Major companies in the venture capital circle are intensively formulating investment plans for Makino Technology's Series C financing. Li Mu made an appointment with Brother Liu to communicate about the current progress in logistics.
Senior Brother Liu has just completed the car purchase recently. At the same time, the backbone of the team that was recruited from several major logistics companies with large sums of money has begun to recruit troops in the following provinces and cities. Senior Brother Liu's own confidants and professionals in the logistics field are located in the six major logistics bases in the country. The city is relocating because this time it is necessary to build a large logistics base and warehousing base. Once launched, the investment will be huge and it is difficult to make changes. Therefore, it must not only be measured based on the existing geographical conditions and traffic conditions, but also combined with the future Please refer to the highway development plan and railway development plan that the country has formulated in the past few years.
Li Mu probably remembered that several expressways running through the southeast and northwest passed through those cities, but Li Mu couldn't remember exactly which city and where they passed by, so he couldn't help. He could only let professional talents To do professional things, you just need to trust the judgment of professionals.
However, one thing that Li Mu is very concerned about right now is the automatic sorting system.
The representatives sent to Germany for inspection have not come back yet, but according to Senior Brother Liu, all the connections have been established. The Germans are not as rigorous and old-fashioned as the legends say. They also attach great importance to pomp and favor when doing things. The three Chinese tycoons made them realize The wealthy people behind Taobao Logistics have already provided Taobao with several automatic sorting system solutions and reasonable quotations, and only need to pay a 10% deposit before BEUMER can start production. Since the entire system BEUMER The game is already very mature, and as long as Li Mu's demand is not particularly huge, it can basically be completed within two months.
Berman's cooperation method is that construction will start after the 10% deposit is received, and 70% will be paid after completion to ship the goods to the designated port. After arriving at the port, Taobao will clear customs on its own, and the remaining 20% of the payment will be paid before customs clearance. After customs clearance, BEUMER's professional technicians will immediately arrive in China to provide a complete set of installation and training work for Taobao Logistics. BEUMER will also be fully responsible for after-sales service.
According to the current quotation, the cost of each mature medium-sized automatic sorting line is about 20 million. If Li Mu wants to install an automatic sorting line for each logistics base first, the overall cost will reach 100 million taels. Ten million.
At present, 500 million funds are needed to purchase a large number of vehicles and prepare to build a nationwide branch team and logistics base. The calculation is a bit stretched. It is indeed a luxury to spend more than 25% of the funds for automatic sorting. However, Li Mu thought for a moment and told Senior Brother Liu that he Thoughts now.
"Senior Brother Liu, I think the automatic sorting system can be implemented in one step. We need to pay Berman a deposit of 12 million and let them start work immediately. However, it must be stated in the contract that if we have special circumstances, we can ask Berman to delay delivery. We will pay BEUMER’s warehousing fees and late payment fees at a certain reasonable amount every day. At the same time, we have also begun to discuss the A-round financing of Taobao and Taobao Logistics. If the investment is not negotiated within two months, we will not allow it for the time being. Berman will pay him a small amount of liquidated damages at most for taking out the warehouse. Once we have the capital in place, we can pay immediately and ask Berman to ship."
Brother Liu nodded and said: "The news of Makino Technology's Series C financing has made the entire venture capital circle crazy. If Taobao and Taobao Logistics also release news about financing, the popularity will definitely be even greater by then."
After saying that, Senior Brother Liu added: "Actually, I don't recommend Taobao to do financing for the time being. We have so much naturally settled settlement payments on our books. If you first spend a few hundred million, you can expand the logistics scale you want."
Li Mu smacked his lips: "That's what I say, but I always feel that the money should not be touched rashly or as little as possible. This money is not our profit, but just the payment from our partners, which is equivalent to the depositors' money held by the bank. , but the volume is much smaller than the savings. The future of the e-commerce industry is unclear, and the overseas giants have not yet exerted their efforts. If once the overseas giants exert their efforts, we will have too many places to burn money. At that time, we will not be able to save money. It’s probably not easy to get financing, and if too much of this accumulated payment is misappropriated, we won’t be able to repay it once customers run on us, and we’re afraid there will be a big problem.”
