A profit-seeking team composed of a group of profit-seeking people, all thinking about profit at any time.
After the people on the Letao team realized the huge business opportunities behind the Taobao Alliance, almost everyone felt sour and jealous.
Although Cai Chongxin’s words were somewhat sarcastic about Letao’s current practices and insinuated that Letao’s model was unhealthy, no one shared his understanding. After all, his analysis of the Taobao alliance was convincing.
Boss Ma didn't say a word for a long time. He made a mental calculation and came to a conclusion. Then he said with a heartbroken expression: "It seems that in the future, at least half of the profits of Taobao sellers will go into Taobao's pockets! It's so cruel." Oh! This move is so cruel!"
Lu Zhaoxi also lamented: "If it is like Lao Cai's analysis, once the Taobao Alliance begins to commercialize, it will simply be a drug for Taobao sellers! The more you take it, the more addictive it becomes, and the more you take it, the more you can't get rid of it... "
With that said, Lu Zhaoxi asked Boss Ma: "Mr. Ma, should we also try to create an alliance advertisement? Although we are not as strong as Taobao, we can start from a young age first, and then wait for the Taobao alliance to officially charge. Buy the dip little by little.”
Boss Ma sighed: "Of course I want to do it, but it doesn't make sense to talk about it now. We haven't laid a solid foundation yet, and we still have a long way to go in the future. Moreover, the Taobao Alliance has basically become It is a monopoly. It is paired with the proprietary platform of Taobao. We simply cannot take advantage of it. If we want to do alliance advertising, we must first see what the Taobao Alliance will do next. If the Taobao Alliance really starts to pursue profits, then we will have Chance."
…
At this time, Li Mu was also discussing with Leader Lei and Senior Brother Liu. The issue discussed was the cost of the subsequent operations of the Taobao Alliance.
From the initial establishment of the Taobao Alliance to the present, all costs have been subsidized by the platform. In other words, Li Mu spent money to buy traffic from thousands of individual webmasters to provide voluntary subsidies to Taobao sellers. The reason for this is, The purpose is to quickly boost the C2C business. At present, it seems that this goal has been exceeded.
The method of exchanging subsidies 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.
As the Taobao Alliance continues to grow, the cost of the Taobao Alliance has increased sharply. If we continue to provide subsidies like this, ten Taobaos, let alone Taobao, may not be able to afford it. This is like the government's periodic tax exemption policy and support funds for enterprises. What is more important is that it can 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.
Leader Lei has a lively mind and is good at operations. He soon realized the huge profits contained in the huge traffic of the Taobao Alliance. Therefore, his suggestions were basically similar to Cai Chongxin's guess. He hoped to add an additional source of income to Taobao through the Taobao Alliance. .
Senior Brother Liu is very sentimental. Although he can see the huge business opportunities in the Taobao Alliance, he feels that Taobao will ultimately be a service-oriented e-commerce platform, so it must be disciplined. You can make money, but if you have money It cannot be made, and in his view, the 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 Senior Brother Liu. In his view, a gentleman loves money in the right way. The biggest mission he has given to the Taobao Alliance is to become the engine that promotes the development of Taobao and even e-commerce, rather than becoming himself. Another money-making machine in hand.
Just like 3321, it should be pure, not commercial.
So, Li Mu said to the two people in the office: "My personal opinion about the Taobao Alliance is that, at least for the current period of time, I am not going to use it to make profits. The principles and algorithms of the Taobao Alliance are actually nothing." Many companies have the ability to implement the Taobao Alliance at the technical level, but the biggest gap is that we are the ones who truly endow the Taobao Alliance with the core concept."
With that said, Li Mu added: "My idea is that the Taobao Alliance's recommendation algorithm remains unchanged. We do not accept sellers actively spending money to buy traffic. The only way is for our algorithm to combine each store's pageviews, conversion rate, The total sales volume, total credit rating, total praise rate and the weight of the 10,000 investment ratio are used to carry out intelligent matching to ensure that the traffic distribution of the Taobao Alliance is fair and just. It is necessary to create a healthy operating environment for Taobao sellers and let them know who works harder. , whoever is more attentive, whoever is more honest, and whoever 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 calmly and said: "It's very simple. We don't care whether the seller is willing to take the initiative to buy. We first run the algorithm. Through our algorithm, we screen out a part of the stores and products that have the opportunity to be promoted, and calculate how much each store product will receive. promotion display volume, and then sends a confirmation request to the seller in the Taobao Alliance's backend, informing the seller that certain products in his store have the opportunity to be promoted by the Taobao Alliance, how much display volume, how many effective clicks and conversions are expected to be brought, Estimate an approximate promotion fee. If he is interested, he will pay the promotion fee first. After the promotion fee is paid through Alipay and confirmed by the system, the advertisement of the store's products can be launched online."
