Chapter 79: First Super Return: 7 Million Broken in 2 Hours (33k)

The next morning, an ordinary Sunday.

Chen Yansen slept until nine-thirty, first went to the cafeteria for a brunch, then strolled leisurely toward the startup park.

The Fox Tao team had expanded to seventy people; after more than three months of adjustment, daily work still had its share of small mistakes, but the project was moving forward in an orderly manner.

The website's homepage UI had been switched to version 2.0, and the first batch of Super Return preview products had also been released — a total of 37 brand groups, 104 limited-edition flash-sale products, with the flash-sale products alone carrying a goods value of 10 million.

The categories were mainly clothing, shoes and bags, small home appliances, snacks, and beauty products; almost every flash-sale product's warm-up click count exceeded 50,000, clearly showing the users' anticipation for this event.

The moment Chen Yansen walked into Room 206, he saw Xu Xingxing and Du Yaoyao huddled together chatting about gossip.

"Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai are impossible now. I saw the news yesterday — paparazzi from Taiwan caught him going in and out of a mansion on Guting Street with a 17-year-old female model." Du Yaoyao said with an air of authority.

"I don't believe it! The JJ romance is the real deal!" Xu Xingxing shook her head, not believing it at all.

"Morning, class monitor!"

"Morning, Chen Zong!"

The two noticed Chen Yansen walking in, immediately shut their mouths, and greeted him with grins.

Chen Yansen gave a slight nod, said nothing, and walked around them to sit down at his seat.

"Boss, I've already finished talking with the channel director of Jiushen Wang. We'll sign the contract tomorrow and start on the Shangcheng onboarding next week." Song Yuncheng saw Chen Yansen and immediately stood up to report.

Jiushen Wang?

Chen Yansen knew this website — he'd dealt with it in his previous life. It was a vertical e-commerce platform for alcoholic beverages; on the surface it seemed lukewarm, but in reality it was the leading player in liquor e-commerce.

"Not bad! The liquor industry has high gross margins — for something like wine, setting a 90% commission rate wouldn't be unusual. Congratulations, Boss Song, a million-yuan commission is just around the corner."

Chen Yansen leaned back and teased with a smile.

Song Yuncheng had switched from design to business; her current position was Channel Operations Director, responsible for B2C Shangcheng expansion. No one expected her to nail down the Jiushen Wang partnership in just a few days.

"Mainly because you taught me well!" Song Yuncheng replied with a light smile, silently adding in her heart, 'Master taught me well.'

"After Jiushen Wang is onboarded, chat with their marketing department and see if we can use the brand group event format to let Fox Tao users get familiar with their website's shopping flow first."

Chen Yansen said with a faint smile, gently reminding her.

"We already covered all that yesterday. The other side sent me their product list — 3 whiskies, 17 wines, and 2 baijiu, all with commission rates above 60%. Three of them will be flash-sale products, and the commission rate they offered is 80%." Song Yuncheng squinted, looking thoroughly pleased with herself.

"Impressive! If your December gross profit performance hits 500,000, your base salary goes up another 2,000 yuan." Chen Yansen began dangling a carrot.

"Thank you, boss!" Song Yuncheng hurriedly bowed slightly and cheerfully threw in some flattery.

"Get back to work!" Chen Yansen waved his hand.

"Sen-ge, ten minutes to go — Super Return is opening for sale! Old users are already placing orders with the queue-jumping codes!" At that moment, Xu Kun shouted loudly.

"Zhuang Rui, send me an extension package for viewing page sales." Chen Yansen nodded and instructed Zhuang Rui.

"Got it, right away!" Zhuang Rui raised his head and answered loudly.

To make it convenient for category operations to adjust product rankings in real time, Chen Yansen had specifically asked Zhuang Rui to build an extension program — load it into the browser and you can view a single product's real-time sales volume, sales amount, and gross profit.

Products with high sales and high gross profit would be manually pinned to the top, gaining more exposure and further boosting sales.

Once Zhang Wenbo and Xiang Pengfei finished their current workload, they would also activate an algorithm model in the Super Return product pool — based on brand tier, historical monthly sales, last event's output, and same-day sales data — running a new ranking every 15 minutes.

