Chapter 273

A man's name, a tree's shadow.

KuaiPao rose rapidly in just half a year, first defeating Eleme, then expanding wildly in Huian, Suzhoujiang, and Hucheng, its ground-promotion iron army equally renowned.

On one hand, its business development was strong and its operational standards high; on the other, its employees were united and physically formidable.

When KuaiPao's ground-promotion staff shouted on a street corner, they could instantly summon dozens of food delivery riders, YunSu couriers, and Kuaide Taxi's offline promoters.

Even Meituan's ground-promotion teams dared not approach on the streets.

Recall that when Meituan fought for merchant resources against Dazhong Dianping, Lashou, WoWoTuan, and Nuomi, it regularly held True Person combat tournaments.

Within the group-buying industry, Meituan's ground-promotion army was famously fearless and aggressive.

Yanjing, HD District, Suzhou Street, No. 18 Courtyard.

"Perhaps KuaiPao is harder to deal with than Lashou and Dazhong Dianping!" Wang Xin frowned, muttering softly.

He had studied Chen Yansen's business history; calling him a "genius" was not an exaggeration.

Others saw only Chen Yansen's precision in seizing business opportunities, but Wang Xin knew deep down that Chen Yansen's profound understanding of business models was his most terrifying strength.

For instance, in food delivery, the core chain consists of merchant and user resources, plus order fulfillment capability.

Originally, Eleme prioritized building merchant and user bases, but was defeated by KuaiPao's superior fulfillment capability.

Delivery timeliness and order fulfillment capability are a food delivery platform's strongest moat.

Precisely because he understood Chen Yansen and his operational prowess, Wang Xin grew even more concerned.

"What's the difference between Senlian Capital and Tencent? E-commerce, mobile phones, express delivery, food delivery, ride-hailing—they stick their fingers into every industry."

Wang Huiwen slumped his face, muttering under his breath.

After enduring countless hardships, Meituan emerged from nearly six thousand group-buying websites to claim the top spot, believing itself invincible—until KuaiPao stormed into the group-buying market.

The enemy descended from the heavens!

"So Chen Yansen and Tencent get along well—classic case of like attracts like," Wang Xin smirked coldly.

"It's just competition. Meituan survived the Thousand Group-Buying War—do you really fear KuaiPao?"

Wang Huiwen took a deep breath, speaking with full confidence.

"Exactly! In competition, Meituan fears no opponent!" Wang Xin narrowed his eyes, his gaze icy.

You dare steal my livelihood? I'll flip your table!

The next morning, Wang Xin posted on Weibo that Meituan would soon enter the food delivery industry.

Since KuaiPao dared to intrude into the group-buying arena, Meituan would also claim its share of the food delivery market.

Dazhong Dianping followed suit, announcing its food delivery plan.

Lashou, WoWoTuan, and Nuomi had neither spare energy nor funds, nor the courage to challenge KuaiPao—they stayed silent, playing dumb.

"You haven't even mastered group-buying—how dare you try food delivery?"

After seeing the news, Chen Yansen sneered, not taking Wang Xin seriously.

Food delivery is far more complex than group-buying!

Group-buying's core is "traffic intermediation"; food delivery's core is "fulfillment service." The former is a light-asset model with simple profit logic; the latter is a heavy-asset model requiring a full-chain management process—"online order → merchant preparation → rider delivery → user receipt"—with high operating costs and high technical difficulty.

It wasn't that he looked down on Wang Xin, but Meituan had not yet fully escaped the quagmire of the Thousand Group-Buying War.

Lashou, Dazhong Dianping, WoWoTuan, and Nuomi were all watching Meituan closely; if Wang Xin invested heavily in food delivery, group-buying's capital and traffic would inevitably shrink.

At that point, not only could he not compete with KuaiPao—he might even lose his existing market share.

But no one expected that same day, Meituan filed applications for "Meituan Food Delivery" as a company and trademark, clearly preparing for full-scale war.

In Yanjing, Zhang Xuhao had just finished his Q2 work report when his boss summoned him to the office.

"You've surely noticed recent industry developments. You've worked in food delivery—I want your opinion: should Nuomi seize this opportunity to expand its business boundaries?"

Shen Boyang stared fixedly at Zhang Xuhao, asking in a low voice.

He knew Zhang Xuhao was the founder of Eleme; no one in the company understood food delivery better.

"Boss Shen, I don't recommend Nuomi enter the food delivery arena. Group-buying and food delivery may seem to overlap heavily, but their essences differ. Food delivery demands massive investment in delivery teams—each rider's monthly cost is 6,000 to 8,000 yuan—and you must solve the problem of insufficient capacity during peak hours…"

Zhang Xuhao sat across from Shen Boyang, speaking calmly.

"6,000 to 8,000 yuan?" Shen Boyang was stunned, interrupting involuntarily.

"KuaiPao's official riders all receive base salaries, quarterly bonuses, and various subsidies; including per-order delivery commissions, top riders at each station earn over 15,000 yuan monthly."

Zhang Xuhao shrugged, speaking casually.

In fact, during Eleme's peak, top riders at some stations earned nearly the same.

"Chen Yansen clearly doesn't want anyone competing in the food delivery market!"