Leader Lei nodded: "I understand, that is to say, we will completely give up the bidding method, first screen out the users who have the opportunity to get promotion opportunities, and at the same time calculate the approximate display volume and cost, and let the sellers decide whether to promote. "
"Yes." Li Mu said, "In this way, we can eliminate the bidding process."
As he spoke, Li Mu said to Leader Lei with a serious face: "Mr. Lei, some of the things you say may not sound good, but the three of us are the core team of Taobao, so I must say the bad words in advance. There is no doubt that, Bidding advertising is definitely the best way to maximize the benefits of the platform, but I think that for the development of the entire e-commerce, bidding advertising is an unscrupulous killing of the goose that takes the egg, or even forcing girls into prostitution!”
Not only Leader Lei, but also Senior Brother Liu was shocked by Li Mu's serious words.
The two looked at Li Mu, who said seriously: "E-commerce involves more sales of physical products. Since it is a physical product, it must have strict quality assurance, price assurance and after-sales guarantee. If bidding is adopted, The way we promote it is equivalent to us directly killing the development prospects of low-profit products, and may even lead 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 the materials are poor and the processing is not fine enough, the profit margin is also wide. Yuan, if it is sold under normal circumstances, it will be entirely up to consumers to decide. The two products will attract their own target customers based on their own abilities, but once the advertising bidding method is adopted, it will be completely chaotic!"
"Product A has insufficient profit margin and can only afford a dime price per UV. However, Product B has further reduced quality and cost, and has achieved a profit margin of eight yuan for a single product. Instead, it has seven yuan. The profit margin can even afford the price of 25 cents per UV. In this way, all display opportunities for liquefied gas valves are occupied by product B, and all consumers see are advertisements for product B. , naturally the vast majority of people will buy product B, but when reducing costs, product B will inevitably lower its quality. If its product has a one-ten-thousandth risk of leakage, this is all about human life."
Having said this, Li Mu paused and said: "Of course, there is another possibility in bidding, that is, in order to win the bidding, product A also imitates B and desperately reduces the cost of its own products. In the end, 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 the wave of cost reduction. Before long, it will be basically impossible to buy truly high-quality liquefied gas valves on the market. , at that time, faced with various accidents caused by liquefied gas leaks across the country, what could we do to appease our conscience?"
"You may think that products like liquefied gas valves are very niche and do not have much influence. Then think about furniture, decoration materials, children's toys and various supplies. If these industries continue to compete for bids, What should we do if the cost is reduced and the quality of the products finally pushed to consumers is not up to par? What if formaldehyde and other harmful substances exceed the standard? What if infants and young children suffer from serious diseases such as leukemia? From a legal point of view, we are just a platform, and we naturally There is no responsibility, but ask yourself, can we have peace of mind?”
Leader Lei and Senior Brother Liu had serious expressions and were speechless for a long time.
Li Mu sighed and said: "Business competition must form an environment of healthy competition, otherwise the consequences will be disastrous. If the industry is pushed in the direction of desperately reducing costs and increasing promotion budgets, then we will become the sinners of the physical manufacturing industry. .”
At this time, Li Mu changed the subject and said with great solemnity: "But what if we, as a platform party, stick to our integrity? What if we stick to our integrity, don't be greedy for money, and take maintaining a healthy business environment as the platform's responsibility? In our Completely eliminate vicious bidding promotions on the platform, so that the allocation of promotion resources is no longer based on who gives more money, but who operates more seriously, operates more honestly, and who is more recognized by consumers? In this case, although it can make e-commerce I’m not sure about the overall healthy development of business, and I can’t guarantee whether 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. To achieve this, 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 a little short-sighted on this issue. I did not expect the crisis behind the bidding. You are right, we really need to ensure the healthy development of the platform."
Li Mu could tell that Leader Lei was not deceiving him, so he smiled slightly and said to the two of them: "Since the times have given us the status of pioneers, we must assume the responsibility that pioneers should have. I can allow that one day in the future, Taobao will Poor management led to bankruptcy, but I cannot allow Taobao to lead China's e-commerce or even the real economy astray. In that case, no matter how much money I make, I will not be able to feel at ease!"
(End of chapter)