Chapter 251: No Victor, Yet Everyone Is a Winner!

Zhuxian Village Technology Park, Building 8, balcony rest area.

Chen Yansen leaned back in a wicker chair, gazing at the distant night sky, his finger pressing the answer button.

"Chen Zong, it's about time—shall we all call it quits tomorrow?"

Liu Qiangdong got straight to the point, smiling as he suggested.

"You want to start when you want to start, and end when you want to end? So Pindai is a wholly-owned subsidiary of JD. com now, Boss Liu?"

Chen Yansen's lips curled slightly as he replied calmly.

In terms of financial reserves, he was dozens of times stronger than JD. com—he didn't care if the campaign ran from 418 to 618.

Of course, the prerequisite is that he could withstand the pressure of billions in losses.

"Today, everyone's traffic and output should have been solid—we've achieved our goal. No need to push further; users' latent consumption demand is limited."

Liu Qiangdong sat in his office, smiling as he urged.

He paid no mind to Chen Yansen's sarcasm.

JD. com lost two hundred million; with investors' patience, they could only endure two or three days. Since the desired effect was achieved, it was time to cut losses.

"Hold on one more day," Chen Yansen said coolly.

Fuck!

Two hundred million a day—you pay for it?

Liu Qiangdong looked helplessly at him, unconsciously rubbing his temples—he hadn't expected Chen Yansen to be this hard to deal with; money really did give you guts.

One wanted to fight, the other wanted to quit—they couldn't reach an agreement.

According to the original plan, the 418 promotion lasted only one day, but since Pindai could start early, it might also extend its end date.

Suning feared this scenario; after consulting Zhang Jindong, they received only one instruction: keep fighting! Crush JD. com outright!

Zhang Jindong had just successfully issued bonds—he had no shortage of cash. He knew exactly where Liu Qiangdong's weakness lay; as a seasoned player in the business world, he understood the principle of striking the snake's seventh inch.

A few more days of dragging this out, and Liu Qiangdong would definitely be unable to afford it.

In his view, Suning—with over a thousand chain stores—was the adult, while JD. com was like a child; fighting JD. com was like beating up a kid.

But Pindai's exposed ambition made him raise his guard.

The next morning, Weibo was flooded with promotional articles—all reporting JD. com's 418 sales figures. The content appeared objective and fair, but read closely, it left readers with the impression: "Buy appliances—go to JD. com."

Mama Ali wouldn't coddle JD. com; she immediately released, under FoxTaobao's name, an investigation report on the 418 Home Appliance Festival, using a combination of images and text to subtly hint to users: "Guomei has the lowest prices, Pindai and Suning come second, JD. com is the most expensive."

The PPT included dozens of screenshots—hundreds of scattered products, whether black or white appliances—every price list showed JD. com as the most expensive retailer.

Liu Qiangdong glanced at it and cursed: "Disgusting."

For example, the Shanxing i9100 smartphone: JD. com sold it for 3,069 yuan, Suning for 2,999, Guomei for 2,989, Pindai for 2,979.

Every website's price came with a high-definition screenshot!

But Liu Qiangdong clearly remembered that this product had dropped to 2,969 yuan by 4 p. m. yesterday—yet FoxTaobao's editors ignored it, deliberately choosing a screenshot from before the price cut.

Is this even fair?

Liu Qiangdong immediately posted a Weibo reply, questioning FoxTaobao's stance.

"How much did Mama Ali take from Guomei to work this hard?"

Chen Yansen walked into the meeting room, first reviewing yesterday's promotional data recap, then turning his gaze to Hu Yun.

"Guomei has the highest commission rate—after all, FoxTaobao is an e-commerce site that drives traffic through shopping guides," Hu Yun chuckled.

This information came partly from data comparison, and partly from discreet inquiries with a few former FoxTaobao colleagues.

"Make sure you coordinate well with Liang Bo—don't spend the money if users don't even know about it."

Chen Yansen warned Hu Yun.

Unlike JD. com, Pindai had its own promotional channel; even though Toutiao had only ten million users, it was still far stronger than Liu Qiangdong's reach.

"Got it, boss," Hu Yun grinned.

Pindai's data, design, and marketing teams had already coordinated with Toutiao's operations team yesterday; today, they would fully promote Pindai's 418 Home Appliance Festival results on Weibo, Sina, NetEase, Tencent, Sohu, and Toutiao's homepage.

