Chapter 242: Six Sects Mob Attack Jingdong! How to Boost Morale Right

At the end of March in Shanghai, the weather gradually warmed up.

On Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street in the afternoon, you could occasionally spot several girls in ultra-short skirts walking by, their pale, slender legs swaying.

"Boss Chen, are they that white?" Song Yuncheng noticed his gaze and asked through gritted teeth.

"Average." Chen Yansen sat in the rest area, leaning back in his chair; he said it was average, but his eyes never left.

How can you know what's beautiful in summer if you don't look at legs?

"Liu Qiangdong said on Weibo that JD will maintain a zero-margin strategy for major appliances over the next three years, guaranteeing prices 10% lower than Gome, Suning, and Pinduoduo."

Song Yuncheng opened a bottle of mineral water and handed it to Chen Yansen, speaking softly.

"Who can't talk big? Make Huang Zheng respond—every product on Pinduoduo must be 5% cheaper than JD."

Chen Yansen snorted, sneering dismissively.

JD's $1. billion in funding last year was all burned up by Pretty Boy Dong.

The slogan of three years of zero margin looks impressive, but JD's share of major appliances isn't high.

Liu Qiangdong's strategy is the same old tactic he used last year against Li Guoqing.

The underlying logic is to sacrifice margins on small categories and strike directly at the opponent's weak spot.

After all, Suning and Gome's core business is major appliances!

Although Pretty Boy Dong's main targets this time were Suning and Gome, since he named Pinduoduo specifically,

if Pinduoduo stays silent, won't people think it's easy to bully?

"All products? That means we'd lose 40 million a day," Song Yuncheng whispered a reminder.

"Suning's 418 sale is about to begin—Liu Qiangdong is targeting Zhang Jindong's weakest point. A classic case of 'fellow townspeople meet fellow townspeople, but stab each other in the back.'"

Chen Yansen joked.

"Online people say he's from northern Jiangsu and Zhang from southern Jiangsu—they're not even fellow countrymen," Song Yuncheng covered her mouth and smiled faintly.

"..." Chen Yansen chuckled, shaking his head. "Don't worry—everyone's in business to make money. JD, Suning, and Gome won't last long."

Pretty Boy Dong has already stoked the heat—whichever side rushes in first will capture the first wave of traffic.

The opponent wants to confine the battlefield to major appliances; Chen Yansen is firing on all categories—he's betting Pretty Boy Dong has little left in reserve and will fold within two days at most.

On the other side.

Zhang Jindong was about to retort when Pinduoduo's CEO Huang Zheng preempted him, posting on Weibo: "@Liu Qiangdong, with the 418 Home Appliances Festival approaching, Pinduoduo's joining the fun! Starting today, if any product on Pinduoduo is priced higher than JD, contact customer service for a price difference refund! All products on Pinduoduo will be 5% cheaper than JD!"

Netizens in the comments asked: "JD is 10% cheaper than Pinduoduo, and Pinduoduo is 5% cheaper than JD—why not just sell everything for free?"

"@Suning @Gome, come fight now!"

"Whether I can get a free air conditioner depends on you! @Zhang Jindong @Han Pengde"

Netizens eager for drama were enthusiastically fanning the flames.

Previously, when Suning and JD were trading barbs, many netizens had indeed bought major appliances at 10% or even 20% discounts—no one wanted to miss this chance.

Zhang Jindong frowned, pondering Huang Zheng's words, then suddenly had an epiphany and laughed loudly: "This strategy is brilliant—why didn't I think of it before?"

JD always drags opponents into the mud using its smaller categories like books or major appliances.

In the past, Zhang Jindong had only two choices:

Fight and lose money; don't fight and lose all users!

Now, fighting across all categories seems like even greater losses—but only this way can you truly hurt Pretty Boy Dong.

Thinking it through, Zhang Jindong ordered his marketing director to immediately announce: "All Suning. om products will be priced lower than JD's—if you overpay, we'll refund double the difference!"

Meanwhile.

At No. 208 Anwai Street, Beijing, Li Guoqing adjusted his glasses and chuckled: "Big Qiang, you attacked me last year—now it's my turn."

In early March, Gome partnered with Pinduoduo's model to officially enter Dangdang, launching Gome Electronics City, with Gome handling delivery, installation, and after-sales service.

Thus, Gome gained a new online sales channel, while Dangdang enriched its appliance category—boosting both platform sales and stock price.

Now, with appliances in hand, Li Guoqing could replicate Liu Qiangdong's tactic and strike back hard.

