At midnight on September 30th.
After a full 24 hours of big promotions, Taobao’s final single-day sales were fixed at 8.22 billion yuan.
8.22 billion, for the Internet industry, is definitely a terrifying number!
More than 10 million users have placed orders, and the average consumption of a single user has exceeded 800 yuan, which is another incredible figure.
As soon as midnight arrived, the entire Taobao website was in a state of excitement. All the employees who had worked hard to this point were celebrating this huge victory. Even Li Mu, who had always been calm, was stunned by this number.
There is no data in Li Mu's mind that can reflect the consumption power of Chinese consumers in 2002, but his Taobao, with a mature form that is countless times greater than that of history and all competitors, successfully stimulated a nationwide online shopping craze in 2002.
Throughout the event, Taobao brought real discounts to consumers across the country. Whether it was firewood, rice, oil, salt, daily chemical clothing, or even office stationery, all the event products were unprecedented discounts.
It can be said that Li Mu successfully overdrafted the needs of tens of millions of users for several months in daily necessities in one day.
Fortunately, there are more than one billion people in the country, and hundreds of millions of urban residents. The overdraft part of the country will not have a huge impact on the demand for daily necessities of the entire urban population.
Also at midnight, YY announced the sales data of Taobao’s 929 sale to netizens across the country, and the entire network was shocked!
Not only netizens, but also editors of other websites, reporters and staff of major media couldn’t believe it!
Although it is now 12 o'clock in the morning, there is still a huge discussion boom on the Internet. Under almost every news about Taobao's 929 sales of 8.22 billion, there are countless netizens discussing:
"Taobao's daily sales are 8.22 billion?! Is it possible that this is so high?!"
"Isn't it too watery? It's still 8.22 billion, why not say 10 billion?"
"8.22 billion? How many things did Taobao sell?"
"A website sells 8.22 billion products in one day! What else can I say besides being perverted?"
Many netizens also said:
"Is 8.22 billion a lot? Our family bought a total of more than 3,000 yuan worth of things on Taobao today."
"I placed eight orders today, four for my family and four for my neighbors, waiting to receive the goods!"
"My mother bought a year's worth of washing powder and shampoo! Support Taobao!"
"Online shopping is so convenient. In the future, as long as I can buy things online, I will not go to physical stores!"
Li Mu rationally analyzed several reasons why this big promotion could achieve such high sales:
First, the scale of the promotion is huge. The lineup of eighteen stars can be said to be unprecedented in corporate promotions in recent years;
Second, the discounts are strong enough. Taobao cooperates with so many well-known daily necessities companies, and the discounts launched are low prices that consumers have never seen before, and consumers naturally flock to them;
Third, the promotion model is novel, and various promotion methods with full coupons and discounts allow users to keep collecting orders. A considerable part of the 8.22 billion sales is actually due to consumers’ over-purchasing behavior;
Fourth, competitors are weak. Letao’s event was completely screwed up, which basically doomed its fate of launching on Bianpujie. However, let alone competition, none of the other e-commerce platforms dared to follow up. , Taobao is completely in a detached state of being alone and seeking defeat;
The success of this promotion is crucial to Taobao's next development. What Li Mu cares about is not how amazing the individual figure of 8.22 billion is. What he cares about is that through the influence of this promotion, " "Online shopping" is a new form of consumption that has truly been integrated into consumers' daily lives.
How many consumers can take this opportunity to learn about online shopping and become online shopping users;
How many online shopping users can become deep online shopping users through this promotion;
More new users and more in-depth users are the key indicators to improve the overall size of Taobao. Therefore, for Li Mu, the real significance of this promotion lies in these two points.
…
While Taobao was celebrating its victory and the entire network was discussing it enthusiastically, Boss Ma, who was far away in Hangzhou, was extremely frustrated.
In the past 24 hours, the total sales of Letao.com were only a measly 18 million.
Behind this 18 million is the collaboration of several companies and the support behind the publicity budget of more than 16 million. The total investment in the event alone exceeds 20 million. As a result, the sales volume has not even reached the overall level. The investment was high and it was a complete failure.
At this moment, Boss Ma was looking at the news of Taobao's daily sales of 8.22 billion, and then looking at the sales data of his own platform of 18 million, he was extremely depressed. This time, he kept repeating two words in his heart: "Failed!" Defeated!"
Defeated indeed!
From the very beginning, Li Mu was suppressing him and playing like a bombardment, leaving Boss Ma with no chance to take a breath.
In addition, both Sun Zhengyi and Amazon gave up, leaving Boss Ma in an isolated and helpless situation. He also knew very well that Letao failed this time, and neither company would give Letao another penny in the future. invest.
What hurts Boss Ma the most is that he now has no idea what to do next.
When everyone was extremely depressed, Boss Ma silently returned to his office, slumped down on his office chair, and thought about his next step.
When Letao was founded, SoftBank and Amazon each invested a sum of money. Although the actual investment received was only a part of the promised investment, the actual amount of funds lying on Letao's account was more than 10 million U.S. dollars. Currently, there are still some funds left. The next few million dollars are all Letao's current assets.
