Chapter 423: A Bit Greedy, Going Bigger

By mid-November, second and third tier city group-buy websites had signed enough merchants and officially launched their business, investing substantial funds.

Competing with group-buys at 20% off, ours are 40% off, even half-price.

Such moves instantly spurred hot market feedback, with user numbers on websites like LaShou, Nuomi, 24Coupon, Wowo increasing dramatically.

This was the first wave of battles in these cities, successful beyond imagination.

Group-buys were like brittle-skinned chickens, constantly chased down the road.

Similar to Jiang Qin’s initial strategy with promoting Zhihu, they focused on quality in top-tier cities but aimed for quantity in lower-tier markets.

This meant a regional manager couldn’t cover all cities comprehensively.

After all, Suixin Group initially covered just Shanghai and Shenzhen and had already grown to over two thousand members; copying this model in every city would be unsustainable due to the cost of manpower.

So the tactic was to blitz through with an elite team, sign up the hottest merchants to enter the market, then establish local teams to maintain relationships with merchants and continue promoting and expanding business areas.

There was competition among teams, especially in front-line markets, with massive daily KPIs to hit.

In the current non-profit phase, each team had to secure more contracts and generate more transactions to ensure they could pay salaries and bonuses.

Rushed, tense, competitive, elimination—this constantly stimulated everyone’s minds.

Often, just as one group-buy would top the praise charts, rivals would disrupt their placements completely.

Because signing a store featured there could be worth the dealings of three to five others.

But there were exceptions.

Nuomi’s Xiao He recently desperately signed three new top-rated shops, but results were uninspiring as these lacked a strong customer base.

However, with the promotions in full swing, these shops’ transaction volumes later improved significantly.

With the market deep in combat, who cared about the details?

Meanwhile, many website managers analyzed and tried to replicate group-buy strategies and models, particularly the praise charts.

But group-buy praise charts, mainly created by local university students, held strong local relevance, something other sites lacked, thus they failed to make significant impacts even after refreshing their homepages with praise charts.

“We still can’t negotiate with some,” he said.

“Yes, they’re quite stubborn, not agreeing regardless of the entry fee offered.”

“It’s about even now, market shares almost split fifty-fifty with group-buys.”

“If we could establish our own praise chart, it probably wouldn’t be so tough.”

“That’s still hard, we… can’t beat them.”

“Group-buys are indeed formidable, just a few guys holding up against so much so long. Heard their boss is still a university student? From a military school, right?”

“They’ve been in this early and with a strong user experience and deep market base, it’s normal.”

“However, the local sites now seem unlikely to survive…”

This year, Song Yaqian, a senior in college, chose to leave school to start a business. Luo Ping appreciated her during the acquisition of HiBuy Group, offering her an internship at the Tianjin branch.

When she arrived in Tianjin and heard everyone discussing group-buys, she was momentarily dazed, taking a while to comprehend.

How could Jiang Qin’s site be discussed here?

But as she took over some branch responsibilities, she realized group-buys were competing against LaShou in Tianjin.

And not just in Tianjin but also in cities like Xijing and Shanghai.

She was bewildered knowing Jiang Qin’s ties to Zhihu and the inherent promotional and barrier advantages within university business circles. Losing to him with HiBuy Group was reasonable.

Yet she couldn’t imagine a university-based group-buy daring to compete outside campus walls against capitalized sites, which was not even a fair fight.

While Jiang Qin had connections in the group-buy market, even Ye Ziqing’s close friend called him uncle. But Suixin Group was also failing and was eventually acquired.

Being from this industry, Song Yaqian couldn’t quite grasp his motives.

This was a winner-takes-all game; other than winning, it was losing. Was he not seizing the trend to sell his site to be the last winner? That seemed absurd; they were all just college students.

“What is this…?”

“Praise charts, a feast for the eyes, and… Crazy Thursdays?”

Since arriving in Tianjin, Song Yaqian hadn’t done much except understand business operations and analyze group-buy strategies.

She found that in comparison to the group-buy in Kyoto University Town, those in second and third-tier cities had significantly upgraded.

Though their market was gradually being nibbled away by LaShou, their praise charts were indeed quite straightforward.