Remember, JD's zero-margin book strategy last year had nearly crushed Dangdang.

Soon after, Gome and YiXun also responded, jointly encircling JD.

Liu Qiangdong sat in his office, frowning deeply; since Huang Zheng of Pinduoduo responded, the price war had taken a different turn.

Suning, Gome, Dangdang, YiXun, and Pinduoduo had all turned their attacks on JD, resembling the Six Sects besieging Bright Peak.

Is this fair?

If you've got guts, fight one-on-one!

What's the point of a mob attack?

"Damn it! I shouldn't have named Pinduoduo!"

Liu Qiangdong slapped his thigh, instantly regretting it.

Huang Zheng's move had struck JD right in the vital spot—Suning, Gome, Dangdang, and YiXun followed suit, turning the major appliance price war into a full-category brawl.

With things at this point, not fighting meant showing weakness. That night, in JD's Beijing headquarters, Liu Qiangdong drank a shot of baijiu with all procurement and sales managers and said: "Brothers! Win this battle, and your year-end bonuses double!"

All JD employees joined the preparations for the 418 war!

The admin department posted slogans on every floor: "Crush Suning Command Center," "Destroy Pinduoduo Operations," "Crush Gome, Punch Dangdang."

The next morning, JD responded again: "For the 418 Home Appliances Promotion, all products slashed 30%."

"If users find any product cheaper at Gome or Suning's physical stores, JD will immediately drop its price by 10%."

Instantly, the buzz surged to the top of search rankings.

To ensure every subsidy reached real users, Pretty Boy Dong secretly hired over 3, 00 price intelligence agents nationwide, stationed outside Suning and Gome stores to verify prices.

This disgusted Suning and Gome to no end!

As soon as a customer walked in to buy something, a JD agent would immediately approach: "Buy on JD—it's 10% cheaper."

Liu Qiangdong's strategy: you turn this into a full-category war? Then I'll take the fight from online to offline.

Let's see who dies first!

Ali, who had been watching, wasn't idle either—using its new FoxSearch price comparison engine, it bluntly exposed JD's tactics, releasing a price report showing JD's "raise first, then slash" maneuver meant actual discounts were only 4%-6%.

Nothing like the 30% they claimed!

Liu Qiangdong flew into a rage—he knew Gome, Suning, Dangdang, YiXun, and Pinduoduo were all doing the same thing, yet Ali only targeted him, showing blatant bias.

Ali's stance was clear: it wouldn't directly join the war, but it wouldn't hold back in undermining JD either.

After some thought, Liu Qiangdong ordered his tech department to completely block FoxSearch—previously unwilling to sacrifice that minor external traffic, he now had no choice.

Then he had operations identify dozens of JD appliance price comparisons with Suning and Gome, mocking FoxSearch's stance and data as flawed.

This price war grew larger and larger, eventually becoming six against one.

On March 30, JD announced: "The JD Home Appliances Store on Pinduoduo will close in twenty-one days."

Twenty-one days—exactly seven days for delivery and fourteen for after-sales service—once that time passed, the partnership ended.

One hour later, Orange Phone's JD exclusive store posted a notice: "Will close in twenty-one days, exiting the JD platform."

The honeymoon between Pinduoduo and JD was officially over!

Half a year ago, Liu Qiangdong had called Chen Yansen "little brother" at every turn; now, after the partnership collapsed, they hadn't even called each other.

On the eve of April, Chen Yansen finally returned to Xucheng, personally taking charge of Pinduoduo to prepare for this price war.

If they lost, Pinduoduo's transformation would have to wait years; if they won, they could implant in users' minds the impression that "Pinduoduo's appliances are cheap and reliable."

Impressions may seem intangible, but they're the very brand of an e-commerce platform.

For example, users think of Taobao: wide variety, but inconsistent quality; think of Suning: sells appliances, excellent after-sales; think of Pinduoduo: social commerce, cheap prices, treats buyers like family.

Remember, on Pinduoduo, if you get fake or low-quality goods, the minimum compensation is triple the price, up to tenfold—no other platform offers this.

Chen Yansen's goal in responding was to make users associate appliances with Pinduoduo.

At two in the afternoon, a Panda-colored Ghost sedan pulled into the tech park.

Chen Yansen stepped out and walked straight to Building 8.

"Boss!" Huang Zheng, informed in advance, came down to greet him.

"Increase the weight of digital and home appliance products. Talk to the KA brand managers—anyone who supports Pinduoduo on pricing will get double store traffic in the second half of the year!"

Chen Yansen gave orders as he walked.