Right now, Boss Ma has two choices: either give up Letao, shareholders start to liquidate, and finally everyone divides the remaining money on the account, and the company declares bankruptcy; or, he can hold on to these millions of dollars and find other companies. Opportunity, when the money is spent and the company is completely destroyed.
For Boss Ma, the first option is one he is absolutely unwilling to do, but if the two investors decide to do so, then he can only respect the investors' requests.
As for the second option, Boss Ma is also hesitant. If SoftBank and Amazon are not prepared to liquidate, then these millions of dollars may be his last ditch effort in the 2C retail industry.
Deep down in his heart, Boss Ma still hopes to continue to persevere. He himself is a person who refuses to admit defeat, and has a natural hatred for those who have defeated him. Li Mu's several slaps in the face have already made him in the In my heart, I have positioned Li Mu as my lifelong enemy. If I completely accept defeat at this time, I am afraid I will lose the chance to defeat Li Mu in this life.
However, Boss Ma also knows very well that Li Mu has grown to such a large scale that even if he fights again, it will be difficult to find an entry point to compete with Li Mu. In other words, even if Letao continues to persist, the future will be slim. .
Just as Boss Ma was sighing, Lu Zhaoxi knocked on the door and came in. Seeing Boss Ma with a dejected face, he sighed softly and said: "Mr. Ma, I just thought about the next step for Letao, and I have some general ideas that I want to share with you. Touch it.”
Boss Ma nodded slightly: "Sit down and talk."
Lu Zhaoxi sat down in front of Boss Ma and said, "I think we chose the wrong direction from the beginning."
Boss Ma couldn't help but frown: "Zhaoxi, how do you say this?"
Lu Zhaoxi said: "2C business is the core of the e-commerce retail side. There is no doubt about this. However, we should not have seen the Taobao brand doing well and involuntarily veered off course."
At this point, Lu Zhao was pleased to see Boss Ma's solemn expression and explained: "Mr. Ma, what we are doing now is more like B2C than C2C. B2C is what Li Mu is best at, whether it is Brand Day or 929 promotion, The core of his success is in-depth cooperation with brand companies, which we are extremely lacking. In other words, if we continue to compete with Taobao in the B2C field, Li Mu will continue to crush us as a whole. Instead of this, Why don’t we avoid his edge and choose the C2C field that he doesn’t attach much importance to?”
Boss Ma was silent for a moment: "What do you mean, completely abandon B2C and build a C2C platform that only serves small and medium-sized sellers?"
Lu Zhaoxi nodded and said, "That's right! Think about it, most of Taobao's energy is focused on brand companies, but I believe that most Chinese consumers, out of comprehensive considerations such as cost-effectiveness, will tend to Choose small-brand or unbranded products, especially clothing.”
"Hangcheng's Sijiqing Wholesale Market has millions of clothes sold every day. These clothes are transferred from various small clothing companies in Hangzhou to Sijiqing Wholesale Market, and then flow from Sijiqing to clothing stores across the country. Compared with branded clothing, , this batch of clothing actually accounts for a larger proportion of the entire clothing consumption. There are dozens or millions of small and medium-sized clothing stores across the country. Every shop owner is a potential small and medium-sized seller. They have supply sources and physical stores. However, the physical store can only cover the small area where he is located. If they open an online store in Letao, they will have the opportunity to cover the whole country, and there is no additional cost to open an online store. One computer is enough, why not Why not?"
Boss Ma thought about what Lu Zhaoxi said very seriously, and his eyes lit up!
What Lu Zhaoxi said makes sense. Taobao's success lies in its close cooperation with brand companies. He was so obsessed with it that he chose to go against Li Mu at the level he was best at, which was doomed to failure.
However, brands aside, in fact, non-branded mid- to low-end products are a market with greater capacity. If all the owners of small and medium-sized clothing stores across the country can be converted into Letao shop owners, it will also be great for Letao. A new development opportunity.
Even if Letao develops into Sijiqing in the e-commerce field, its positioning will be much clearer than its current positioning, and it will have a better chance of winning.
Immediately, Boss Ma immediately cheered up and asked Lu Zhaoxi: "What you said is a good idea, but the first thing is to quickly investigate the situation of small and medium-sized sellers on Taobao. Taobao has many users and large traffic. Even if you do not actively support small and medium-sized sellers, small and medium-sized sellers themselves should still have a certain profit margin. Let's first look at the development of small and medium-sized sellers on Taobao. It is best to poach a group of them and let them open a store on Taobao. They also open stores on Letao. For them, opening stores on both sides does not require any additional costs, and it can increase their income, so why not?"
Lu Zhaoxi nodded: "I will immediately start investigating the specific situation of small and medium-sized sellers on Taobao and issue a detailed investigation report as soon as possible."
Boss Ma waved his hand and said, "Not at this moment. Everyone is tired today and it's getting late. In my opinion, everyone should go home from get off work and have a good rest..."
(End of chapter)