"Meeting dismissed!" Chen Yansen waved his hand.

Whether JD. com, Suning, or Guomei responded or not, Pindai's promotion would proceed as planned.

At 11 a. m., Pindai's 418 battle report was released.

Home appliance category sales: 390 million yuan!

Digital appliance brand sales: 840 million yuan!

Total category sales: 1.97 billion yuan!

The report also included a price comparison table for identical products across platforms—with Pindai's prices highlighted in red, making it instantly clear that Pindai was the cheapest e-commerce site.

"Bought an Orange C2 phone on Pindai yesterday—only 2,599 yuan, 100 yuan cheaper than launch price."

"Snagged a three-door fridge for 999 yuan."

"JD. com is dishonest—just playing tricks. I wanted to buy a TV after work, but everything was out of stock—trying to fool who?"

"Suning's worse—the website won't even load, can't even pay!"

"From now on, I'll only buy on Pindai—prices are genuinely cheap, and they don't play the 'raise first, then discount' trick."

After Toutiao's comment section was filtered for "Featured," it easily steered netizens toward the impression: "Buy appliances on Pindai—prices are discounted, and they're honest with users."

This is called capturing user psychology!

Weibo, the three major portals, and Tencent News soon also published Pindai's battle report—detailed, well-reasoned, and reinforced by Pindai users sharing their shopping experiences in the comments, deepening netizens' impression of Pindai.

It turned out Pindai wasn't just selling fruits, vegetables, and daily goods—it had its own central warehouse, partnered with YunSu Express, and delivered even faster than Guomei and Suning.

Upon learning this, Zhang Jindong immediately ordered his branding department to publicly release Suning's 418 battle report.

Yesterday, fighting for users; today, fighting for traffic.

"Boss, JD. com and Pindai's 418 promotions are still live on their homepage," Han Pengde walked into the boss's office, reporting with a Solemn expression.

"Mm, got it." Zhang Jindong nodded in reply.

E-commerce competition is very different from offline; there aren't as many dirty tricks and underhanded moves, and whoever has the money speaks the loudest.

The Thousand Group War was exactly like that — the contestants who could last to the end either had abundant capital or brilliant trading skills; with both, the odds of winning were already seventy to eighty percent.

Zhang Jindong had no intention of ending things so quickly — at least before Liu Qiangdong threw in the towel, Suning had to keep hammering Jingdong hard.

He wanted to let the other side know that even online, Jingdong shouldn't think about stroking the tiger's whiskers of Suning.

Dangdang and Yixun Net, seeing no one willing to back down, could only brace themselves and keep fighting.

Near noon, Liu Qiangdong hung up the phone, his expression as ugly as could be — DST and Sequoia Capital had both refused to put in additional investment.

Fortunately, Xu Xin of Today Capital promised to raise another hundred million yuan for him, willing to give Jingdong a hand.

This filled Liu Qiangdong with gratitude, and he kept calling her "Sister Xu" with every breath.

"Hold out through today, and Jingdong will have won this 418 Home Appliance Festival promotion."

Liu Qiangdong clenched both fists, thinking to himself.

From a financial standpoint, there were no winners in this battle — everyone lost a considerable amount of money.

But in reality, every one of them was a winner.

According to statistics from a third-party data platform, Pinjia's traffic surged 57%, ranking first; Jingdong 31%, ranking second; Suning 22.7%, ranking third.

Gome, Dangdang, and Yixun Net followed closely behind.

Everyone had raked in plenty of traffic; as for reputation, it would depend on each company's brand department's follow-up marketing strategy.

Until the early hours of the 19th, Pinjia voluntarily took its event page offline, and Jingdong, Suning, and Gome followed suit one after another.

This three-day e-commerce war, with total losses of two billion yuan, finally came to an end.

Pinjia's outstanding performance naturally drew the attention of venture capital firms.

For a time, Gao Weiqiang's phone never stopped ringing.

There were domestic VC firms like Huake, Dacheng, Jiuding, and Cornerstone, as well as overseas capital like IDG, DST, GGV Capital, and Morgan Stanley Asia.

"President Zhou, looks like DST wants to invest in every e-commerce platform in China!"

Chen Yansen said with a smile after receiving Zhou Shouzhi's call.

"I only invest in projects with potential," Zhou Shouzhi replied.

As a seasoned investor, he knew one truth well: there was absolutely no reason for one company to dominate an entire track.

