Chapter 267: Sales Falling Short of Expectations? Total Hits 27.9 Billion! Liu Qiangdong

At 1 a. m., Chen Yansen posted a group photo of Pinaibei's 618 promotion on Weibo.

The scene featured outdoor barbecue, hot pot, beer, and everything else.

In addition to 1.5 times overtime pay, everyone received a lucky red envelope ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 yuan.

In the final photo, Chen Yansen stood among over thirty employees who won ten-thousand-yuan prizes, beaming with a brilliant smile, the atmosphere lively and electric.

Meanwhile.

Mama Ali's headquarters in Hangcheng.

Xu Kun, Li Bin, Du Yaoyao, Tang Qin, and others stared at the photo, a pang of regret rising in them.

They knew Pinaibei's compensation system and benefits were identical to the old FoxTaobao's—just overtime pay alone was a substantial income.

Mama Ali's benefits were decent too, but overtime pay?

Naturally, not a single cent.

After all, everyone volunteered for overtime—talking about money would be bad form.

…

…

At 8:30 a. m., Zhuxianzhu Technology Park.

More than an hour remained before Mo Si smart speaker sales began; even Chen Yansen felt pricing it at 799 yuan in the domestic market would inevitably yield unsatisfactory sales.

But from the company's strategic perspective, Mo Si smart speaker was ultimately a flagship product of Sister Chengzi Tech.

Thus, after parking his car, he walked straight into Building Nine.

Arriving at his office, he checked data as usual, handled work emails, finished his tasks, then leaned against the window with a straw between his lips, gazing down at the street below.

Employees from Pinaibei, Sister Chengzi Tech, Sister Chengzi Pay, and Today's Headlines gradually entered the building.

Before its launch, Mo Si smart speaker enlisted over a hundred big V bloggers from the digital and tech circles to promote it via image-and-text posts and videos on Weibo, Today's Headlines, Youku, and Sohu Video.

Wang Teng didn't even spare "What's Worth Buying" and FoxTaobao—he placed soft promotional articles in their product recommendation channels.

Exactly how many units would sell? The answer would come soon.

As for overseas markets, Wang Teng leveraged Zhou Shouzhi's connections and the gimmick of being the world's first smart speaker to easily secure licensing rights from Amazon Music, Pandora, Sirius, and WolframAlpha.

Recently, Wang Teng had been busy expanding overseas sales channels—online, he partnered with Amazon and eBay; offline, he contacted Best Buy and Lowe's.

Ye Qiuping's negotiations with Paramount were ongoing; Paramount wanted a 15% royalty share to grant Sister Chengzi Tech access to Star Trek merchandise channels.

But Ye Qiuping was only willing to offer 7%, leaving a wide gap and delaying any agreement.

Typically, 5% to 20% falls within a reasonable range, but the key issue was that Alexa was not a core character in Star Trek.

Offering only 7% royalty was actually acceptable.

Chen Yansen wasn't in a hurry—he let Ye Qiuping slowly negotiate with Paramount's liaison.

After all, he already held the lifetime license for Alexa's character; whether Paramount agreed or not, the overseas launch date wouldn't change—he was already riding the Star Trek hype and traffic.

At exactly 10 a. m., seven channels—Sister Chengzi Shangcheng, Taobao, Gome, Suning, Dangdang, Yixun, and Amazon—launched sales simultaneously.

Chen Yansen glanced at his wristwatch but didn't rush back to his seat to check real-time data.

On the other side.

JD headquarters, Liu Qiangdong finished the morning meeting with category procurement and sales managers and returned to his office.

This 618 promotion was crucial for him.

Hong Kong and U. S. investment banks had set JD's valuation expectations extremely low—at a pitiful 6 billion U. S. dollars.

This infuriated Liu Qiangdong—he rejected Hong Kong listings, rejected Nasdaq, and publicly declared JD would not go public unless valued at 12 billion U. S. dollars.

It seemed tough, but only he knew the inner bitterness.

Investors like IDG, Sequoia, iResearch, DST, and Tiger Global had long grown resentful.

"Liu Zong, I don't ask you to turn a profit, but you can't keep losing money forever. JD should go public first."

Sequoia's Shen Nanpeng urged him to initiate the IPO plan, to list early and raise capital so these investors could cash out sooner.

But a 6-billion-U. S. -dollar valuation? Wasn't that an insult?

Domestic investment firms had valued Pinaibei at 10 billion U. S. dollars—by comparison, JD's decades of effort seemed like a joke.

To boost sales, Liu Qiangdong had his operations team launch a barrage of promotions: computer and digital goods at 50% off or more, home appliances at flash sales starting at 48% off.

10% off headphones, 50% off computers.

9-yuan USB drives, 99-yuan printers.