Brother Liu couldn't help but ask him: "Do you think overseas giants will make efforts in China? I don't think eBay has done much after acquiring eBay. Amazon has no signs of entering China yet."
Li Mu said: "I am not sure what the future strategies of these two companies will be in China, but in short, we cannot take it lightly. If one day we want to start the money burning mode, then the money burned must be capital money, not this money. , otherwise we will be carrying a time bomb on our backs. If it doesn’t explode, it will be catastrophic.”
Brother Liu thought for a moment and asked Li Mu: "Then when do you think the financing will start?"
Li Mu thought for a while and said, "Let's set a basic strategy and set a capital warning level for ourselves first. My idea is that we can use the deposited payment, but right now we don't have the capital relationship to cooperate, so Be cautious and spend at most 20% of the deposited payment. This is our capital warning line. Once this line is crossed, we must immediately find ways to alleviate the financial pressure and try to prevent this ratio from continuing to expand. If the situation cannot be restored, , the maximum occupation of this fund is 30%, and 30% is a critical line that must not be exceeded. Once this line is touched, we would rather borrow from a brother company, transfer shares at a low price, mortgage loans, or split and sell, than we can never continue to use it. This is a precipitated payment.”
Senior Brother Liu nodded and said: "The ratio is very reasonable, up to 30%. If something goes wrong, we should be able to cover the loss by stopping the loss in time. I have no objection."
Li Mu said: "Okay, let's do this first. You can communicate with the people in Germany tomorrow and negotiate the purchase contract with Berman. If they agree to our request, we can sign the contract and pay the deposit first for Berman to start production. .”
"Okay, I'll call them right now and ask them to start it immediately."
After Senior Brother Liu finished the call, Li Mu asked him again: "By the way, the management staff of several large daily chemical, grain and oil companies are all here, right?"
"I started working on Monday." Senior Brother Liu said, "I had a meeting with them two days ago. The temporary job requirement is to smoothen the relationship. We are not ready to invite these companies to open direct-operated stores on Taobao for the time being. We hope to cooperate with them as the sole agent of Huaxia Internet. We purchase their products ourselves, but we require them to give us a certain price advantage and give us certain promotional rebates.”
As he said that, Senior Brother Liu looked at Li Mu and said seriously: "I know what you are thinking. You want to push a wave of daily necessities and increase people's dependence on online shopping. However, the unit price of daily necessities products is relatively low, so for dealers, The profit margin of electronic products is not as big as that of electronic products, so it is still difficult for you to create a price advantage. Do you have a specific idea now?"
Li Mu has indeed been planning a big promotion in department stores for a long time. From the day of Taobao Brand Day, department store promotions have become a major event in Li Mu's mind.
Through the efforts of Taobao Brand Day and subsequent media influence, almost all consumers across the country know that cheaper electronic products can be purchased on Taobao. This is the first label that users attach to Taobao.
But Li Mu doesn't want Taobao to be like Dangdang's books, or like Suning's electrical appliances, where one label is stamped to the bottom, so now he must hurry up and label the second and third labels in the users' hearts before the first label is solidified. Even more tags.
He wants to make Taobao a large and comprehensive e-commerce website, with not only rich and all-encompassing C2C business, but also B2C business covering all brands, so he must launch a second large-scale promotion event for users as soon as possible.
Li Mu set the goals for this promotion: daily necessities, grains, oils and food.
Eight words, including all the products that are most down-to-earth, most indispensable, and most frequently purchased by ordinary people, such as firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, beer, beverages, mineral water, clothing, shoes, hats, toilet paper, toothpaste, soap, washing powder...
In short, they are all products that are closely related to the lives of ordinary people.
Li Mu introduced his activity plan to Senior Brother Liu in detail.
Since it is a department store, the first thing to do must be to purchase by yourself, because only by purchasing by yourself can you gain the greatest freedom in the sales process. If P&G is allowed to carry out activities such as 100 off or 50 or 30 off 199 on Taobao, P&G will definitely now You might feel like you're mentally ill, but it doesn't matter. Negotiate prices and promotional rebates with P&G first, and then do the full discount promotions yourself.
