Chapter 250: If You Can’t Beat Them, Join Them

Rippling outward from Wanzhong Mall, group-buy’s ground promotion was like a stone dropped into a lake, expanding in circles.

The number of merchants joining group-buy also began to gradually increase, the whole process was incredibly smooth.

Of course, there were some merchants who refused to join, thinking if they sold their own things for money, it was theirs, so giving someone else a cut would be an unnecessary extra step.

Group-buy didn’t force the issue.

Most shops in the city center were duplicates anyway, it wasn’t uncommon to have two or three milk tea shops on one street, if one was missing there was still another, as an O2O platform, group-buy wouldn’t collapse due to lacking one partner.

“We can’t survive without joining? Ridiculous, let’s just do business like before, not asking for much, haven’t we always had enough?”

“Earning our own money but having to give a cut to that group-buy, what’s the point?”

“Nowadays these big businesses just want to suck your blood, shameless, everyone mustn’t fall for it!”

On New People Street, noodle shop owner Meng Bing was passionately sharing his views with neighboring shop owners.

Hearing him say this, a few shops originally planning to sign contracts suddenly hesitated.

Right, we bear the costs, handcraft the goods, earn the money ourselves, then you suddenly butt in, do nothing and say let’s cooperate, I’ll give you 10% of revenue.

Damn, how’s this different from robbery?

Might as well say directly, open your cash register, I’m taking some money, don’t resist, smile!

Thinking it through, the surrounding shops were livid, wanting to tear up the contracts to wipe their butts, refusing to cooperate no matter what.

“Meng is right, let’s do our own business, we can’t survive without cooperating with them?”

“Right off the bat taking 10% from us, shameless.”

“Next time I see a group-buy salesperson, I’ll spit shit in their face!”

The New People Street shop owners cursed, turning back to their own shops, then began another day of hard work.

But as time passed, they found apart from office workers across the street, casual passers-by on the street visibly dwindled.

That’s right, the street slowly became deserted and customers entering shops also decreased.

Meng Bing wasn’t concerned at first, still calling neighbors over to play cards all morning, after all the weather was getting hot, people didn’t like going out, for them business had peak and off seasons, nothing to make a fuss about.

But gradually, foot traffic got less and less… Meng Bing couldn’t sit still anymore.

He put down his cards, standing at the street entrance observing carefully every day and found although casual customers on the street decreased, oddly the roast duck shop midway on New People Street had more and more customers.

Many people drove over, arriving and heading straight to the roast duck shop, buying one then turning to leave.

The roast duck shop’s location wasn’t as good as Meng Bing’s noodle shop but just by signing a group-buy partnership agreement it enjoyed such a huge customer flow?

Meng Bing wandered all morning and finally couldn’t resist, lowering his head and ducking into the roast duck shop, coming to the back kitchen.

“Since I signed the group-buy partnership agreement, they gave me an influx of promotion and exposure, the customers who came found it quite good and left me many positive reviews. A few days ago my shop was labeled Linchuan’s No. 1 Roast Duck.”

“Number one? What’s that?” Meng Bing listened in confusion.

Old Liang was speechless, “Number one means top-rated. My shop is now the highest rated roast duck shop in the city center. I’ve been roasting ducks my whole life and only now realized my skills are number one, isn’t that amazing?”

“So now everyone knows your roast duck is Linchuan’s best?”

“Yes, so many people come for my duck’s reputation, I roast and sell out every day.”

So that night, Meng Bing dug out the business card of group-buy’s Business Department Li XX from his drawer and under the cover of night signed the contract.

Sure enough, the first wave of customer flow was powerful, Meng Bing was too busy the whole day to join any card games.

But nearby shops weren’t fools either. You didn’t advertise or hand out flyers, how could business suddenly improve so much?

Only when group-buy’s Business Department sales reps came to the street a third time for follow-up visits and surveys and gave Meng Bing a group-buy poster to stick on his glass door did everyone realize.

You asshole, not letting us join but you joined first?

“Meng Bing, you’re shameless, want me to spit shit in your face?”

“My bad, my bad everyone, business is business, no shame in earning money!”

Meng Bing grinned shamelessly, using both hands to peel off the sticker and paste the group-buy poster on his shop’s glass door.

Just like that, a street of proud shop owners gradually became covered in group-buy ads.

