Chapter 334: One Day, One Hundred Million Orders

The next day, at dawn, the sky was just beginning to lighten.

Chen Yansen slowly opened his eyes, pulled back the blanket, slipped on his slippers, and walked to the living room, where a torn Avatar cosplay suit lay casually on the floor.

He sat down at his desk, turned on his laptop, logged into the data backend, and saw that just five hours after the Pinduoduo mega-sale began, real-time sales had already exceeded 2 billion Huayuan.

The 5-billion goal is going to be a breeze!

Chen Yansen glanced at the screen and muttered under his breath.

Taobao, Pinduoduo, and JD.com had been putting on a month-long show—today would decide whether it succeeded or failed.

Meanwhile.

Meng Xin, founder of Af Oil, had not slept all night; his JD Beauty Procurement Director’s phone went unanswered, and his WeChat message to Liu Qiangdong also vanished without a trace.

Even the slowest person would have realized by now.

For adults, not answering calls or replying to WeChat messages is a clear enough signal.

“Fucking Liu Qiangdong! If you’ve got a grudge against Ma Liyun, don’t use me as your pawn!”

Meng Xin’s face darkened as he spat out the words through clenched teeth.

As a top-tier internet beauty brand, Af Oil had generated 28 million Huayuan in sales during Taobao’s 2011 Double Eleven, placing it among the top five in its category; this year’s 618 sale broke records again with 37 million Huayuan, ranking just behind Yuni Fang, Procter & Gamble, and Pechoin.

To boost corporate revenue, Meng Xin unhesitatingly joined Pinduoduo and JD.com, hoping to gain more traffic and orders.

Last night, just as he was about to leave work, Pinduoduo’s merchant operations manager Hu Li called to demand an explanation: why was Af Oil’s promotional price on Pinduoduo 30% off, but 50% off on JD.com?

Meng Xin was stunned.

Under his control, Af Oil’s promotional prices were identical across Taobao, Pinduoduo, JD.com, as well as its own stores and exclusive outlets.

First, to prevent customers from comparing prices across platforms;

Second, to reduce friction and conflict between channels.

Otherwise, if Taobao got 69 yuan and JD got 79, would platform staff agree?

Upon hearing this, Meng Xin immediately checked—and to his shock, JD had unilaterally changed Af Oil’s promotional price to 50% off, dropping it to just 39 yuan, and even added free gifts.

Meanwhile, the same product was selling for 69 yuan on Taobao and Pinduoduo’s beauty main event pages.

Meng Xin had no time to think—he urgently ordered operations to adjust the price.

“Boss, JD locked our merchant backend—no price changes allowed!” the operations staff tried, but found he had zero permissions.

Meng Xin’s scalp went numb; Hu Li had given him only ten minutes—if he didn’t fix it, Pinduoduo would immediately remove all Af Oil products, including those on the billion-subsidy channel.

Based on his estimate of Pinduoduo’s Double Eleven output, Af Oil would lose over 20 million Huayuan in sales.

He quickly had operations contact JD’s procurement manager—but the man ignored calls and texts, playing dead.

Meng Xin paced frantically.

Soon after, Taobao’s beauty platform staff also pressed him: “Does Af Oil still want to participate in Taobao’s Double Eleven? Either lower your price, or pull all JD products.”

Pull them?

I don’t even have the authority to do that!

At that moment, Meng Xin wanted to drive straight to JD’s headquarters and confront Liu Qiangdong.

But then he thought—would anyone at JD dare do this without Liu Qiangdong’s approval?

Meng Xin knew clearly: if this wasn’t resolved quickly, the company’s Double Eleven and Q4 performance would be ruined.

In just one hour, Af Oil had sold 8 million Huayuan on JD.com.

Despite explaining the truth to Pinduoduo and Taobao’s merchant operations, Af Oil’s products remained hidden.

To Hu Li, no matter Meng Xin’s excuse, Af Oil’s actions had harmed both company and user interests.

Even as a top beauty brand, under contract, Pinduoduo had the right to deduct part of the store’s deposit to compensate users who paid higher prices.

Taobao didn’t demand compensation from Af Oil, but the platform staff’s tone was anything but polite: “Alibaba lifted Af Oil up—it can also crush it into the mud.”

To the Taobao staff, Meng Xin was nothing but a nuisance—how critical was Double Eleven?

Ma Zong and Zhang Zong were watching!

If the big bosses noticed, his year-end performance rating would drop to “3.25” (lowest; 3.5 is average; 3.75 is highest)—two such ratings meant a guaranteed resignation package.

As for Meng Xin’s explanation? He didn’t care.

Thus, Meng Xin had only two choices: side with JD, or side with Pinduoduo and Taobao.

