Chapter 48: Sales Break 500,000 (Please Follow & Read)

At six o'clock the next afternoon, the voting event closed.

A cumulative 137,000 users had taken part, the prize pool had been topped up all the way to 460,000, and the product with the most votes was "Fox Hunt," with 85,000 votes.

In other words, the final 460,000 prize was split among 85,000 people, with winnings ranging from 2.8 yuan to 888 yuan.

Although 99% of users only won 2.8 yuan, the remaining 1% still numbered several hundred; quite a few people got 88-yuan prizes, and some even hit the 888-yuan cash jackpot.

In just three short hours, "Fox Hunt Voting Draw" shot up to the trending searches, and in the comments section plenty of lucky winners posted screenshots of their 888-yuan withdrawals landing in their accounts, while 88-yuan screenshots were so numerous they couldn't be counted.

Fox Hunt thoroughly made a name for itself among the college student crowd.

Combined with Chen Yansen's identity as a freshman, the two together made him and Fox Hunt the focus of media attention; for a time, Chen Yansen and Fox Hunt grew ever more famous, looking every bit the model of a successful student entrepreneur.

But at that moment, in Startup Hub 206, the mood of the group was a little glum.

After the vote ended, although Fox Hunt did make one round of trending searches, it hadn't converted many users; the real-time registration growth had plunged from a peak of 2,500 per hour down to 50 per hour.

Chen Yansen glanced at the data and didn't mind.

He knew perfectly well that Fox Hunt was, in essence, an intermediary platform that bought and sold traffic, unable to pull in a large volume of organic traffic on its own.

Being able to acquire the first batch of seed users at an extremely low cost and pull off a perfect cold start for the product had already far exceeded his expectations.

To boost the first-order conversion rate of prize-winning users, Chen Yansen had specifically pulled Zhuang Rui and Song Yuncheng aside to plan a new-user activity zone on the site's secondary pages, selecting mainly FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) priced under 20 yuan, with cashback kept at 2.2 yuan or above.

This way, users who had won 2.8 yuan only needed to place one order to complete their first withdrawal, and they'd also get to run through Fox Hunt's core user flow end to end.

"Zhuang Rui, is the product requirements doc for Bargain-Cut done? Send it to me as soon as you can."

Chen Yansen sat at his seat picking products for a while, felt a bit tired, slowly got up and stretched, then asked Zhuang Rui.

"Sen-ge, I'll give it to you before end of work—I still need to polish the details." Zhuang Rui heard him, looked up and replied.

"Alright, wait till Zhang Wenbo and Peng Fei get back, let's sync up together, and aim to launch in October."

Chen Yansen nodded, then added.

The bargain-haggling model was annoying, sure, but for pulling in new users it was an absolute killer weapon; he didn't have enough funds on hand, and even though customer-acquisition costs were low in 2010, he still couldn't afford to burn cash—unless he could land angel investment.

But right now, Fox Hunt had fewer than 140,000 registered users and less than 10,000 daily actives, and its profit model was no different from competing sites, making it hard to draw investors' attention.

Only by breaking into the industry's top three would capital come knocking with money in hand.

Meanwhile.

In a junior-year boys' dorm at Lucheng College, Zhang Wei was scrolling through Fox Hunt's activity page.

"These denim shorts are 39.9 yuan, and you can get another 4 yuan back—doesn't that mean they're only 35.9 yuan in hand?"

Zhang Wei muttered to himself, carefully read the product details and reviews, decided there were no issues, and pulled out his U-shield to pay.

The other products on the page were also tempting to him: a 9.9-yuan T-shirt that returned 1 yuan, a 299-yuan MP4 that returned 30 yuan, a 399-yuan pair of sneakers that returned 40 yuan—this novel kind of online-shopping discount seemed to open a whole new world for him.

Back then, the discount method many online-shopping users commonly used was to haggle directly with the shop owner.

That method was time-consuming and laborious, and it wasn't suited to introverts; most people would just accept the listed price on the page by default.

Fox Hunt's arrival hit their old notions hard.

Watching the order volume on the backend climb steadily, Chen Yansen couldn't be bothered to rest; using the activity templates he'd developed ahead of time, he added eight themed activity pages to the homepage in one go, sorted by category—for example: Snack Happy Buy, Beauty Benefit Shop, Sports New Trend, and so on.

He kept the price range of his selections tight against the average order value, and at the same time specifically picked quality products with high commission ratios, greatly boosting retained users' willingness to place orders.

Over the course of a day, the conversion rate of a single activity page at one point exceeded 30%.

In other words, out of 10 users who clicked into an activity page, 3 ended up placing an order—an astonishing conversion rate.

On October 2nd, Fox Hunt's daily order count was 2,745 orders, total sales 89,212.5 yuan, profit 13,292.6 yuan;

On October 3rd, Fox Hunt's daily order count was 6,123 orders, total sales 194,099.1 yuan, profit 28,144.3 yuan;

On October 4th, Fox Hunt's daily order count was 4,169 orders, total sales 151,706.3 yuan, profit 23,673.2 yuan.

In just three short days, Fox Hunt's site-wide sales broke through the 500,000-yuan mark!

"Sen-ge, the numbers are out—right now a total of 12,471 orders are from 2.8-yuan prize-winning users, with a gross margin of 1.3%; by the math, we still made 5,300 yuan."