"Boss, we're already preparing—Skai, AUX, GREE, and Midea are willing to cut prices to promotional levels," Huang Zheng replied.

"So, Meidi, Haier, and Gree won't support us?" Chen Yansen paused, watching Huang Zheng with a sly smile.

"Not exactly—the other major appliance brands are willing to match Suning's promotional intensity."

Huang Zheng felt uneasy under Chen Yansen's gaze—the boss's aura was overwhelming.

"Old Hu! Come here!"

Chen Yansen ignored Huang Zheng and waved to Hu Yun.

Hu Yun hurried over: "Boss, what's your order?"

"What's our product overlap rate with JD?" Chen Yansen asked.

"7%! But 24% of those products are out of stock on JD—actual overlap is only 5. %," Hu Yun answered.

"Good! Progress! Take JD's top 200 bestsellers and create a special campaign—we've got to hurt JD!"

Chen Yansen clapped Hu Yun on the shoulder.

He hadn't mentioned investigating product overlap, yet Hu Yun had the data ready—showing Hu Yun was increasingly considering actual business needs in his analysis.

"Yes, Boss," Hu Yun replied with a smile.

Whether FoxSearch or Pinduoduo, neither had ever directly clashed with other platforms before—this was the first time.

Chen Yansen glanced over and suddenly noticed banners hanging beneath the lights: "War to Destroy JD—We Will Win!" and "Pinduoduo Appears, JD Falls in an Instant!"

The copy made him so awkward he wished he could dig a three-bedroom, one-living-room hole right beneath his feet.

So he scowled and snapped, "Who came up with this? So tacky."

"Boss, I had the admin department put it up—thought it would boost morale," Huang Zheng chuckled nervously, clearly seeing Chen Yansen's dissatisfaction.

"There's only one best way to boost morale."

Chen Yansen said calmly.

Then he told Zhang Junjie to notify everyone: call an all-staff meeting!

Ten minutes later.

In the open space on the first floor of the tech park, over a thousand people stood packed tightly together.

Chen Yansen raised his hand, and the crowd fell silent instantly.

"For this 418 Home Appliances Festival, six e-commerce platforms are participating. When the full-day sales results are in, the top performer gets a 1. x bonus multiplier for Q2, second place gets 1. x, third place gets 1. x—we need users to remember: Pinbei Mall sells home appliances too!"

Chen Yansen announced solemnly.

In other words, if targets are met, everyone's Q2 bonus will rise by 10% to 50%.

For managers and directors, that's 100, 00 to 150, 00 yuan in bonus money!

Instantly, Pinbei's employees were fired up!

The noise was so loud it drew curious glances from staff at neighboring Orange Tech, Today Tech, and Orange Pay.

After the rally, the Business Development and Operations Department sprang into action, calling brands to negotiate promotional policies.

They added air conditioners, TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, home theaters, DVD players, speakers, range hoods, stoves, water heaters, and disinfection cabinets to their negotiation list.

Zhang Yifeng, Yuan Wei, Li Hui, and others led their teams overnight to Shunde, Foshan, Yongcheng, and Luzhou to meet brand reps face-to-face.

Digital home appliances were Pinbei's weak spot; if they didn't push hard, they might not even crack the top three in the market.

In his past life, Pinduoduo spent four to five years just to crack it—he didn't think he could expand from fast-moving consumer goods to a full product range in just half a year.

As long as they made a name for themselves and left a deep impression on users, Pinbei wouldn't lose!

The next morning, Toutiao launched, simultaneously appearing on the homepages of the Orange App Store, 91 Assistant, Wandoujia, and App Treasure.

Ad posters were simultaneously deployed on Baidu, Youku, Sohu, NetEase, Sina, and QQ.

Exposure exceeded 100 million!

Compared to the awkward launch of Lingxi Browser, Toutiao's resource allocation was ridiculously lavish.

Far away in Yanjing, Zhang Yiming, upon discovering this product, felt an eerie similarity to his own Lingxi Browser—in design philosophy and recommendation engine technology.

Could this be a coincidence?

Zhang Yiming muttered in bewilderment.

After some inquiries, he learned Today Tech was also a subsidiary under Senlian Capital; when he saw Liang Bo's name in the company info, his head spun.

You said you went to Hong Kong—you actually went to Senlian!

And you used Lingxi Browser's recommendation engine tech to build a whole new content-discovery app—how can a person be this shameless!

Zhang Yiming dared not curse Chen Yansen, so he redirected all his anger toward Liang Bo.

(End of Chapter)