However, Li Mu is not ready to engage in such a cruel promotion as 199 minus 100. If he wants to do this kind of event, there are two ways to do it. Either he will resort to fraud, that is, increase the original price and then get a full discount. In the end, the actual cost of the purchase by consumers will be the same as if he did not participate in the event. It’s almost like this. It’s too deceptive. Playing this kind of routine right from the beginning will definitely make users particularly repelled, so this must be resolutely eliminated.
If there is no fraud, then the vigorous promotion of 100 off 199 must wait until your platform has become a huge sales channel for the company and the platform has a strong voice in front of the company, because by that time, you can use extremely strong They have the right to speak to pressure companies to bear their own promotion costs, but it is basically impossible to pressure companies in this way now.
Besides, there are basically no e-commerce promotions on Huaxia Internet at the moment. Except for Taobao Brand Day, no other brands or platforms have really done large-scale promotions. So in Li Mu’s view, let alone 100 off for 199 or more. , even if it is 199 minus 30 or 50, it can attract a large number of users.
Li Mu’s strategy is: generally use the two promotion levels of 30 off and 50 off when spending 199 or more. The specific product to match 30 or 50 should be calculated based on the cost price of this type of product and the company’s promotional rebates. In addition, A certain amount of coupons for the 100 off 199+ activity can be regularly distributed to users through a lottery every day. However, the number of coupons is small, and users need to pay attention to the platform at all times, either to grab or draw.
A small number of event coupons offering a discount of 100 for purchases over 199 are released according to certain rules and regulations, which will definitely attract a large number of users to compete for it. Just like Taobao's one-yuan flash sale in the previous life, millions of people grabbed a unit for a flash sale price of one dollar, and the actual price was just one dollar. The laptop costs 3999, which is really worth the money invested.
Of course, Li Mu is not going to be like Boss Ma and treat the people of the country like monkeys. His idea is that during the event, at least 100,000 such coupons will be released every day. As long as each one is used by a consumer, Taobao will have to bear at least A loss of 50 yuan, but for Li Mu, this investment is very necessary. It must be a real profit transfer to truly impress consumers.
Before the event started, TV media and offline advertising were combined to promote a wave of promotions to make those housewives, middle-aged and middle-aged people who are not exposed to the Internet but are relatively budget-conscious realize the benefits of Taobao promotions. They usually can buy a pound cheaper. They don’t hesitate to travel a few miles for a cent of rice. When they encounter such a big promotion and can buy it without leaving home, let alone buying it with a group of middle-aged and elderly people, they will definitely find a way to do such a good thing. Get involved.
At that time, for these non-Taobao users, as long as they successfully mobilize their desire to buy, whether they ask their sons, friends, or neighbors to help them place orders, or they learn to use Taobao to place orders themselves, there will be something. How to transfer their money from offline physical stores to Taobao!
It was the first time that Senior Brother Liu heard about the full discount promotion method. After careful analysis, he was shocked for a while.
It is also a promotion. Ordinary discount promotions without thresholds are the simplest and lowest-end promotion methods. For example, any product is 25% off, and you can get a discount on anything you buy. In this case, it can only play a promotional role, and the pulling effect will be much smaller.
However, if you use the full discount method, it will also be 25% off for the entire store, but for consumers, you must buy 200 yuan to get 50 yuan off. It sounds like it raises the promotion threshold, but everything is sold. Daily necessities, these daily fast-moving consumer goods are most likely to stimulate users' hoarding mentality. No one buys five or six TVs to store at home, but they store a few buckets of laundry detergent, a few packs of attractant powder, and a few rolls of toilet paper at home. There are too many people, so in this way, most users can actually accept the full discount method.
Once users adopt the full discount method, there is no doubt that the price per customer will increase, the number of customer orders will increase, and the total sales and total sales will also increase, and it will increase significantly. This is why "full discount" later became the e-commerce The only way to promote FMCG on commercial platforms!
