Chapter 1001 The Strategic Significance of Brand-Owned Stores

At Ali's internal high-level meeting, Jackma said with a solemn expression.

"First of all, facing the current situation, I have a responsibility. I underestimated Tesco's potential and mistakenly believed that Tesco's business model could not be successful."

After the review, Jackma changed the subject.

"At this point, we must admit that Tesco is our life and death enemy, a competitor that we must try our best to defeat!"

The Alibaba executives present nodded their heads. Tesco's business model seems to be different from Alibaba's, but its business sectors are highly overlapped with Alibaba's. The most terrifying thing is that in the two major sectors of C2C market and electronic payment, Tesco has a considerable lead. Advantages.

Especially after Tesco has recently penetrated into the sinking market of third- and fourth-tier cities, Taobao's market share in this field has plummeted.

From a user's perspective, it is also online shopping. Tesco supports cash on delivery. You can also go to offline stores to see samples before placing an order. If you are not satisfied, you can return the product within seven days without any reason. Logistics generally only takes two to three days. It can be delivered, picked up or even picked up the next day.

Therefore, except for some relatively unpopular products, users are more willing to choose Tesco. Unless Tesco really has nothing to sell, they will go to Taobao to place an order.

After unifying the thinking of senior executives, Jackma proposed: "First of all, we have to solve two pain points. One is logistics. Tesco can even deliver same-day delivery in the central areas of first- and second-tier cities, and it only takes two to three in third- and fourth-tier cities. God, what about us? It takes at least two days in first- and second-tier cities, let alone third- and fourth-tier cities, and some even require customers to wait for a week. "

"You have to know that after placing an order, users have to wait for the goods to arrive. The longer they wait, the stronger the emotion will be. Once the goods purchased by users are defective or have quality problems, you can imagine what will happen. How angry."

"Therefore, it is urgent to improve the speed of logistics..."

However, mid-sentence, while Jack Ma was thirsty and drinking tea, an executive proposed.

"But Mr. Ma, the delivery speed of the goods is not something we can decide. Part of it is due to the express logistics company, and part of it is due to the fact that the merchant did not deliver the goods immediately after receiving the order..."

Jack Ma interrupted directly: "If you have any problems with express logistics companies, just communicate with them. Whoever can deliver faster will be used by us. For merchants who can deliver slowly, we will give more traffic to those merchants who can deliver quickly." Recommended, in short, try every means to keep up with the speed of Tesco! ”

The executives present looked at Jack Ma's murderous look and knew that this time he was really cornered by Tesco.

"Secondly, we need to optimize Taobao's crackdown on counterfeit and shoddy goods. I don't want to see anyone mentioning Taobao on the Internet and linking it to fake goods. If things go on like this, the brand image between us and Tesco will become bigger and bigger. Such an inherent impression has been formed in the minds of the majority of users, and if they want to change it, they will inevitably pay a price tenfold or a hundredfold.”

After the meeting, Jack Ma left Cai Chongxin alone.

"Lao Ma, don't get too angry. Although Tesco has been developing rapidly in the past two years, it does not open its platform for merchants to enter. At most, it is an online Walmart. It is difficult to compete with Taobao in terms of scale. ”

Jack Ma rubbed his temples: "I know this, but who can guarantee that it won't open to the public?"

Cai Chongxin looked at Jack Ma suspiciously: "You have been worried since you came back from the capital this time. Did you encounter something in the capital?"

"It's not that something happened, it's that I met someone."

"Qin Hao?"

Jack Ma nodded solemnly: "After talking to him up close this time, I discovered that Tesco's achievements today are definitely not accidental. Throughout his time since he founded Tesco, every step has been very organized. Can you remember Remember how many mistakes we have made since we started our business?”

"He seems to be riding the wave of the times every step of the way. That's the scariest thing."

Just when Cai Chongxin wanted to say something, the office door was suddenly pushed open forcefully.

Jack Ma frowned, but he heard the executive who broke in and yelled urgently: "Mr. Ma, go online quickly..."

As a result, Jackma opened a portal and found a banner advertisement on the homepage.

"E-Gou sincerely invites major brands and manufacturers to settle in..."

Jack Ma's eyes darkened and he almost fell down.

"Is e-commerce open for entry?"