Hu Yun grinned and reported the numbers to Chen Yansen.

"Pretty much what Zhuang Rui estimated; this voting event probably ended up costing under 40,000 yuan in total, but the effect is worth what you'd get from spending 400,000."

Chen Yansen smiled, then instructed Zhuang Rui: "Our first step has been steady; from here on, think more about retention—raising users' first-order rate and order frequency is your most important job going forward."

"Got it, Sen-ge, I'll chew on it these next few days and bring you a plan after the holiday."

Zhuang Rui took a deep breath and replied seriously.

Chen Yansen gave an "mm," turned and looked at Wang Zihao, who was still busy with his head down; he'd been about to call him out to relax for a bit, but swallowed the words at the edge of his mouth.

He left the Startup Hub alone and wandered aimlessly along Willow Creek.

The sky was overcast and heavy; a wisp of golden sunset gradually sank into the horizon, and a cool breeze carried a slight chill, rustling the willow branches.

After working non-stop for a whole month, even he, with his abundant energy, felt a trace of weariness stirring in his heart.

When all was said and done, Chen Yansen still didn't dare hand the project over completely to these eighteen- and nineteen-year-old kids.

His experience from his previous life warned him that in the business world and the workplace, the only person you can truly trust is yourself.

Anyone else might stab you in the back at any moment, and you'd never even know how you died.

Chen Yansen reached the riverbank, didn't mind the dirt, plopped himself down, and stared blankly at the opposite shore.

Fox Hunt was, in essence, a guided shopping e-commerce platform, and its ultimate fate was destined to be only one of three: first, get acquired; second, list on the main board; or third, ride the e-commerce boom to make a quick buck before slowly sliding into decline.

Chen Yansen had no plans to build Fox Hunt into something huge; mainly he was using it as a springboard—first accumulate contacts and resources in the circle, then bring capital and team in hand to blaze a more promising path.

As for which path to choose?

He hadn't figured it out yet at that moment.

"Class Monitor Chen, spacing out all alone?"

Just as his thoughts were running wild, a playful, light voice came from behind him.

Chen Yansen turned his head and smiled slightly—it was Xu Xingxing, whom he hadn't seen in many days.

He saw her carrying half a dozen beers and a bag of small snacks in her hand, wearing a baseball cap, a white camisole on top that left her shoulders and neck largely bare in snowy-white skin, and a pair of green athletic shorts on the bottom.

In the entire Void City Academy, her outfit was quite trendy and bold; most girls would at most wander around in pajamas.

"Didn't go home?" Chen Yansen asked casually.

"Didn't you go back either?" Xu Xingxing sat beside him and handed him a bottle of beer.

Xu Xingxing had a deep impression of Chen Yansen; the two had sung "Bad Girl" together at a KTV before. She had thought that after returning, Chen Yansen would add her on QQ, then follow the routine of boys chasing girls: invite her to eat, go shopping, and confess. But none of this happened.

The other party seemed to have forgotten her existence; if she hadn't taken the initiative to contact him, their intersection might have been limited to that KTV trip a month ago.

Later she heard that Chen Yansen was busy starting a business; the project had received the principal's attention and support, and had even been reported and promoted by the media. Compared with other boys, Chen Yansen seemed to be in a different layer from them.

While others were still staying up late playing games, his startup project already had over a hundred thousand users.

Plus, Chen Yansen was tall and handsome; there were no shortage of girls who had feelings for him, but very few truly dared to say they wanted to chase him.

Most girls knew the score, understanding that a boy as handsome and money-making as Chen Yansen, even if she confessed, might not necessarily get the response she wanted.

"Su, the branch secretary in our dorm, has been thinking of you; do you have any thoughts?"

Xu Xingxing took a sip of beer and asked casually to test the waters.

"I don't like girls who are too well-behaved; they're too boring." Chen Yansen clinked glasses lightly with her and said with a light smile.

"Then what about a bad girl like me?"

Xu Xingxing puffed out her chest and asked boldly.

"Oh, then how bad are you? How many boyfriends have you had?" Chen Yansen asked with a wicked smile.

"Do you want to know the exact number, or do you want to learn about my past?"

Xu Xingxing cupped her chin and stared straight at Chen Yansen.

These words were what Chen Yansen had said to her last time; this time, she gave them back to Chen Yansen word for word.

"So, did you bring your ID card this time?" Chen Yansen avoided answering and asked as he leaned closer.

"What ID card? Go to the dorm; anyway, I'm the only one there. Do you dare to come?"

Xu Xingxing narrowed her eyes and looked at him with a beaming smile.

Girls' dormitory?

He had never unlocked this scene before; he couldn't help but feel a bit stirred!

Suddenly, the phone vibrated.

Chen Yansen took out his phone to look; it was a message from Meng Jie. It turned out that to give him a surprise, Meng Jie had actually returned early.

"Next time; my girlfriend is back, I have to go pick her up."

Chen Yansen stood up, preparing to leave.

Next time?

Going to pick up a girlfriend right now?

Xu Xingxing was slightly stunned, thinking in her heart: Chen Yansen, you really are scum, clear and plain.

Brothers, this week we are pushing for the third round of recommendations; it all depends on everyone~ Please vote more, thank you~

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(End of this chapter)