After listening to Li Mu's entire activity strategy, Senior Brother Liu almost turned his thighs red and praised repeatedly: "This strategy of full reduction is so thoughtful! What a genius!"
Li Mu waved his hand: "What kind of genius is there? The only way is to succeed."
Senior Brother Liu smiled and said: "Don't worry, this promotion strategy is definitely no problem, it will definitely work!"
Li Mu said: "Gather the newly hired employees together for a meeting tomorrow. I will assign tasks to everyone. You don't have to worry too much about promotional activities. I will host them. Your focus should be on logistics."
Senior Brother Liu nodded: "I will go to Yuzhou in two days to discuss the customization of three-wheeled motorcycles with Zongshen and Jialing Motorcycles."
Li Mu said: "Yes, we must strive for the best price and the most complete after-sales support. In the future, these three-wheeled motorcycles of ours may be running on the road for more than ten hours every day, and the quality must be guaranteed."
"Don't worry." Senior Brother Liu said confidently: "Our demand is so huge, we have enough say in them."
Li Mu stretched and said, "Okay, we'll discuss the rest at the meeting tomorrow. I'll be here today. I'm tired."
Senior Brother Liu looked at the time and saw that it was after eight o'clock in the evening, which was not too late, so he said to Li Mu, "How about we have a late-night snack and two drinks together?"
Li Mu thought for a moment: "Let's drink tomorrow. You won't be leaving tomorrow anyway."
"also."
Just after he finished speaking, Senior Brother Liu's cell phone rang. He looked down and said happily, "Hey, Lei Jun's phone number."
"Oh?" Li Mu became interested: "Take it next and see if you have decided to sell Joyo.com."
Senior Brother Liu nodded and smiled and answered the phone.
"Hello, Mr. Lei."
…
"It's me, what's the matter with you?"
…
"Oh? Really? Have you thought about it?"
…
"That's great!"
…
"It doesn't matter, we will have a detailed interview when you come back."
…
"OK, I'll wait for your call!"
About a minute later, Brother Liu hung up the phone with a smile and said to Li Mu: "Lei Jun said he is interested in joining Taobao. As for Joyo.com, he wants to sell it but Kingsoft and Lenovo still don't agree. When he comes back, he will talk to the two companies again." Let’s touch it with the top management.”
"Really?" Li Mu raised his eyebrows excitedly: "Lei Jiao... Oh no, Lei Jun agreed to join Taobao?"
"Yes." Senior Brother Liu nodded and said, "He said that he is currently on a business trip in the south. When he comes back tomorrow, he will first communicate with the senior management about Joyo.com, and then make an appointment to come and interview you about joining Taobao."
Li Mu knew clearly that with the current strength and status of Leader Lei, although he was not very rich, he was still a powerful person in the industry. When joining Taobao, he naturally had to talk about salary and equity issues, so Li Mu said: "Okay, you Keep in communication with him, and just set a time to meet with me when the time comes."
Senior Brother Liu said: "He went to the south on a business trip, probably for the matter of Xishan Residence, right?"
"I'm sure." Li Mu smiled evilly: "The core team of Xishanju turned against him, which should be a big blow to him."
Brother Liu said: "Lei Jun is a powerful person. Having him run Taobao is a great thing for Taobao."
Li Mu didn't know what Senior Brother Liu thought about recruiting Master Lei, but as the original founder and partner, Li Mu still wanted to give him the greatest respect. He said lightly: "Senior Brother Liu, Lei Jun is here, I'm going to let him As the COO of Taobao, while being fully responsible for platform operations, all work will be reported directly to you."
Senior Brother Liu said: "It's better to report to you directly. After all, he has much more experience than me."
Li Mu waved his hand and said without any doubt: "Report to you."
After that, Li Mu laughed, stood up and said to Senior Brother Liu, "I'm in a good mood. Let's go have a drink!"
Sorry that the second update came too late. The plot was difficult to disconnect, so I just wrote more than 5,000 words in one go, which is basically the same as adding another update... Thank you everyone for your support! It’s the 22nd, please give me a monthly pass! !
(End of chapter)