Major appliances: spend 1,000 yuan, get 618 yuan back; small appliances: spend 100 yuan, get 61.8 yuan back.

There was even a flash sale for the iPhone 4S, as low as 2,999 yuan.

"Huh? Sister Chengzi Tech's Mo Si smart speaker just launched!"

Liu Qiangdong, seated, suddenly remembered.

He skillfully opened his browser, found the Sister Chengzi Shangcheng link in his bookmark folder labeled "Little Brother," and clicked in.

Sales: 1,694?

That's a flop, right?

Liu Qiangdong wanted to laugh—and he did, thinking: I thought you'd always win!

Looking at Chen Yansen's career, whether in e-commerce or manufacturing, there seemed to be no project he couldn't pull off.

Constant victories, verifiable track record.

Liu Qiangdong knew investors valued Chen Yansen and were willing to grant Pinaibei over 20% valuation premium simply because his operational skills were terrifying.

FoxTaobao, Sister Chengzi Tech, Pinaibei, KuaiPao, and Kuai's Taxi—all thrived under Chen Yansen's management; to any investor, Chen Yansen was akin to a god of wealth.

Who knew the god of wealth could stumble?

But when his peripheral vision caught the words "Little Brother," he couldn't help but sigh—JD and Pinaibei had once enjoyed a honeymoon period.

He and Chen Yansen had once called each other "Big Brother" and "Little Brother" with every breath.

Last time on the 418th, he had still been too impulsive — he shouldn't have taken the initiative to provoke Chen Yansen and Pinxie.

Thinking of this, he took out his phone and called Zhou Shouzhi. After the call connected, the two exchanged pleasantries.

Zhou Shouzhi made a perfunctory inquiry about JD. com's mega-sale sales figures. Liu Qiangdong padded the numbers just a touch and reported the real-time data.

"President Zhou, you have a good relationship with Chen Yansen. Next time he comes to Yanjing, could you bring me along?" Liu Qiangdong had circled around for ages before finally revealing his purpose.

"Want to mend relations with Pinxie? No problem, I'll arrange it." Zhou Shouzhi agreed readily.

"Thank you, President Zhou. When you have time, I'll treat you to drinks." Liu Qiangdong breathed a sigh of relief and replied warmly.

Zhou Shouzhi replied with an "ok" and hung up.

Reminded by Liu Qiangdong, he couldn't help but open the Sister Chengzi Shangcheng official website.

Sales of 1,847 units?

The Mo Si smart speaker was released simultaneously across seven channels. All together, the estimated total sales were over ten thousand units.

But by now, more than four hours had passed since the launch.

Clearly, compared with Sister Chengzi Tech's other products, the Mo Si smart speaker's sales performance was far too weak.

Self-media outlets, chasing traffic, couldn't wait to publish their takes on the Mo Si smart speaker on Weibo and Toutiao — they couldn't even wait for the single-day aggregate sales data to come out.

"Why is Sister Chengzi Tech's new product falling out of favor? Three real reasons revealed, impossible not to reflect."

"The Mo Si smart speaker, priced at 799 yuan, sold fewer than 2,000 units. Has Chen Yansen's marketing lost its touch?"

"The world's first smart speaker meets a cold reception — this may become Sister Chengzi Tech's most failed product!"

Most of the related content was bearish.

But this content quickly drew the ire of big Vs in the circle. On one hand, they had taken Sister Chengzi Tech's "promotion fees"; on the other, in their view, the Mo Si smart speaker was absolutely a landmark product.

For the sake of the money, and out of inner conscience, they absolutely would not allow this product to be smeared by self-media as "junk."

Zealer's boss Wang Zifei jumped into the fray and raged: "A bunch of bullshit self-media! Do you understand what a voice interaction engine is? Do you understand the industrial design aesthetics of the Mo Si smart speaker? I'll put it this way — look again in ten years, and the Mo Si will absolutely be a god-tier work!"

FengChao Review Lab's Gao Fei reposted his review video once more, attaching the caption: "I don't believe anyone can watch this video in full and remain unmoved by the Mo Si smart speaker."

Luo Yonghao, who had been rejected by Chen Yansen, likewise shared his trial experience on Weibo, lavishing praise on the Mo Si voice assistant's feedback efficiency.

It wasn't until three in the afternoon that total online sales barely broke through twenty thousand units.

"Boss, how about I start a livestream and demonstrate the Mo Si smart speaker's features live for users?"

Wang Teng knocked on Chen Yansen's office door and made the suggestion with a solemn face.

No one knew better than he how much effort the boss had poured into the Mo Si smart speaker.

From system R&D to the supporting application ecosystem, to the product's exterior and hardware design, Chen Yansen had overseen every step.

"No need." Chen Yansen waved his hand and refused outright.