Cai Chongxin ignored Jack Ma and quickly clicked on the banner advertisement. The link jumped to another interface, which was Tesco's investment guide.

After reading it word for word, Cai Chongxin and another executive looked at each other and let out a sigh of relief.

"Fortunately, it's not completely open."

As Cai Chongxin said, e-commerce is not completely open to entry and needs to meet many conditions. First, the hard power must be passed. The company's paid-in registered capital must not be less than 5 million, and secondly, the number of employees must not be less than 30. , In addition, Tesco will go to the warehouses of these partners from time to time for sampling and inspection. Once counterfeit products are discovered, the cooperation will be immediately canceled and the deposit will be deducted to compensate the users who purchased the goods.

Jack Ma was not as optimistic as them: "Don't you realize that this self-operated store model is very detrimental to us?"

The self-operated store model launched by Qin Hao is mainly aimed at those brands that have a certain influence but do not have online marketing capabilities. It adopts a cooperation model. The brand owner only needs to be responsible for the after-sales of the product, and all other promotion, marketing, and distribution are handled by E-commerce will complete it, and the profit will be split 50-50.

"Just imagine, once these brands enter Yiguo, they will further consolidate Yiguo's image of authentic products in the minds of users, and after these brands are highly bound to Yiguo, it will be almost impossible for us to poach them."

Jack Ma said worriedly. He knew very well that most brands actually did not have sales capabilities. Most brands' sales departments actually connected with agents at all levels to let agents sell the goods.

Yiguo's self-operated store model just solved the pain points of brands. They don't need to worry about promotion and marketing. They can just leave it to Yiguo to operate. The 50-50 profit split is also within a reasonable range, and some stronger brands can definitely negotiate a more favorable split.

"No, we have to think of a countermeasure quickly, otherwise once Yiguo's self-operated store becomes famous, it will be very disadvantageous to us."

Cai Chongxin hesitated for a moment: "How about we also open a self-operated store?"

Jack Ma thought about it, and it seemed that there was no better way. In any case, it was better to do something than to do nothing.

So, one day later, Taobao's banner ads also appeared on the three major portals, and some websites with relatively large traffic also had "Tmall Store" ads.

However, Jack Ma soon discovered that something was wrong.

"Tmall" ads did attract a lot of merchants to settle in, but they were all small merchants, and the real big brands didn't move at all. Jack Ma couldn't bear it and took the initiative to find some big-name merchants to cooperate, but the answers he got were: they were worried that online sales would cause dissatisfaction among offline agents, and they needed to be cautious.

At first, Jack Ma didn't think there was anything wrong. After all, e-commerce had just emerged a few years ago in 2006, and most products still relied on offline sales. It was normal for brands to be afraid of offending agents.

But gradually, Jack Ma found that big brands settled in one after another in the self-operated stores on Yiguo, and almost every day there were heavyweight brands opening self-operated stores on Yiguo.

After a deep understanding, Jack Ma was depressed to find that he didn't seem to be able to play the self-operated store model.

First of all, Yiguo has a much better image in the minds of users than Taobao. Many brands choose to cooperate with Yiguo to open self-operated stores, not because they expect the self-operated stores to make money for them, but to promote their brand image.

There are endless counterfeits and shoddy products on Taobao. Once brands enter, won’t the real and fake goods be sold on the same platform?

Secondly, Taobao is essentially an online department store. There is a shortage of talents in marketing and brand promotion, and it is difficult to help brands. After the brands come, they have to spend their own time to promote and market.

Yiguo is different. The first prerequisite for Yiguo’s procurement department is to have rich marketing experience. Whether a product is easy to sell, whether the profit margin is high, whether it can be sold in large quantities, and how long the sales cycle takes are all issues that procurement needs to consider. Because the procurement bonus is directly linked to these.

As a result, a very interesting phenomenon emerged. The brand self-operated stores on Yiguo are thriving, while the "Tmall" stores on Taobao have become a joke. Some merchants who have settled in "Tmall stores" found that they seemed to have become a big victim. They paid more money than others, but apart from a little traffic support, they had almost no benefits. Instead, they were laughed at by many peers.

The brands that settled in "Tmall" at the beginning also withdrew one after another. Some directly gave up the idea of ​​e-commerce, and some directly turned to Yiguo. In this regard, Yiguo also accepted all those who met the conditions of self-operated stores.