The return on investing in first place was certainly staggering, but investing in second or third could also yield handsome returns — Zhou Shouzhi wasn't about to pass that up.

"What valuation offer did DST, or rather Mr. Yuri, give for Pinjia?"

Chen Yansen asked point-blank.

Given Pinjia's market size at this point, the investment amount involved was clearly not something Zhou Shouzhi could decide on his own.

He was inwardly certain that, before Zhou Shouzhi made the call, he had already reported to Yuri and obtained the corresponding negotiation authorization.

"Six billion US dollars," Zhou Shouzhi said after a few seconds of silence, slowly quoting a figure.

"Pinjia's daily sales are about the same as Jingdong's. I heard that when Liu Qiangdong did his roadshow in Hong Kong Island last month, the valuation he announced publicly was twelve billion US dollars. DST is only offering six billion — does that mean they aren't optimistic about Pinjia?"

Chen Yansen wasn't angry at all; he questioned calmly.

"That is indeed the case, but the brokers in Hong Kong Island only gave a valuation of less than six billion," Zhou Shouzhi explained.

"So Liu Qiangdong gave up on listing in Hong Kong Island," Chen Yansen said with a smile.

His subtext was that DST's offer was too low.

"President Chen, I'll contact you again later," Zhou Shouzhi said — he needed to continue communicating with his boss.

Pinjia had developed too quickly and couldn't prove the stability of its performance; the risk was too high, which led investment firms to be unwilling to offer a high price.

After a brief consideration, Chen Yansen decided to forgo opening a financing window.

Unless it was Penguin Capital, or a VC firm with a state-owned background — the former could provide Pinjia with free traffic support, the latter could provide Pinjia with compliant policy support.

The reason Chen Yansen hadn't moved Pinjia's headquarters to Hangcheng, Hucheng, or Jin Ling was precisely because staying in Xucheng or Luzhou meant having people above who could provide cover.

Otherwise, given Pinjia's user-acquisition tactics, switching to a city with no connections or networks would mean penalty notices from the Market Supervision Association could pile up to fill an entire building.

The user-acquisition effects of zero-yuan bargaining, cash lucky wheels, and money-printing machines were good, but if there weren't several hundred complaints in a single day, it would mean something was off about that day's new-customer growth.

Before getting off work, Liu Zhiping's call came in; after confirming Chen Yansen had no plans for financing, he exchanged a couple of pleasantries and hung up.

Penguin wasn't in any rush anyway — holding 15% of Pinjia's equity in hand had already made a killing.

At the same time.

The phones at Market Supervision Associations everywhere were ringing off the hook, with complaints about false marketing by Jingdong, Suning, and Gome everywhere you looked.

Many users who hadn't managed to buy low-priced products felt that the entire 418 Home Appliance Festival was nothing but hype from e-commerce platforms.

Screenshots of products that had been marked up first and then discounted also began spreading like wildfire on social platforms.

At five in the afternoon, the General Commerce Association announced it would step in to investigate, and once any price-fraud phenomena were discovered, it would absolutely punish them severely without mercy.

But after looking into things, the person in charge of the investigation was instantly dumbfounded — from his perspective, not a single one of these bastards was innocent.

If punishment were really to be meted out, no one could escape unscathed.

One had to know that the bigwigs above had said at a meeting at the beginning of the year that they had set a target of ten trillion yuan for the total e-commerce market in 2012.

He feared that once news of punishment came out, it would generate too much negative impact on the e-commerce market.

Therefore, although this matter seemed to be making a big stir — with some well-known lawyer's analysis every day saying platforms participating in the 418 e-commerce promotion could face fines ranging from fifty thousand to five hundred thousand yuan —

it was all thunder and no rain; apart from being summoned for talks, the impact on Jingdong, Suning, and Gome was virtually zero.

Pinjia also secured second place in the industry during this battle, with home-appliance sales second only to Jingdong.

That evening, Chen Yansen announced that all employees of Pinjia Tech, including part-time customer service, would have their Q2 bonus coefficient multiplied by 1.3; instantly, a cheer rose up from Building Eight.

At the same time.

Far away in Yanjing, Cheng Wei finally, at 11 PM on April 20th, got the outsourcing company to complete the development task ahead of schedule; after testing, Didi Taxi 1.0 was finally ready to be brought to market.

(End of this chapter)