In the ten days before launch, the marketing and branding departments had already done extensive publicity work. Over a hundred bloggers from the digital and tech circles had been invited. Users willing to spend money had long been thoroughly familiar with the Mo Si smart speaker's features.

Even if Wang Teng praised the Mo Si smart speaker to the skies during the livestream, users still wouldn't believe it.

The reputation had to ferment slowly, letting the market gradually embrace this new product.

Two years later, Amazon's Echo smart speaker took two months to sell 600,000 units.

Therefore, Chen Yansen didn't think the Mo Si smart speaker's sales were low. He only believed that the domestic smart speaker market was too small — it needed cultivation before a market capacity of 40 to 50 million units a year could be hatched.

At the same time, the domestic broadband user base also capped the Mo Si smart speaker's sales ceiling.

Wang Teng was slightly stunned — he hadn't expected the boss to refuse.

"Anything else?" Chen Yansen noticed him still standing at the door and asked casually.

"Nothing, then I'll get back to work." Wang Teng shook his head and turned to leave.

In inverse proportion to the Mo Si smart speaker's sales, Pinxie's sales figures were climbing madly.

Compared with last year's Double Twelve, the number of merchants that had settled on Pinxie had soared from the original two or three thousand all the way to over twenty thousand.

The long-tail effect intensified!

Before eight in the evening, Pinxie's sales for the day had already broken through the 1.5 billion mark. Combined with yesterday's 1.06 billion, the total was 2.56 billion.

The remaining four hours would tell whether Pinxie could break the 3 billion sales record.

Midway, Zhou Shouzhi called Chen Yansen and briefly mentioned the matter of Liu Qiangdong.

Chen Yansen didn't refuse. Since Liu Qiangdong wanted to host a dinner to apologize, there was no need to deny him face.

In the business world, one more ally was better than one more rival.

Moreover, the two shared a common rival — Hangcheng's Ma Liyun.

Mama Ali was the biggest obstacle lying across Pinxie and JD. com's path forward.

The domestic e-commerce赛道 could accommodate Mama Ali, Pinxie, and JD. com, and could also accommodate Suning, Gome, and Dangdang. A consumer market of over a billion people could easily produce several e-commerce giants with market caps in the trillions.

But everyone wanted to be the boss, so conflicts naturally arose.

Clearly, after weighing the pros and cons, Liu Qiangdong still decided to first point the spear at Mama Ali.

At half past ten in the evening, Chen Yansen sat on the first-floor lobby of Pinxie with a skewer in hand, gazing at the large-screen video wall not far away, waiting for the final mega-sale results to come out.

"The sales growth rate has slowed down — looks like it'll be hard to reach 3 billion." Song Yuncheng, standing nearby, said with a hint of regret.

"Then we'll save it for Double Eleven to break through! So what if we hit 3 billion? They won't give us an award up there."

Chen Yansen said matter-of-factly.

Zhang Yifeng, Cai Qiming, Yang Pinglun, and others knew in their hearts that the boss actually wanted to push the mega-sale results to 3 billion too.

First, it would showcase scale effects and set an industry benchmark;

Second, attract capital attention and reduce financing difficulty;

Third, guide the direction of merchants' resource allocation.

Every time an e-commerce platform released a mega-sale results report, there were many deeper meanings behind it — it was never simply about showing off.

The higher the sales performance, the greater the traffic generated, allowing different potential messages to be conveyed simultaneously to users, merchants, and investors.

Time passed minute by minute, and in the blink of an eye it was midnight.

The sales figure for June 18th stopped at 1.73 billion; combined with yesterday's sales, the cumulative total was 2.79 billion.

The first-day sales of the Mo Si smart speaker were fixed at 31,000 units.

Chen Yansen stood up, walked straight outside, got into the Bentley's driver's seat, and sped toward the direction of the Courtyard.

Several hundred kilometers away in Yanjing, Liu Qiangdong took a deep breath and stared fixedly at the number on the big screen—1.74 billion.

"Tomorrow's battle report, write it as 2 billion for me!" Liu Qiangdong came back to his senses and ordered Xu Lei of the marketing department.

"Then 2.07 billion it is." Xu Lei, wearing a smile, tactfully added another 70 million on top, so that the data would carry more credibility.

"I wonder what Pin Yibe's sales are?"

Liu Qiangdong squinted his eyes and muttered to himself.

He knew Jingdong couldn't compare to Mama Ali, but as a rising star in the e-commerce industry, Liu Qiangdong naturally didn't want to lose to Chen Yansen.

"We'll know tomorrow. Discount Pin Yibe's battle report figure by twenty percent, and it probably won't be far off." Xu Lei, projecting his own thoughts onto others, replied with a smile.

What about Mama Ali, then?

Liu Qiangdong asked himself silently.

(End of this chapter)