#1013 Pioneer

A profit-seeking team formed by a group of profit-seeking people, at all times, the only thing in mind is profit.

After realizing the huge business opportunities behind the Taobao Alliance, almost everyone in the Letao team felt sour and jealous.

Although Cai Chongxin's words are somewhat cynical about Letao's current practices and insinuate that Letao's model is unhealthy, but everyone has no common knowledge with him. After all, his analysis of the Taobao alliance is convincing.

Boss Ma didn't say a word for a long time, he secretly calculated a conclusion in his heart, and then said with a congested face: "In this way, at least half of the profits of Taobao sellers will go into Taobao's pocket in the future! Too cruel! It's too cruel!"

Lu Zhaoxi also sighed: "If it is really like what Lao Cai analyzed, once the Taobao alliance starts to commercialize, it is simply a drug for Taobao sellers! The more you smoke, the more you can't get rid of it..."

After that, Lu Zhaoxi asked Boss Ma: "Mr. Ma, should we also try to create an affiliate advertisement? Although we are not as strong as Taobao, we can start small, and then wait for the Taobao Alliance to officially charge, and then we will Bit by bit."

Boss Ma sighed: "Of course I want to do it, but it doesn't make sense to talk about it now, we have not yet laid a solid foundation, and there is still a long way to go in the future, and the Taobao Alliance has basically become a It is monopolistic. He is paired with Taobao, a proprietary platform. We can't bite him at all. If we want to advertise in the alliance, we must first see what the next step of the Taobao alliance is. If the Taobao alliance really starts to pursue profits, then we will only have Chance."

...

At this time, Li Mu was also discussing with Master Lei and Senior Brother Liu. The issue discussed was the cost of the follow-up operation of the Taobao Alliance.

Since the establishment of Taobao Alliance, all costs have been subsidized by the platform. In other words, Li Mu spent money to buy traffic from thousands of individual webmasters to voluntarily subsidize Taobao sellers. The reason for this is that The purpose is to rapidly increase the C2C business, and it seems that this goal has been exceeded.

The way of subsidizing for development is a special method in a special period, but because it violates the laws of the market, it is by no means a long-term solution. The real long-term solution must be to fully market and commercialize it and find its own way of survival.

With the continuous growth of Taobao Alliance, the cost of Taobao Alliance has risen sharply. If you continue to subsidize like this, let alone Taobao, ten Taobao may not be able to afford it. The goal is to be able to put the company on the right track faster rather than a permanent subsidy, so it is an inevitable market law to transfer the cost of Taobao alliance to sellers.

Lord Lei's mind is lively,

He is also proficient in operation, and soon realized the huge profits contained in the huge traffic of Taobao Alliance, so his suggestion is basically similar to Cai Chongxin's guess, hoping to add a source of income to Taobao through Taobao Alliance.

Senior Brother Liu attaches great importance to feelings, although he can see the huge business opportunities in Taobao Alliance, but he feels that Taobao will eventually become a service-oriented e-commerce platform, so it must be disciplined and make money, but there is money It cannot be earned, and in his opinion, Taobao Alliance is a powerful mechanism that benefits the entire e-commerce, and should not be used to make money.

Li Mu's heart is generally more inclined towards Brother Liu. In his opinion, a gentleman loves money in a proper way. The biggest mission he has given to Taobao Alliance is to become the engine that promotes the development of Taobao and even e-commerce, not to be himself. Another money-making machine in hand.

Like 3321, it should be pure, not commercial.

So, Li Mu said to the two in the office: "My personal view on the Taobao Alliance is that at least for the current period, I am not going to use it to make money. The principles and algorithms of the Taobao Alliance are nothing. The problem, many companies have the ability to realize the Taobao alliance at the technical level, but the biggest gap is that we are the ones who really give the Taobao alliance the core concept.”

After speaking, Li Mu added: "My idea is that the selection algorithm of Taobao Alliance remains unchanged. We do not accept sellers taking the initiative to spend money to buy traffic. The only way is that our algorithm integrates the page views, conversion rates, The total sales volume, total credit rating, total favorable rate and the weight of the 10,000 vote ratio are used for intelligent matching to ensure fair and just traffic distribution of Taobao Alliance. It is necessary to create a healthy business environment for Taobao sellers, and let them know who works harder , Whoever is more attentive, who is more honest, who pays more attention to consumers, will get higher weight and more resources.”

Leader Lei asked Li Mu: "Mr. Li, if we don't accept active purchases from sellers, how should we implement the concept of paid promotion?"

Li Mu smiled indifferently: "It's very simple, we don't care whether the seller is willing to take the initiative to buy or not, we first run the algorithm, and through our algorithm, we screen out some stores and products that have the opportunity to be promoted, and calculate that each store's product will soon be available. and then send a confirmation request to the seller in the background of Taobao Alliance, informing the seller that some products in his store have the opportunity to be promoted by Taobao Alliance, how many impressions, how many effective clicks and conversions are expected to be brought, Estimate an approximate promotion fee, if he is interested, pay the promotion fee first, and after the promotion fee is paid through Alipay and confirmed by the system, the advertisement of this store's products can be launched."

