Chapter 332

On November 4, Dangdang simultaneously launched on Pinduoduo and Taobao Mall.

Liu Qiangdong mocked Li Guoqing on Weibo for “clinging to big spenders”—harsh words, but they hit the mark.

Li Guoqing didn’t coddle him, retorting: “When Big Qiang came to Pinduoduo last year, I never insulted him.”

The implication: Liu Qiangdong lacks thickness.

If JD can do it, why can’t Dangdang?

Clearly, the e-commerce landscape in 2012 was quietly shifting—vertical e-commerce faced mounting pressure under the squeeze of comprehensive platforms.

Li Guoqing’s “defection” to Pinduoduo and Taobao Mall was a last resort.

That afternoon, news broke that JD had signed an 800-million-yuan procurement contract with Meizu.

Liu Qiangdong and Huang Zhang jointly subsidized the Meizu MX quad-core 32GB model, slashing its price to 2,499 yuan; within six hours, the Meizu MX topped JD’s real-time bestseller list for smartphones, ranking just behind the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S III, and iPhone 4S.

After Orange Phone exited JD, Liu Qiangdong found a new partner.

An hour later, WoWoTuan announced it would shut down on December 31 due to failed financing, its corporate life entering its final countdown.

Of the top five group-buying platforms, one vanished instantly, leaving only Dianping, Lashou, Meituan, and KuaiPao still fighting.

The subsidy war raged for two months; countless group-buying sites were crushed to death—WoWoTuan was merely the most famous; when other competitors collapsed, no one cared.

…

…

Xucheng, Zhuxianzhu Technology Park, Building No. 9.

Chen Yansen leaned back in his chair, feet propped on the desk, played Subway Surfers for three minutes, then tossed his phone aside, bored.

With his current reaction speed, the game felt like slow motion—no fun at all.

Chen Zong glanced out the window; a few sparrows flew past, heading toward the distant dense forest, leaving behind crisp chirps.

At that moment, Pei Yi called.

“Boss, Meituan Waimai has expanded beyond Yanjing, launching delivery services in eleven cities including Jinmen, Anci, and Tangcheng.”

Pei Yi reported calmly.

“Sequoia Capital gave Wang Xin a sum of money—looks like his confidence is back. Keep a close eye on Meituan and crush them.”

Chen Yansen sat upright and instructed into the phone.

In his eyes, Wang Xin was a troublemaker.

The delivery model for food couriers should primarily rely on full-time staff with part-timers as supplements—ensuring stable monthly income for regular employees while flexibly expanding delivery capacity.

But Wang Xin immediately copied the outsourcing model into food delivery, solving Meituan’s capacity issues but creating major headaches for KuaiPao.

Meituan imposed numerous penalty policies, drastically increasing delivery pressure on riders, leading to frequent arguments—and even physical altercations—with customers, causing users to develop aversion to ordering takeout, fearing they’d get beaten before even taking a bite.

Negative news piled up, dragging KuaiPao down too; users who’d never ordered takeout now held the industry’s stereotype: frequent delays, high food damage rates, and terrible attitudes.

Beating customers above, beating merchants below.

Moreover, after Wang Xin’s part-time rider count surpassed fifty thousand, he kept probing the lower limit of delivery fees, slashing the per-order rate from 8 yuan to 5 yuan.

Logically, with no base salary, no social security, no insurance, and such low rates, no one should take the job—but there were too many grindmasters; even after three consecutive yuan cuts, delivery efficiency remained unaffected.

Thus, Wang Xin was considering lowering the fee by another 0.5 yuan to match KuaiPao’s rate.

“Understood, Boss. I’ve sent Shan Jiawei to North China—he knows Meituan’s operations inside out. Let him lead the charge; Wang Xin will have his hands full.” Pei Yi replied immediately.

In truth, without Shan Jiawei’s joining and bringing Meituan the supply chain expansion model from Huaguo, Wang Xin could never have stood out in the Thousand Group-Buying War.

Wang Xin’s previous ventures, Xiaonaiwang and Fanfou, were both social apps—what did either have to do with offline?

Wang Xin knew nothing about sales!

Pei Yi was confident: with Shan Jiawei and Zhang Xuhao as his two top generals, if he couldn’t beat Meituan, he might as well go bang his head against a tofu block.

“Shan Jiawei? I trust his ability. By the way, where’s Zhang Xuhao?” Chen Yansen asked casually with a faint smile.

“He went to Yanjing with Old Shan,” Pei Yi grinned.

“Pinduoduo 3.0 is about to launch—it will move KuaiPao’s entry point from the icon area to the homepage’s primary tier; users can swipe left to see the food delivery channel,” Chen Yansen reminded.

“Boss Huang mentioned it to me—I have no objections,” Pei Yi responded immediately.

Pinduoduo’s daily active users exceed 60 million, but e-commerce users place orders infrequently; KuaiPao’s daily active users are 6 million, yet it boasts high-frequency ordering—combined, they form a “high-frequency driving low-frequency” business ecosystem.