On one hand it would boost efficiency; on the other, it would prevent excessive human interference and stop anyone from using the opportunity to skim money.

The traffic difference between the first row of products on Fox Tao's homepage and the tenth row was enormous; once merchants figured out the ranking rules, they might try to pay for placement.

College students like Hu Li and Xu Kun — which of them could resist the temptation of red packets worth several thousand or tens of thousands?

Chen Yansen didn't distrust them; he distrusted human nature.

One minute before the sale opened, Min Jie from Metersbonwe called: "Chen Zong, I heard Fox Tao has revamped and will focus on brand flash sales going forward — looks like there'll be more opportunities for us to work together."

"Boss Min, congratulations on your promotion to President of Bang Gou Wu. If you need anything, just say the word."

Chen Yansen held the phone, walked to the window, and said with a smile.

"Can B2C products participate in the Super Return project?" Min Jie's call was solely to ask this.

Although Metersbonwe had a certain user base, 90% of its users were offline; online, it still had to rely on Fox Tao to quickly harvest its first batch of core users.

"Of course, no problem. But Metersbonwe's last brand group just came offline not long ago. To ensure results, I suggest Boss Min go live next week, combined with the Double 12 resources, to strive for a stunning debut."

Chen Yansen thought for a moment and offered Min Jie an idea.

"Next week? You mean putting the second event on December 12th, Chen Zong?" Min Jie confirmed.

"Bang Gou Wu's CPS interface can be ready this week, product selection will advance in parallel, and after testing the order-tracking flow next week, you'll be able to join Super Return normally." Chen Yansen replied with clear logic.

"Then thanks for your trouble, Chen Zong. Come to Hucheng when you have time — our Zhou Zong also wants to meet you." Min Jie got the satisfactory answer and said warmly.

"Please pass that along to Zhou Zong for me. Next time I pass through Hucheng, I'll definitely pay a visit." Chen Yansen replied casually.

Zhou Jiancheng, the big boss of Metersbonwe, was fretting over several billion yuan of unsellable inventory sitting in his warehouses.

The emergence of Fox Tao and Chen Yansen was undoubtedly a godsend that solved his most pressing problem.

After hanging up, Chen Yansen returned to his seat and pressed F5; on the main image of the limited-edition products, a string of semi-transparent blue text immediately appeared.

One more glance at the time — just fifteen minutes in, and the Supor electric kettle had sold 600 units, the Semir fleece-lined hoodie had sold 1,100 units, and an out-of-season air-conditioning blanket at a final price of 9.9 yuan had racked up a terrifying 3,000-plus units sold.

A flash of surprise crossed Chen Yansen's eyes. In his previous life, he had entered the e-commerce industry in 2013 — by then 4G networks were widespread and smartphones were gradually becoming mainstream, shopping was more convenient than in 2010, yet sales weren't as exaggerated as now.

He pondered for a long time and finally arrived at the answer: although the 2013 shopping environment was better, merchants and users had more choices.

On one hand, shopping-guide websites were sprouting up like bamboo shoots after rain; on the other, Taobao's own Ju Hua Suan brand had also developed, creating enormous competitive pressure.

But in 2010, apart from a few small discount sites like Zhe 800 and Juanpi, Fox Tao had virtually no rivals; combined with the fact that Ju Hua Suan had just launched and its model and mechanics were still immature, this gave Chen Yansen a first-mover advantage.

"The strategy of taking one step ahead of others seems to be the right one."

Chen Yansen mused to himself.

Half an hour later, the total sales of the 37 brand groups broke 3 million!

One hour later, total sales broke 5 million!

Two hours later, total sales broke 7 million!

Chen Yansen glanced at the time, called Wang Zihao over, and the two went downstairs, picking up Song Yang and Wang Zhengqiang along the way, heading together to Cafeteria Two for lunch.

On weekends most people slept in, and even though it was mealtime, there were hardly any students on the road.

"How much profit last month?" Chen Yansen looked at Song Yang and asked.

"Just over twenty thousand. It makes money, but it's just too tiring." Song Yang sighed softly and said helplessly.

Wang Zhengqiang glanced at Song Yang, feeling that remark was a bit of a put-on, but since he was working part-time under Song Yang, he just let out a sheepish chuckle.