From a business standpoint, there was no comparison.

JD was undeniably a major online sales channel, but compared to Pinduoduo and Taobao, its output lagged by 70–80%.

Meng Xin decisively cut ties with JD. At 3:15 a.m., he posted on Weibo as CEO of Af Oil: “Effective immediately, Af Oil is withdrawing from JD.com. We will not honor or ship any JD Double Eleven orders.”

Liu Qiangdong had pushed him into a corner—Meng Xin gave JD no quarter.

The threats were out—but Pinduoduo and Taobao’s contacts had already gone to sleep.

Meng Xin sat alone in his office, smoking cigarette after cigarette; he couldn’t sleep until this was resolved.

The period from midnight to 8 a.m. accounted for at least 50% of the mega-sale’s orders and sales volume.

In other words, due to JD’s antics, Af Oil’s mega-sale performance might be halved.

“You bastard, you’re ruthless!”

Meng Xin glanced out the window as the first rays of dawn appeared; he yawned and cursed.

It wasn’t until 9:30 a.m. that Af Oil’s promotional placements on Pinduoduo and Taobao were restored.

When netizens woke up, they were handed a massive e-commerce scandal.

Af Oil’s founder publicly “fought” Liu Qiangdong—netizens cheered, but JD users who bought Af Oil products felt their mood sour after reading Meng Xin’s Weibo post.

They thought they’d snagged the lowest price nationwide—only to find Af Oil wouldn’t ship!

They immediately contacted JD customer service for confirmation, and received only a vague reply: “The platform is communicating with the brand. Please wait patiently.”

“Buzzzz—!”

His phone on the desk suddenly rang.

Meng Xin picked it up—the caller was the very beauty procurement director who had gone silent.

“Chen Zong, what do you want?” Meng Xin asked, pretending ignorance.

He’d already pissed everyone off—he no longer cared. He’d spent years catering to these bigwigs; now he was done playing nice.

“Manager Meng, as of 9:30 a.m., Af Oil’s output on JD was 12.7 million Huayuan, with 213,000 orders. Our staff made a mistake—your products were accidentally moved from the 30% off pool to the 50% off promotion. Just a marketing glitch. But your Weibo post? If it damages JD’s merchant recruitment, we may send you a legal notice.”

Beauty procurement director Chen Yongqiang subtly threatened.

Marketing glitch?

You think I’m a three-year-old you can fool?

Meng Xin sneered—he wouldn’t believe a single punctuation mark of Chen Yongqiang’s words. We’re both old foxes—why play “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio” with me?

“Legal notice? Who are you trying to scare? You used me as your pawn—I know it! Af Oil won’t handle JD’s orders. Sue me if you want—see who loses more!”

Meng Xin shot back immediately.

He’d spent years in the trenches—did he fear a legal notice?

They exchanged words awkwardly for minutes before Chen Yongqiang hung up, embarrassed, and reported the incident upward.

Half an hour later, JD began canceling Af Oil orders en masse, offering each account a 10-yuan JD coupon with no minimum spend; customer service received orders: for users who were agitated and planning to complain to the market supervision association, add another 10-yuan compensation, not exceeding 30% of the order value.

Before Double Eleven was even halfway through, the first large-scale consumer rights protest erupted.

Both Af Oil and JD were trending on hot searches!

JD’s response: “Af Oil voluntarily joined the 50% off promotion. Its sudden withdrawal was due to pressure from another e-commerce platform and better promotional placement elsewhere.”

They then released screenshots of Af Oil’s electronic contract for the “Desert Storm” campaign, claiming they were blameless and that Af Oil lacked contractual integrity.

When Meng Xin heard this, he nearly laughed out loud.

The contract was fine—but he and the procurement staff had agreed on 30% off, not 50%.

Yet the contract didn’t specify the discount—Meng Xin was stuck, swallowing bitter herbs with no way to speak.

JD turned the tables, dumping the blame squarely on Taobao and Af Oil.

Soon after, Taobao responded: “We never forced merchants to choose. It’s their own decision which platform to join and what promotions to run.”

Meaning: this had nothing to do with Taobao.

Netizens quickly flooded the Weibo accounts of Huang Zheng, Chen Yansen, and Pinduoduo’s official page, demanding answers with relentless persistence.

“Pinduoduo never interferes with merchant choices,” Huang Zheng replied simply, kicking the ball back.

Everyone was blameless—so it was the users’ fault?

In reality, the unwritten rule of “choose one or the other” existed not just at Alibaba, but at Pinduoduo too.

It was understood, never spoken.

Ask? There’s nothing to say!

Any brand that appeared on Taobao or Pinduoduo’s main event page and dared join JD’s “Desert Storm” campaign would see its store traffic drop from 3,000 to single digits in seconds.