By noon, the scorching sun beat down and office workers poured out from the building across New People Street to find lunch.

Among them was a regular of Meng Bing’s Noodle Shop named Tao Wang, 25 this year.

After group-buy’s intense ground promotion, Tao Wang’s friends and colleagues all used group-buy, apparently often getting discount coupons during the promotion period, some even won free meal cards and happily ate for free for a week.

Tao Wang sneered at this.

He considered himself extremely smart and aloof, as long as he didn’t go for petty gains, no one could cheat him, so he always refused to use group-buy.

Until he paid his rent and had no money left, not even willing to add an extra sausage to his noodles, Boss Meng took the chance to coax him into using group-buy.

“You can try group-buy, our noodles are 2 yuan cheaper on it, I can even give you an extra grilled sausage, but you have to leave me a good review.”

“Good review? What’s the point?”

“It’s group-buy’s review growth system, more good reviews means more exposure and customers.”

Tao Wang hesitated a moment, looked at the remaining money in his wallet, took out his phone, registered an account on the WAP site and placed an order.

With this simple action, 8 yuan became 6 and he got an extra sausage too, practically like eating for free.

Damn, not bad!

Tao Wang felt a bit of regret, if he used group-buy earlier, maybe he could have saved enough for a foot massage.

Actually in society, many people share Tao Wang’s personality. Whenever a new thing appears, they always view it with skepticism, thinking the whole world wants to scam them.

Little do they know, during the promotion period is the easiest time to take advantage of any new thing, once it truly grows and stabilizes, it becomes harder to game the system.

People like Tao Wang insist on not going for small gains, thinking they’re extremely smart, but end up missing half-price offers, missing 60% off sales, only getting 20% off and an extra sausage in the end.

This is actually a microcosm of group-buy’s business negotiations and ground promotion work. Examples of people resisting group-buy, learning about it, being unable to beat it and joining are everywhere, replaying daily.

And in this process, group-buy’s review system played an unimaginable role.

Firstly, the review system’s appearance indeed let consumers quickly understand a shop’s true situation and reasonably judge and select, saving them much time.

So user stickiness began to increase and trust in group-buy gradually rose.

On the other hand, to gain more traffic and exposure, merchants also began guiding customers to order through group-buy, continuously accumulating good reviews.

Some merchants even upgraded their shops to give customers a better experience and designed satisfaction surveys.

This is positive cyclical development. Merchants are upgrading service while consumers experience what high quality means. Group-buy’s image grows by the day, like a spring wildfire, the bigger the wind the hotter it burns.

Deng Yuan got another 1500 yuan bonus these past few days, even Zhang Yu got a 1000 yuan bonus.

The two girls returned to their rental apartment with bags of things again, some for themselves, some for their families. That afternoon they even bought a new outfit each at Wanzhong.

Also, Deng Yuan’s family was poor, her Nokia had been used for 5 years already, this time she gritted her teeth and got a new one.

Seeing this, Liang Xiao and Qian Lele’s expressions weren’t pretty.

“Got a bonus again?”

“Mm.”

“How much?”

Deng Yuan changed her shoes and walked into the living room, “1500 this time, Zhang Yu got 1000 too.”

Qian Lele gaped, “What did you do? How can there be so many bonuses?”

“We’re doing ground promotion, bonuses are distributed based on new user numbers.”

“This month, just from bonuses you got 2000 already?”

Deng Yuan nodded, “Mm, we just finished promoting a whole commercial district, this is the milestone reward, next we’ll go to another district, after finishing that one there might be more.”

The more Liang Xiao heard the more uncomfortable she felt, “I clearly checked, your group-buy has promotions daily, definitely can’t make money, your boss is still generously giving out bonuses, isn’t he worried about going under?”

Zhang Yu also entered the living room now, smiling slightly, “Whether we go under is for the boss to consider, what we need to think about now is where to go play this weekend.”

“Play?”

“Mm, Deng Yuan and I have money now, planning to go out for two days, see you next Monday.”

Zhang Yu spoke gently but to Liang Xiao it cut sharper than a knife.

Why?

Not only were Deng Yuan and them not tricked but how do they keep getting bonuses?

It’s clearly just a small unknown company!

Liang Xiao fumed, unable to eat dinner, gloomily returning to her room to frantically job hunt.

Go buy wedding supplies, order clothes, the afternoon photo might be a bit late but enough time.