Chapter 43: The strategic significance of brand self-operated 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 the C2C market. In the two major sectors of 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 the user's perspective, it is also an 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 goods within seven days without any reason. Logistics generally only takes two to three days.
It can be delivered, picked up or even available 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 need 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, halfway through the conversation, 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 caused by the merchant not shipping the goods immediately after receiving the order..."
Jack Ma interrupted directly: "If you have 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 try to reverse 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 just an online Wal-Mart. 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 will not 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 something happen to you 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. You can't remember it."
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. This is the scariest thing."
Just when Cai Chongxin was about to say something, the office door was suddenly pushed open with great force.
Jack Ma frowned, but he heard the executive who broke in and yelled urgently: "Mr. Ma, go online quickly..."
As a result, Jackma randomly clicked on a portal website 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 found, the cooperation will be canceled immediately and the deposit will be deducted to compensate the users who purchased the goods.
Jack Ma is not as optimistic as they are: "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 other promotion, marketing, and distribution are all handled by
E-gou will complete it, and the profit will be split 50-50.
“Just imagine, once these brands enter Tesco, it will further consolidate Tesco’s image of genuine products in the minds of users. Moreover, after these brands are highly bound to Tesco, it will be almost impossible for us to poach them.
Already."
Jack Ma said worriedly. He knew very well that the vast majority of brands did not have sales capabilities. The sales departments of most brands actually connected with agents at all levels and let the agents sell the goods.
Tesco's self-operated store model just solves the pain points of brands. They don't need to worry about promotion and marketing. They can just leave it to Tesco to operate it. The 50-50 profit share is also within a reasonable range, and
For some relatively strong brands, you can definitely talk about more preferential shares.
"No, we have to think of a countermeasure quickly, otherwise it will be very detrimental to us once Tesco's self-operated store becomes famous."
Cai Chongxin hesitated for a moment: "How about we also open a self-operated store?"
Jack thought for a while, and it seemed that there was no other better way. No matter what, doing it was better than doing nothing.
So, one day later, Taobao's banner ads also appeared on the three major portal websites, and "Tmall store" ads also appeared on some websites with relatively large traffic.
However, Jackma soon discovered that something was wrong.
The "Tmall" advertisement did attract a lot of merchants to settle in, but they were all small merchants, and the real big brands did not move at all. Jack Ma couldn't stand it anymore and took the initiative to find some big-name merchants to cooperate with. However, he got
But all the answers are: I am worried that online sales will cause dissatisfaction with offline agents, so I need to be cautious.
At first, Jack Ma didn't think there was any problem. After all, e-commerce had just emerged in 2006, and most products still relied on offline sales. It was normal for brands to be afraid of offending agents.
But gradually, Jackma discovered that big brands were entering the self-operated stores on Tesco one after another. Almost every day, heavyweight brands opened self-operated stores on Tesco.
After some in-depth understanding, Jack Ma discovered to his dismay that he seemed unable to handle the self-operated store model.
First of all, Tesco has a much better image in the minds of users than Taobao. The reason why many brands choose to cooperate with Tesco to open self-operated stores is not to expect the self-operated stores to make much money for them, but to promote
Brand image.
There are endless counterfeits on Taobao. Once a brand comes in, wouldn’t it mean that genuine and fake products are sold on the same platform?
Secondly, Taobao is essentially an online department store. There is a shortage of talents in marketing and brand promotion, so it is difficult to help brands. After the brands come, they have to spend their own efforts on promotion and marketing.
Tesco is different. The first prerequisite for recruitment in Tesco’s purchasing department is to have rich marketing experience. Is the product good at selling? Is the profit rate high? Can the quantity be increased? How long is the sales cycle?
These are all issues that need to be considered in procurement, because procurement bonuses are directly linked to these.
As a result, a very interesting phenomenon emerged. The self-operated brand stores on Tesco became very popular, while the "Tmall" stores on Taobao became a joke, and some of them became "Tmall" stores.
The merchants of the "Store" found that they seemed to be the wrongdoer. They paid more money than others and received almost no benefits except a little traffic support. On the contrary, they were laughed at by many peers.
Brands that initially settled on Tmall have also withdrawn one after another. Some have given up the idea of e-commerce, while others have directly switched to Tmall. In this regard, Tmall is open to all comers, as long as they are in line with its own needs.
If the store conditions are met, we will accept them all.
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 businesses. However, in this way, the brand image of Taobao and Tesco would become bigger and bigger.
There was a very popular post on the Tianya Forum.
A netizen asked: What is the difference between Tesco and Taobao?
There was a highly liked reply on the eighth floor that said this.
"For example, when you buy something on E-commerce, it is equivalent to shopping in a high-end shopping mall like Oriental Xintiandi. As for Taobao, it is equivalent to visiting a farmer's market."
Although this post was inexplicably deleted later, it is enough to illustrate the gap between Tesco and Taobao in the minds of users.
However, this gap is also reflected in the choice of capital. Even though Tesco’s Series B valuation has reached US$5.8 billion, there are still a large number of venture capital institutions pursuing it, while Taobao’s financing process is relatively bumpy, until the Lunar New Year.
Later, Alibaba received a billion-dollar investment from Yahoo, but the price was 40% of Alibaba's shares.
After receiving the money, Jack Ma breathed a sigh of relief and finally had the confidence to continue the "bloody battle" with Tesco. Then the competition between the two parties entered a fierce stage.
Qin Hao did not underestimate Jack Ma just because he was currently ahead. He knew very well that Tesco was only seizing the opportunity, but Tesco's model destined Taobao to still have the ability to make a comeback.
…
Time flies, one year has passed in the blink of an eye, and it is midsummer of 2007 before I know it.
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 exit of the airport, a pretty figure came pushing the luggage. Halfway there, she suddenly dropped the luggage and rushed straight 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 pork shabu-shabu in a copper pot, roast duck, stew and fire..."
Qin Hao was delighted: "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, and 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 pure 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, I'll give you more if it's not enough, 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.
"Humph, you feel guilty."
Wang Ying snorted softly.
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."