Currently, Pinduoduo offers KuaiPao greater support, so KuaiPao must pay Pinduoduo advertising fees as CPS commissions.

Pei Yi saying “no objections” meant he was willing to pay Huang Zheng the “toll.”

After all, both belonged to Senlian Capital, and Huang Zheng’s fees were not high.

“What about Baidu Waimai? Still hiding in Yanjing like a turtle?” Chen Yansen asked again.

“Yes, but I think since Baidu established its LBS division, it won’t stay confined to Yanjing—Li Yanhong and Wang Zhongpu are probably brewing something big,” Pei Yi replied after a moment’s thought.

Baidu’s $50 billion market cap isn’t fake; though Li Yanhong currently lags in the ride-hailing market, that doesn’t mean Baidu will ultimately lose.

If Li Yanhong keeps doubling down, Cheng Weixing can only keep responding.

“Then accelerate expansion—strike fast, beat slow. Don’t fear losses. Cheng Weixing loses 1.2 billion a month—I haven’t complained, so why should you?”

Then speed up expansion—strike fast to overcome slowness; don’t fear losses. Cheng Wei loses 1.2 billion a month, and I haven’t said a word—what are you afraid of?

Pei Yi smiled knowingly and nodded vigorously; Kuaide’s valuation didn’t even make the top tier within the group, yet its monthly marketing expenses were the highest.

Neither Orange Tech nor Pinduoduo Mall spent this much!

After hanging up, Chen Yansen paused, then summoned Wang Teng, instructing him to contact Daniel Ek to integrate Spotify’s music data into Mos Smart Speaker and add Penguin Music, Kugou, and Kuwo libraries to Alexa Smart Speaker.

Overseas Chinese and domestic foreigners—though a small percentage, they shouldn’t be ignored.

Besides, many domestic users enjoy Western music; even if this move couldn’t guarantee sales gains, doing it was better than doing nothing.

Moreover, there are no few domestic users who enjoy European and American music; even if we can’t be sure how many sales this will generate for the smart speaker, doing it is better than not doing it.

After negotiations failed, Li Yanhong spent recent days hunting for investors—when Didi’s subsidies stopped, daily orders began falling, now down to 600,000 per day.

But Li Yanhong felt the risk was too high if he invested alone.

Among the BAT giants, Tencent and Alibaba backed Kuaide.

Among state-backed institutions, Huake and Huaxin funded and supported Kuaide.

Among foreign firms, Goldman Sachs and DST sided with Kuaide.

Opportunities left for Baidu were scarce; after negotiations, only Anping and IDG Capital showed interest—but what infuriated Li Yanhong was that both firms’ representatives rejected Baidu’s 8-billion-yuan valuation.

They offered at most 6 billion! In other words, Baidu’s E-round 1.2 billion in funding would shrink by a quarter within a month.

At most, offer 6 billion! In other words, Baidu’s E-round financing of 1.2 billion will shrink by a quarter in less than a month.

Negotiations stalled—neither side would budge.

Who knew Junlian Capital, holding a preferential exit clause, approached IDG Capital and sold its 8.1% stake in Didi for 500 million yuan, valuing Didi at just over 6 billion.

Zhu Nanli had never truly wanted to invest in Didi; once Liu Yiqing became Goldman Sachs Asia’s managing director, he immediately lost interest in the Didi CEO position.

In one move, Junlian Capital made a 100-million-yuan profit and successfully cashed out.

Upon hearing this, Li Yanhong nearly contacted IDG’s Xiong Xiaoge to sell Baidu’s shares too.

At least Xiong Xiaoge’s offer showed more sincerity than Chen Yansen’s!

But after thinking of Baidu’s LBS division and its O2O strategic layout, he sighed deeply and forcibly suppressed his negative emotions.

Temporary wins or losses meant nothing—Didi hadn’t reached the point of surrender.

Baidu wasn’t short on cash!

After careful deliberation, Li Yanhong decided to increase investment.

The next morning, under his strong push, Baidu injected another 800 million yuan into Didi, maintaining the same valuation as the E-round.

This time, Li Yanhong dared not provoke Cheng Weixing; he summoned Xiang Hailong for three or four hours, and the core strategy was: don’t fight Kuaide head-on, reduce subsidies, and redirect funds toward product feature upgrades and operational expansion.

“Boss, I don’t want to clash with Cheng Weixing either—but every time Didi enters a new city, Kuaide shows up the next day, right on our heels,” Xiang Hailong said with a bitter smile.

“Focus on passenger and driver experience. Pause promotional subsidies until Didi accumulates sufficient order volume and fulfillment capacity,” Li Yanhong gave a vague directive.

In short: reduce subsidies, expand service areas.

Seeing Li Yanhong’s firm stance, Xiang Hailong dared not argue further—he knew his boss was already dissatisfied; say more, and he’d lose his job.