Jack Ma was so angry that he almost vomited blood, but he had no choice but to work hard to develop those small and medium-sized merchants. However, in this way, the brand image of Taobao and Yiguo became bigger and bigger.

There was a very popular post on Tianya Forum.

A netizen asked: What is the gap between Yiguo and Taobao?

There is a highly praised reply on the eighth floor that says this.

"For example, if you buy things on Yigoo, it is equivalent to shopping in a high-end shopping mall like Oriental New World, while Taobao is equivalent to shopping in a farmer's market."

Although this post was inexplicably deleted later, it is enough to illustrate the gap between Yigoo and Taobao in the minds of users.

This gap is also reflected in the choice of capital. Even though Yigoo's B round valuation has reached 5.8 billion US dollars, it is still sought after by a large number of venture capital institutions, while Taobao's financing process is relatively bumpy. It was not until after the Chinese New Year that Alibaba received a billion US dollars investment from Yahoo, but the price was 40% of Alibaba's shares.

Jack Ma, who got the money, breathed a sigh of relief and finally had the confidence to continue to "fight to the end" with Yigoo. The competition between the two sides entered a white-hot stage.

Qin Hao did not underestimate Jack Ma because of the current lead. He knew very well that Yigoo had only seized the initiative, but Yigoo's model destined Taobao to have the ability to turn the tables.

…

Time flies, and a year has passed in the blink of an eye. It is already the summer of 2007.

On this day, Qin Hao did not go to the company as usual, but gave the driver a day off and drove to the airport alone.

At the airport exit, a pretty figure came slowly with luggage. Halfway through the journey, she suddenly dropped the luggage and threw herself into Qin Hao's arms.

"Welcome home."

Wang Ying closed her eyes, smelled the familiar yet unfamiliar scent of Qin Hao, and murmured softly: "Well, it's good to be home."

Qin Hao held Wang Ying with one hand and pulled the luggage cart with the other, walking towards the outside of the airport.

"Are you hungry? What do you want to eat?"

Wang Ying took a deep breath and started counting with her fingers: "I want to eat hot-boiled pork in a copper pot, roast duck, braised and roasted meat..."

Qin Hao was happy: "How can you finish so much in this meal? Let's choose one thing first."

"Good guy, those who know you came back from England, but those who don't know think you fled from Africa."

Wang Ying wrinkled her nose: "It's not like you haven't eaten British food before. It tastes terrible."

"When I come back this time, I have to eat a few good meals. You have to accompany me to finish all the delicious food."

Qin Hao suddenly reacted: "You shouldn't have told your family when you came back, right?"

"Well, I said I won't come back until next week. They don't know it yet." Wang Ying's white and delicate arms hooked around Qin Hao's neck: "Don't spoil the fun and make them worry about you again."

Qin Hao hugged her soft waist: "Okay, don't mention it, I will spend all my time with you these days, that's all."

"Hmph, that's pretty much it." Wang Ying snorted and raised her chin slightly, like a proud white swan, declaring her victory.

The first stop was to cook the meat in a copper pot. Qin Hao was responsible for helping Wang Ying cook it, and she was responsible for eating it.

"Slow down. If it's not enough, I'll give you some more. Be careful not to burn it."

Wang Ying breathed in the heat and narrowed her eyes slightly, like a kitten basking in the sun in winter, her whole body exudes laziness and comfort: "Do you still remember the first time we ate pork shabu-shabu in a copper pot?"

Qin Hao just wanted to answer, but then he thought again and swallowed his words immediately.

"Huh, you feel guilty."

Wang Ying snorted lightly.

Qin Hao was a little embarrassed for a moment, but when he met Wang Ying's eyes, he found that the girl could no longer hold back her laughter.

"You look nervous. Don't worry. We agreed at the beginning that I don't have the same experience as her."

Qin Hao continued to serve Wang Ying hot-boiled meat. At this moment, a cell phone rang.

Wang Ying looked at the caller ID and frowned.

"My mother called. Doesn't she know I'm back?"

I didn't answer the phone the first time, but I called again soon after.

After Wang Ying answered the phone, before she said a few words, her face changed drastically and she said to Qin Hao: "Send me home."