

"Don't blame me for bad luck! Brother Hao, try it quick!" Xu Xingxing replied with a grin.

"I'm definitely drawing 1000 yuan, just watch." Wang Zihao grinned, drew a red envelope from Chen Yansen's hand, felt its thickness, and knew he was set.

He opened it and counted—800 yuan, as it turned out.

No one in the conference room really cared about a few hundred yuan; it was just for the auspicious vibe.

In the end, out of the dozen-plus people, only Cai Qiming from Taiwan drew the 1000-yuan grand prize; the others egged him on to treat everyone to milk tea tomorrow, and Cai Qiming agreed with a smile.

Chen Yansen took the red envelope bag and, starting from the second floor, gave each person one, all the way up to the fourth floor.

PinBei Tech's staff had just surpassed 300; across these three floors of office space, only a little over half the workstations were occupied.

By the time he returned to the second-floor conference room, there were only three minutes left until midnight.

"1.26 billion—looks like we won't hit 1.3 billion." Hu Yun sounded a bit regretful.

"Wonder how much JingDong sold?" Wang Zihao muttered under his breath.

JingDong's Double Eleven performance was 1.06 billion; although this Double Twelve's promotional intensity wasn't weak, after users' consumption demand had been released once, it was hard to surpass Double Eleven.

"JingDong self-operated products sold 190 million on PinBei—I estimate they did at least 1 billion this time." Hu Yun glanced at the data and replied casually.

"Marketing side, put out a performance report tomorrow. Pick 10 typical cases each from brands and white-label merchants, and have the ad placement department get the publicity ready."

Chen Yansen said, looking at Marketing Manager Yang Pinglun.

"Got it, boss." Yang Pinglun hurriedly responded.

He had been a key member at Joyo. com and worked at Amazon for three years—essentially a first-generation e-commerce veteran, rich in experience and outstanding in ability.

"It's late—everyone head back and rest early."

After saying that, Chen Yansen led the way out.

After all, if the boss didn't leave, the people below would feel awkward leaving.

Although overtime is an utterly painful thing, at PinBei it was completely different.

Today was Sunday—double wages. From 9 a. m. to midnight, minus 2 hours for meals and a lunch break, the average overtime per person was 13 hours.

Take an ordinary customer service rep as an example: part-timers earn 12 yuan per hour, so one day comes to 338 yuan; add the 100–1000 yuan random red envelope, and for many students from ordinary families, this was almost equivalent to a month's living expenses.

For people like Wang Zihao, Song Yuncheng, and Cai Qiming, overtime pay alone was five or six thousand a day—they didn't care at all what time they got off work.

Chen Yansen went to the first floor, got into the Bentley's driver seat, and headed toward Xu Yuan.

Some of the others drove home, some took the shuttle to the hotel at Xu Yuan's east gate to rest.

Chen Yansen returned to the faculty apartment, parked the car but didn't go upstairs—instead he kept walking off-campus and went into a hotel.

The next morning, all three major portal sites and Weibo were flooded with sales performance news for Taobao, JingDong, and PinBei's Double Twelve.

In 2011, e-commerce platforms had absolutely no idea what "keeping a low profile" meant!

They all wished they could tack on one more zero to their own battle reports before they felt they had any face.

Taobao's single-day sales: 4.18 billion yuan!

JingDong's single-day sales: 1.39 billion yuan!

PinBei's single-day sales: 1.27 billion yuan!

Suning, Yihaodian, and Yixun also joined the big promotion, but with single-day sales of only 200–300 million yuan, they were too embarrassed to compare performance directly—on their battle reports they only wrote things like year-over-year sales growth percentages and the number of brands whose single store broke 5 million yuan.

In reality, whether users or industry insiders, everyone's attention was on PinBei.

After all, Pinduoduo went live less than a month ago and has nearly caught up with JD. com's major promotion sales — truly shocking.

Looking at brand sales:

Sister Chengzi Mobile — 290 million!

JD. com self-operated sales — 190 million!

Chery — 56.93 million!

Aux — 23.20 million!

Haier — 13.50 million!

Midea — 12.70 million!

……

Nine brands broke 10 million in single-store sales, and seventeen broke 5 million.

In addition, Pinduoduo's marketing department released a "Pinduoduo New Force Sales Ranking," and every name on the list was a C-brand (white-label and West Guangdong fruit shops).

First place — a small home-appliance factory in Cixi, sales of 6.10 million!

Second place — a home-textile factory in Nantong, sales of 5.30 million!

Third place — a furniture factory in Foshan, sales of 3.90 million!

Fourth place — a fruit base in West Guangdong, sales of 3.70 million!

This phenomenon quickly spread through the e-commerce circle.

Pinduoduo had bypassed distributors and agents to cooperate directly with source factories, and even achieved single-day sales in the millions.

In no time, plenty of bosses from industrial belts were tempted.

Though they didn't understand how e-commerce worked, they figured that as long as they were willing to throw money around, finding good operators wouldn't be hard.

At once, factory bosses from production regions across the country rushed to open online channels — and their first stop was Pinduoduo!

Cloud Speed Express's e-commerce small-parcel special-offer service rode the wave and made a name in the industry: parcels under 1 kg start at just 2.2 yuan, under 2.5 kg just 2.8 yuan.

Deeply favored by factory bosses!

At the same time.

Liao Wei lay in bed, directing Cloud Speed's mid- and upper-level management to launch a frenzied crackdown on Sufeng Express — poaching staff, snatching clients, buying press releases to expose dirt.

It forced Chen Feikang, who had just taken over Sufeng, to drop the under-2.5 kg and under-1 kg rates straight to 2.5 yuan and 2 yuan.

Instantly the lowest prices in the entire industry!

The bosses of the Three Tongs and Yida were so furious they started cursing — Cloud Speed was already cutthroat enough, and now they'd driven Sufeng crazy too.

Not a single normal person between those two brothers!

Shentong boss Chen Dejun teamed up with the other three to file a joint complaint with the Postal Association, demanding an end to this malicious competition.

The association only gave a breezy response: market behavior, the postal authorities can't intervene.

Shentong, Yuantong, Zhongtong, and Yunda had no choice but to accept the loss and cut prices again.

Right after, Cloud Speed also announced a price cut, and together the several companies pushed the starting fee for under-1 kg parcels down to 2 yuan.

(End of chapter)