In Baidu’s headquarters, perhaps someone else was better suited to be Didi’s CEO—but so what?

Protecting personal interests mattered more than company interests!

Unless Li Yanhong ordered it, he wouldn’t move.

After leaving the office, Xiang Hailong returned to Digital Valley and gathered department and regional heads to re-plan Didi’s Q4 strategy.

Meanwhile, after securing his A-round 300-million-yuan funding, Cheng Wei immediately went into overdrive.

Didi Bike’s deployment in Yanjing surged from 1,000 to 3,000 units; shared bikes were visible everywhere near subway exits and commercial zones.

Locals couldn’t help complaining: “Hey! Haven’t seen this many bikes in years—this is insane!”

Didi Bike’s pricing: 1 yuan for the first 30 minutes, plus 1 yuan for every additional 15 minutes, no cap.

But Cheng Wei hadn’t expected that as bike deployment increased, thefts rose sharply too.

Of the total 3,000 bikes, yesterday’s count showed only about 2,860 left.

Cheng Wei recalled the old man with the angle grinder on Didi Bike’s first day.

It wasn’t hard to guess where these bikes ended up.

“We must install GPS trackers on the bikes—otherwise, when we deploy 10,000, finding them will become impossible.”

Cheng Wei thought to himself.

Also, the first-gen mechanical locks had too many bugs—like covering one’s ears while stealing a bell; every bike had a fixed password, so users just memorized it and rode for free.

Cheng Wei silently pondered.

Moreover, the first-generation mechanical locks had too many bugs—no different from covering one’s ears while stealing a bell—since each bicycle’s password was fixed; users merely needed to remember it to ride for free.

If that’s the case, how can Didi bikes make money?

Thinking of this, Cheng Wei made up his mind to replace the mechanical locks with smart locks.

In fact, third-party companies had long offered technical solutions, but he found the cost too high and shelved them.

Now, if he doesn’t make changes, no matter how many bike finders he hires, it won’t help.

Without GPS positioning, where do you even look?

……

……

Hangcheng, Fan Zhou Technology Headquarters.

This was a bicycle factory with an annual output of up to eight million units, equipped with four independent bicycle production lines and painting lines, primarily manufacturing for European and American bicycle brands.

“Mr. Hu, a pleasure! Who is this?”

In the first-floor lobby, Yuan Zhen, boss of Fan Zhou Technology, shook Hu Weiyi’s right hand warmly.

The man was CEO of ofo bikes; just that title alone was enough to warrant his utmost respect.

The shared-bike business model had already spread through the industry—anyone who landed a purchase order from a shared-bike company would get rich.

Who wouldn’t be tempted by contracts for hundreds of thousands of bikes?

“Hello, Mr. Yuan, I’m Wang Zihao, COO of ofo bikes.”

Wang Zihao, in a sharp suit, introduced himself calmly and confidently.

Though he was only twenty this year, he had a dark complexion and a sturdy build, looking more like twenty-six or twenty-seven.

“Mr. Wang, welcome! Let’s go upstairs and talk in detail,” Yuan Zhen said with a beaming smile.

Facing such a major client, he had to be cautious.

“Mr. Wang, please,” Hu Weiyi nodded.

Behind them followed several colleagues from the business department and two legal officers, to safeguard the upcoming cooperation.

Unlike Didi bikes’ low-cost strategy, Hu Weiyi demanded that ofo bike frames, tires, seats, brakes, and other components be sturdy and durable, with costs kept under 400 yuan.

Because once equipped with smart locks, solar panels, embedded chips, GPS modules, and SIM cards, the cost would surge above 500 yuan.

After hearing Hu Weiyi’s requirements, Yuan Zhen looked troubled.

You get what you pay for—this was starkly evident in manufacturing.

To meet ofo bikes’ manufacturing standards, even just material costs would not be below 500 yuan; aluminum alloy frames, thickened tires, rust-resistant chains—each component’s cost was impossible to reduce further.

The two sides debated fiercely all morning without reaching a conclusion.

Yuan Zhen checked his watch and invited Hu Weiyi, Wang Zihao, and others to lunch first, to resume talks in the afternoon.

“No thank you, Mr. Yuan, we have other appointments this afternoon,” Hu Weiyi declined politely.

Yuan Zhen understood her meaning, and after a moment’s thought, said: “Ms. Hu, I’ll reduce some components—I can quote you a minimum of 460 yuan per bike.”

“I’m sorry, but frankly, this price doesn’t meet our cost control floor,” Hu Weiyi shook her head.

“Ms. Hu, to be honest, you won’t find a lower price anywhere in Huadong,” Yuan Zhen said.

“Then I’ll go to Huabei,” Hu Weiyi smiled faintly, waved goodbye to Yuan Zhen, and stepped into a Mercedes E350, instructing the driver to head to the next bicycle factory.

(End of Chapter)