You worked your ass off my foot!

Delivering and picking up parcels was now all done by Wang Zhengqiang and a few part-time college students. Song Yang went to the startup park once a day, sat down and played a few rounds of games, and the day was done.

Chen Yansen knew it perfectly well, but he didn't call it out.

"Sen-ge, I got two tickets to Wang Fei's concert. I'm not one for music, so they're yours."

Seeing Chen Yansen say nothing, Song Yang pulled two tickets from his pocket and held them out in front of him.

"VIP Section One — you must have specially asked someone to buy them? Thanks!"

Chen Yansen took the tickets, glanced at them, and said with a teasing smile.

Song Yang gave an awkward smile and scratched his head uneasily.

He had told his dad about running the courier station as an agent. Hearing that this was Chen Yansen's guidance, his dad told him to give Chen Yansen a little gift.

"You two may be roommates, but when it comes to favors, you have to give and take. Hearing you say that, I think this Chen Yansen fellow will surely go far in the future. You need to get along well with him."

Song Yang's father repeatedly emphasized the instructions.

Only, Chen Yansen neither lacked money nor a phone. The courier station brought in about 200,000 a year, and giving a car wasn't appropriate. Learning that Chen Yansen's girlfriend loved music, Song Yang had asked around and got two scalper tickets, spending ten thousand yuan.

"Couldn't fool Sen-ge after all. I heard from Zhe-ge that sis-in-law loves Wang Fei's songs, so I got two scalper tickets."

Song Yang gave a dry laugh and admitted it openly.

Favors, after all, had to let people know their value.

Chen Yansen narrowed his eyes, thought for a moment, and understood this must have been taught by Song Yang's dad. With Song Yang's current EQ, he wouldn't have thought of all this — at most he'd treat him to a meal.

"I'll have your sis-in-law treat you to a meal later. She really does like Wang Fei. You've put thought into this." Chen Yansen smiled and said, patting Song Yang on the shoulder.

Meng Jie's birthday was at the end of December, so this would double as a birthday gift.

After the few of them finished lunch, they split up at the door. Chen Yansen went back to 0418 for an afternoon nap, Wang Zihao went to find Liu Muyan for tutoring in finance, and Song Yang and Wang Zhengqiang went back to 8302.

……

……

Hucheng, Yixun Network headquarters.

Yuan Wei sat at his workstation and secretly opened a job-search website.

Three years after graduating, he had started at Yixun Network as an operations assistant, and his current position was category manager — but his fixed monthly salary was only 8,000 yuan.

One had to know that house prices in Hucheng had already edged past twenty thousand. Apartments under ten thousand weren't nonexistent, but those neighborhoods were all in Jin Shan and Fengxian — even if you bought one, you couldn't live there.

Desperate to move up, he decided to jump ship. Days without money were simply too grueling to bear. He scrolled through job postings on the webpage and suddenly stopped!

"Merchant recruitment position, monthly salary 10,000–100,000 yuan, tiered commission. Requirements: experience as a category operator on comprehensive e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, JD. com, and No. 1 Store, with abundant merchant resources…"

If it were any other company, Yuan Wei wouldn't have given it a second look, but the poster of this position was 'Fox Tao.'

As an industry insider, over the past two weeks Yuan Wei knew only too well the buzz around those three characters 'Fox Tao.' Even the merchants under him had people opening shops on Taobao to take part in Fox Tao's Super Return brand flash-sale event.

He scrolled through his chat groups and finally found that merchant's screenshot: in four hours, over 2,000 sets of brushed four-piece bedding sets had been sold, with sales reaching 400,000 yuan.

At a 15% gross margin, the gross profit on this product was 60,000 yuan!

If the recruitment commission was 3%, that would be 1,800 yuan earned!

And that was just one product. The remaining flash-sale and regular items, scattered across several hundred SKUs, could pile the gross profit past 100,000 through the long-tail effect alone!

The recruitment commission would be at least 3,000 yuan!

If he could get several dozen brand groups up in a month, wouldn't that be tens of thousands earned!

Yuan Wei's heart stirred at once, and he immediately clicked to send his resume.

(End of this chapter)