fictionpage Chapter 163 Shocked Jack Ma
Chapter 163 Shocked Jack Ma
Chapter 163 Shocked Jack Ma
At Alibaba's headquarters in Hangzhou, Jack Ma overheard two employees chatting on his way to his private office.
One employee spoke up: "Have you heard? Lin Mu, who left his job to start his own business, is doing incredibly well."
It's doing very well, and it even received investment from Tencent!
Another employee chimed in, "Who in the company doesn't know about Pinduoduo now? I've used it too; the prices there are ridiculously cheap. Our company's competitor, Jutuangou, is no match for it. I even got free fruit through Pinduoduo a while ago. Lin Mu really has foresight, daring to target the fresh fruit market and actually making it a success. No wonder he's Jack Ma's biggest worry."
"Hey hey hey!" His shoulder was suddenly touched, and his colleague quickly gestured with his eyes for him to stop talking nonsense. Out of the corner of his eye, the colleague caught a glimpse of Jack Ma's gloomy face.
Jack Ma remained silent and went straight back to his office. Lately, he's been riding high: Alibaba is thriving, growing at a rate of 40% to 50% annually; he's now a VIP guest of leaders at all levels in the city and province, his negotiations with international conglomerates are going very smoothly, and his ambitious plan is progressing steadily.
He hadn't paid attention to Lin Mu, this young man, for a long time, but hearing what his employee said now, he was genuinely curious:
How well has this kid managed to run his business? He took out his phone, casually downloaded Pinduoduo, and started browsing.
The first thing that caught his eye was that Pinduoduo had a significantly wider variety of products than when he first used it, and had even added a fresh fruit category. One of its best-selling apple products had monthly sales of tens of thousands of orders.
When Jack Ma clicked in to check, he didn't find any obvious signs of controlled comments. Most of the comments were "delicious and cheap" and "there were hardly any rotten apples in the box after it arrived." Occasionally, a few common negative comments were interspersed, such as the seller shortchanging customers or the apples arriving with most of the box rotten.
A sense of curiosity arose in Jack Ma's heart: Even Taobao dared not easily venture into the category of fresh fruits and vegetables, so how could Lin Mu dare to go in this direction, and seemingly do quite well? He temporarily suppressed his confusion and continued to check if Pinduoduo had updated any new features.
Soon, he saw the "Free Fruit" icon next to the 30 Yuan flash sale entrance. "Is this really free?" Jack Ma muttered to himself. "Fruit isn't cheap to begin with, and with shipping costs, giving users coupons is more cost-effective than giving them fruit."
Driven by curiosity, he clicked on the entry point. Immediately, a series of viral pop-ups appeared, and the system proceeded to guide him step by step, treating him almost like a fool. Jack Ma's lips twitched, and with an expression of utter disbelief, he simply quit Pinduoduo.
After a moment's thought, he asked his company secretary to collect some recent information about Pinduoduo. A few days later, a stack of documents about Pinduoduo appeared on Jack Ma's desk.
Jack Ma carefully reviewed the documents, the first thing he saw being Pinduoduo's monthly active user (MAU) data. Pinduoduo has not officially released this figure, but based on various data sources, it is estimated that the MAU has reached 100 million. Since its launch, Pinduoduo has several noteworthy aspects:
First, they relied on low-price flash sales to achieve group-buying viral growth.
Secondly, the consistent product subsidies, coupled with a focus on off-brand products, continue the strategy of offering the lowest prices across the entire network.
Third, Lin Mu personally managed and supported the creation of QQ sexy lingerie, a category with extremely high gross profit margins.
Fourth, seizing the opportunity to enter the mobile phone case and accessories market was a brilliant decision—using nostalgic IPs as an entry point, collaborating with currently popular Hong Kong and Taiwan TV dramas such as "Meteor Garden," and subsequently expanding the co-branding strategy to the youth market by cooperating with Qidian.com.
Even more noteworthy is that these co-branded phone cases have extended from online to offline, giving rise to a new social division of labor: in universities, some people are wholesaling phone cases and tempered glass screen protectors from Pinduoduo and starting small businesses; finally, there is Pinduoduo's newly launched "free fruit giveaway" event.
The company secretary provided a detailed analysis of the reasons for Pinduoduo's success in the fresh fruit market: First, Pinduoduo focused on perishable fruits and adopted a "order first, ship later" model; second, it secured government subsidies for logistics distribution and used big data analysis to ensure that users within a province could only search for and receive products from fruit merchants within that province, thus achieving local logistics without crossing provincial borders and reducing losses and costs.
After reviewing all the materials, Jack Ma couldn't help but exclaim: Lin Mu had made almost no mistakes in any of these matters; his strategies were truly ingenious.
He reopened Pinduoduo and personally searched for three categories: QQ sexy lingerie, phone cases, and fresh fruits and vegetables. Sure enough, he discovered a large number of details that were not mentioned in the report.
First, there's the QQ lingerie category, where the comments section is particularly "interesting".
Pinduoduo not only uses the comments section as a channel for user feedback, but also operates it as a community.
The comments inside were eye-opening and made me blush; moreover, Pinduoduo's QQ lingerie section was more fashionable than Taobao's.
More fashionable, the inward-growing trend evolves at an extremely fast pace, with a small hit product appearing almost every month.
On the other hand, Taobao mostly just follows the trend and copies others, and it's several steps behind Pinduoduo.
In the mobile phone accessories sector, Jack Ma made a new discovery in the comments section: a secondary market has actually emerged from co-branded phone cases, with many people exchanging or buying them at high prices in the comments section.
What's even more interesting is that the co-branded phone cases also include blind box items, which are selling exceptionally well.
Taobao's response was almost one of surrender; during the period when Pinduoduo's mobile phone accessories business was booming, Taobao didn't even follow suit.
Currently, Pinduoduo has surpassed Taobao in market share for mobile phone accessories alone. As for the fresh fruit market, it goes without saying that no other e-commerce platform has ventured into this area; Pinduoduo is a pioneer in this field.
Jack Ma knew that if things continued this way, in a few years, once Pinduoduo's influence grew, users' first impression of buying fruit online would be Pinduoduo.
He summarized the core reasons for Pinduoduo's success and Taobao's lagging behind in these areas, and there was only one: Lin Mu.
With his exceptional operational skills and ability to seize opportunities, Lin Mu, in collaboration with his team, achieved one remarkable turnaround after another.
The reason Taobao lags behind is quite simple: it lacks initiative. Take the mobile phone case and accessory market, for example. Even if someone comes up with the idea of collaborating with an IP, what motivation is there to push it forward? There are too many resource bottlenecks within the company, and merchants may not trust it or be willing to risk the factory's future.
Jack Ma pondered deeply: Will Pinduoduo become a major threat to Taobao in the future?
He shook his head. No matter how he thought about it, even with a magnifying glass, he didn't believe Pinduoduo could pose a threat to Taobao.
If we're talking about real competitors, we should worry more about Amazon, which has been making headlines recently for its plans to enter the Chinese market.
Of course, he wouldn't let Pinduoduo grow unchecked. His response was simple, consisting of three points: first, follow the trend; second, poach talent; and third, acquire.
The phrase is abbreviated as "treating someone to a meal, beheading them, and taking them in as dogs."
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