Lei Jiaozhu nodded: "I understand, that is to say, we completely abandon the way of bidding, first screen out the users who have the opportunity to get promotion opportunities, and calculate the approximate amount of impressions and costs, and let the seller decide whether to promote it. "

"Yes." Li Mu said, "In this way, we will eliminate the bidding process."

As he said that, Li Mu said to the leader Lei with a serious face: "Mr. Lei, some words may not sound pleasant, but the three of us are the core team of Taobao, so I have to say anything ugly in advance, no doubt, Bidding advertising is definitely the best way to maximize the benefits of the platform, but I think that bidding advertising is unscrupulous for the development of e-commerce as a whole, or even forcing the good into a prostitute!"

Not only Cult Master Lei, but even Senior Brother Liu was stunned by Li Mu's heavy words.

The two looked at Li Mu, and Li Mu said with a serious face: "E-commerce involves more sales of physical products. Since it is a physical product, there must be strict quality assurance, price assurance and after-sales assurance. If bidding is adopted The way of promotion is equivalent to directly obliterating the development prospects of low-margin products, and even leading the entire industry astray.”

"For example, for the same liquefied gas valve, product A sells for 30 yuan, but the profit margin is only 3 yuan; product B sells for 15 yuan, but because of poor materials and insufficient processing, the profit margin can also be spread. Yuan, if it is sold under normal circumstances, it is entirely up to consumers to decide, and the two products will attract their own target customers according to their abilities, but once the method of advertising bidding is adopted, it will be completely messed up!"

"The profit margin of product A is insufficient, and it can only afford the price of 10 cents per UV. However, by further reducing the quality and reducing the cost of product B, the profit margin of a single product has reached 8 yuan, but it has 7 yuan. It can even afford the price of 25 cents per UV. In this way, all the display opportunities for LPG valves are occupied by product B, and all consumers see are the advertisements of product B. , Naturally, the vast majority will buy product B, but when product B reduces costs, it will inevitably lower the quality, if its product has a 1/10,000th risk of leakage, it is all about human life.”

Having said this, Li Mu paused and said: "Of course, there is another possibility of bidding, that is, in order to win the bidding, product A also imitates B, desperately reducing the cost of its own products, and finally product A and product B It will enter a tug of war to reduce costs. If things go on like this, the entire liquefied gas valve market will fall into a wave of cost reduction. It will not be long before real high-quality liquefied gas valves will not be available on the market. At that time, in the face of various accidents caused by the leakage of liquefied gas across the country, what can we do to appease our conscience?"

"You may think that the product of liquefied gas valve is very small and does not have much influence, then think about furniture, think about decoration materials, think about children's toys and various supplies, if these industries continue to compete for bidding What should I do if the quality of the products finally pushed to consumers is not up to standard due to cost reduction? What if harmful substances such as formaldehyde exceed the standard? What should I do if infants and young children suffer from serious diseases such as leukemia? From a legal point of view, we are just a platform, we naturally No responsibility, but ask ourselves, can we feel at ease?"

Leader Lei and Senior Brother Liu had serious expressions and were speechless for a while.

Li Mu sighed and said: "Business competition must form a healthy competition environment, otherwise the consequences will be disastrous. If we push the industry into the direction of desperately reducing costs and increasing the promotion budget, then we will become the sinners of the real manufacturing industry. ."

At this time, Li Mu changed his words and said very solemnly: "However, what if we stick to our integrity as a platform side? If we stick to our integrity, don't be distracted by money, and regard maintaining a healthy business environment as the platform's own responsibility, in our Completely eliminate vicious bidding promotion on the platform, so that the allocation of promotion resources is no longer just based on who gives more money, but who is more serious, more honest, and who is more recognized by consumers? In this case, although it is possible to make electronic I’m not sure about the overall healthy development of business, and I’m even less sure if it can promote the healthy development of the physical manufacturing industry, but we can at least ensure that all sellers on our platform must operate in a disciplined and down-to-earth manner. At least we can have a clear conscience!"

Leader Lei was silent for a long time, and said with great shame: "Mr. Li, I am indeed short-sighted on this issue. I didn't expect the crisis behind the bidding. You are right, we really want to ensure the healthy development of the platform."

Li Mu could see that the leader of Lei was not fooling himself, smiled slightly, and said to the two: "Since the times have given us the identity of pioneers, then we must assume the sense of responsibility that pioneers should have. I can allow one day in the future Taobao because I went bankrupt due to poor management, but I can't allow Taobao to lead Huaxia's e-commerce and even the real economy astray, in that case, no matter how much money I make, I can't feel at ease!"