Shen Boyang suddenly understood.

KuaiPao's moat wasn't scale, superior fulfillment, or sophisticated order routing and route-planning systems—it was the shockingly simple rider compensation and welfare system.

Who would compete in a business that doesn't make money?

"I think Wang Xin and Zhang Tao will soon realize how stupid it was to announce they're entering food delivery," Zhang Xuhao joked.

Shen Boyang grinned, abandoning the idea of food delivery on Zhang Xuhao's advice.

Costs too high—not worth it.

KuaiPao was backed by Senlian Capital, Tencent, Mama Ali, and other internet giants; Nuomi's parent company was Renren—its strength paled in comparison, with no money to waste.

After suffering losses for over a dozen months, upper management had already complained, even considering selling Nuomi as a package.

Ten minutes later, Zhang Xuhao left Shen Boyang's office, thinking again of how he'd become a rival to Pei Yi—he shook his head.

It wasn't fear; after months working at Nuomi, he knew clearly that Shen Boyang could never defeat Pei Yi.

In the following days, when Meituan and KuaiPao's ground-promotion staff met on the streets, their hostility increased.

Previously, they kept to their own lanes; now, fighting over the same pot of food, their incomes at stake, tempers slowly flared.

Meituan's commission rate was 8%; when KuaiPao entered group-buying, it announced a three-month zero-commission policy, and after that period ended, it charged merchants only a 5% commission.

As a result, without the "choose one of two" rule holding them back, whether Meituan's online merchants or those of Lashou, Dianping, and Nuomi. com all signed cooperation agreements with Kuaipao quite readily.

One more sales channel means one more source of output.

Most offline merchants can still see this logic clearly.

The merchant resources that others had spent two years painstakingly expanding were settled by Kuaipao's business team without any effort at all.

Meituan's ground-promotion staff's income is tied to their sales performance — for example, the more group-buy meal deals a hotpot restaurant sells on Meituan, the higher their commission.

Kuaipao's business team didn't even need to think, they simply copied Meituan's group-buy meal deals over to Kuaipao, changed a few dishes at most, and put them up for sale on Kuaipao at exactly the same price.

In Luzhou, Jin Ling, Hucheng and other places, because of Kuaipao's entry, Meituan's ground-promotion staff saw their income shrink dramatically.

The ground-promotion business teams of the two platforms often got into arguments in places like Shangcheng and Meishijie.

On July 13th, on the Luzhou pedestrian street, three Meituan ground-promotion managers were beaten so badly by two Kuaipao ground-promotion staff, six Kuaipao delivery riders, and eight Yunsu Express couriers that they fled for their lives — one even lost a shoe while running.

Online, Kuaipao ran events like "1-yuan group buys," "9.9-yuan flash sales," and "check in to get 5-yuan or 10-yuan no-threshold red packets"; offline, they chased down Meituan's ground-promotion staff and beat them senseless.

There was nothing to be done — Yunsu Express had over a hundred thousand employees nationwide, and with the support of Kuaidi Dache and Kuaipao's delivery riders, Meituan's numbers were far too small, so of course they were no match for Kuaipao.

The moment they saw Kuaipao's ground-promotion team coming, they instinctively turned tail and ran.

When Wang Xin found out, his face turned livid with rage — in the past it had always been Meituan's ground-promotion team grinding other platforms' business staff into the dirt; when did it ever become Meituan's turn to take a beating?

But with no advantage in numbers, Wang Xin was powerless.

Fortunately, the powers above couldn't stand watching any longer and promptly summoned both Pei Yi and Wang Xin for a talk, telling them to keep their employees in line.

Commercial competition cannot be allowed to turn into street brawls!

Kuaipao's expansion was fast and fierce, making Meituan, Lashou, and Dianping all feel a sudden sting of difficulty.

It was only now that Zhu Xiaohu of Jin Sha Venture Capital realized why Chen Yansen had refused to take over Lashou. com.

After a moment's thought, Zhu Xiaohu called Chen Yansen, and under the pretext of checking in on Kuaidi Dache's Series B financing, got chatting with Chen Yansen about the development trends of the group-buy industry.

"I'm still interested in Lashou. com, but the premium is too high." Chen Yansen brought it up himself, sending Zhu Xiaohu a signal that there was room to negotiate.

"If Mr. Chen is willing to take it over, I can step in and help you communicate with Maidun Investment and Reinhardt Fund."

Zhu Xiaohu's interest was immediately piqued.

Qiu Junping of Maidun Investment had outstanding ability when it came to investing, but in Lashou. com's day-to-day operations he had blundered again and again — market share lost bit by bit, and Nuomi. com was on the verge of overtaking them.

Zhu Xiaohu and the others had long wanted to replace Qiu Junping, but had been stuck unable to find a suitable candidate.

"Then I'll have to trouble Mr. Zhu, then." Chen Yansen replied with a smile.

Stabilize Lashou first, and the resistance to Kuaipao's development would be much smaller too.

After hanging up the phone, Zhu Xiaohu hurried to find Qiu Junping, pulled in the contact person from Reinhardt Fund as well, and they discussed what price it would take to win Chen Yansen over.

(End of chapter)