As soon as the brand canceled the “Desert Storm” campaign, traffic would instantly rebound to 3,000.

Though the three e-commerce giants never openly competed, their covert maneuvers never stopped.

By noon, Pinduoduo’s cumulative sales had reached 3.7 billion Huayuan.

Leveraging over 3,400 pre-warehouses (converted from local courier stations) and the real-time delivery capacity of KuaiPao couriers, Pinduoduo had already completed 500,000 parcel deliveries before the second half of Double Eleven even began.

The speed exceeded users’ wildest imaginations!

Though Alibaba released similar reports every year—some user received a package in minutes—it was obvious to all these were staged performances.

The order volume was minuscule!

Pinduoduo was different: from 9 a.m. to noon, using advanced warehouse operations, YunSu logistics, and KuaiPao delivery capacity, it effortlessly handled 500,000 parcel deliveries.

Because these items—shampoo, body wash, toilet paper, laundry detergent, phones, tablets, small appliances—had all been delivered to pre-warehouses half a month ago.

The distance from warehouse to buyer’s delivery location was no more than ten kilometers, making efficiency astonishing.

On the other side.

Express companies like Baishi Express, SF Express, Tian Tian, and Guotong were all overwhelmed—every station was piled high with packages ready for dispatch, stacked like mountains.

Yun Su wasn’t faring any better!

Liao Wei’s eyes were bloodshot; he had fallen asleep past two in the morning and woke at seven.

In East China, North China, Central China, South China, and Northeast China, the total pickup volume in the morning exceeded twenty million parcels.

Keep in mind, Yun Su’s daily capacity was only ten to twelve million parcels; at the current pickup rate, today’s total volume would reach forty million.

Liao Wei exploded!

This posed a massive challenge to Yun Su’s warehouse sorting and last-mile delivery coordination!

Moreover, rain and snow had hit many areas in North and East China, blocking road transport and delaying flights—the busier it got, the more chaos erupted.

Liao Wei couldn’t sleep; he personally took charge at the Shanghai headquarters, coordinating nationwide logistics resources and, through Zheng Shengyu, secured ties with Air China to integrate its air capacity into the transportation system.

“We still bought too few planes!”

Liao Wei slammed his thigh.

Previously, Yun Su had purchased eight secondhand passenger planes from Air China, transported them to Temasek, and converted them into cargo planes—just a few days after commissioning, they were already in use.

But compared to forty million parcels, these eight cargo planes were like a drop in the ocean.

Useful, but barely enough.

That’s why he had to rely on Air China’s idle air capacity, but passenger planes carried far less than cargo planes—only offering temporary relief.

The Double Eleven output of 2012 far exceeded everyone’s expectations.

Pinbei’s performance target was five billion!

Ali had sold six billion last year; this year’s target was ten billion!

JD’s daily goal was two billion!

Yet platforms including Suning, Gome, Dangdang, Yixun, and Amazon had all underestimated the explosive power of Double Eleven.

Goods began piling up at distribution centers nationwide; sorting staff were replaced again and again, each drenched in sweat, collapsing the moment they stepped out of the express station.

Express companies even offered three hundred yuan per day to hire temporary sorters—many quit after less than two hours, complaining they couldn’t take it.

At the same time, buyers kept placing orders nonstop.

In 2012, the express industry still relied primarily on manual sorting—slow, error-prone, with almost no automated equipment; each sorting center handled only hundreds of thousands of parcels daily, utterly incapable of processing tens of millions all at once.

Since the electronic waybill technology became widespread, Liao Wei, under Chen Yan’s instructions, had deliberately accelerated the deployment of automated sorting equipment—now forty percent of sorting warehouses used machines, with error rates below 0.1%.

Even so, Liao Wei still faced immense pressure.

At 24:00 that day, Pinbei’s promotional sales totaled 7.03 billion!

Order volume reached twenty-three million!

Upon hearing this, Liao Wei gave a bitter smile; it wasn’t hard to imagine that Ali, as the e-commerce leader, likely had no fewer than forty million orders, possibly even exceeding fifty million.

Add in dozens of other e-commerce platforms—Gome, Dangdang, Yixun, Paipai, Xiepinwang, Jumei Youpin, Vipshop—and total volume would surge past one hundred million parcels!

…

…

In Zhuxianzhuang Technology Park, in the silent, dark night, Building Six suddenly erupted in deafening cheers.

The 7.03 billion in total sales meant every Pinbei employee’s Q4 performance bonus would be multiplied by 1.4—ten thousand yuan instantly became fourteen thousand.

Chen Yan leaned back in his chair, watching the wild, howling youths, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

You might make money—but I never lose.

(End of Chapter)