She even doubted if group-buy had hired professional food critics to write reviews for these shops.

But she had been away from campus for too long and didn’t know about the existence of Zhihu groups. You invite these students for a meal, they really spill ink generously.

Also, there was something called Crazy Thursday – on Thursdays, they would gather funds and launch frantic discounts during specific hours. Although LaShou pulled some customers away, each Thursday, countless returning customers flocked back to group-buys.

Such pull-and-push was disadvantageous to LaShou’s rapid strategies.

Moreover, Song Yaqian felt the Tianjin branch, whether street promotions or managers, overlooked the purchasing power of university towns.

Yet with these strengths, how could Jiang Qin hope to win in this crazed vortex? Impossible.

“Jiang Qin, have you opened new business areas?”

After Song Yaqian sent this message to a QQ group, a bunch of college students surfaced.

Recently, they were also looking for avenues to sell their site. As the national group-buy market went deeper, half had already offloaded their sites. Yet hearing Song Yaqian mention group-buys still expanding operations, everyone questioned.

“Is President Jiang still expanding the market?”

“No way, selling now is the prime time. Waiting till year-end might be too late.”

“Yesterday, I passed through the provincial city and thought I saw a group-buy flyer. I thought I was mistaken.”

Jiang Qin wasn’t active in all second and third-tier cities; he was still following the promotional path of Zhihu in cities like Tianjin, Xijing, Shanghai, Linchuan, Xingcheng, and Yongcheng.

Across the market layout, these cities, combined with the four top-tier cities, could cover north to south with greater mobility, ready to radiate anytime.

Besides those group members seemingly dead underwater, many expressed that this was their first time hearing this, and they didn’t understand.

But soon, Jiang Qin’s message popped up in the group.

“A bit greedy, let’s go bigger before selling.”

“…”

Following a moment of silence in the group, Jiang Qin arrived at the group-buy headquarters, parked his car and went to the tech department.

Recently, Linchuan’s temperatures had risen quite a bit. Most of the snow on the roads had melted, only some untouched by sunlight remained.

Jiang Qin entered his personal office, brewed a cup of hot tea, and waited quietly.

Soon, Su Nai came down from the fifth floor’s tech department: “Boss, why does our tech department office have to be on the fifth floor?”

The group-buy building had no elevator. Nanako was quite annoyed after running up and down these days.

“The tech department is full of older homebodies with bad spinal discs. Some exercise will slow down the aging. We, as people’s entrepreneurs, should care not only about KPIs but also about the health of our staff.”

Jiang Qin spoke confidently, then changed the topic: “How’s the work in the tech department going?”

“The internal management system has been optimized and passed the security test. It’s ready for use. Also, as you instructed, I added an anonymous boss mailbox feature.”

The boss mailbox was a direct line for all regular employees to send messages to Jiang Qin.

Typically, nobody would use it because skipping levels in corporate is taboo, and employees wouldn’t believe in true anonymity.

But if someone risked using it, it indicated internal issues that needed addressing. Thus, it’s better than nothing.

“Great work, Nanako. The tech department gets a three-day holiday. I’ll have Xu Yu transfer the bonuses to your accounts tonight.”

After speaking, Jiang Qin shifted again: “But after the holiday, your first task is to complete the product management system. It must be ready before next month.”

As they were talking, Wei Lanlan also walked upstairs: “Oh, Su Nai’s here too, saves me a phone call. Meet me downstairs at 1:30.”

“Got it…”

Jiang Qin looked puzzled: “What’s happening at 1:30?”

Su Nai took a deep breath: “I’m going for a retest of my driving test module two.”

“You haven’t passed that deadly module two yet?”

“No.”

Jiang Qin gave a thumbs up: “I advise you not to bother. Hire a driver in a couple of years.”

Su Nai narrowed her eyes, thinking to herself what a huge promise that was, the boss was really getting bold.

Jiang Qin then turned to Wei Lanlan: “Did your brother arrive?”

Wei Lanlan nodded: “He’s here.”

Lanlan’s family lived in a mountainous area with poor educational resources. Few students made it out of middle school, and most young people started working to help their families, sooner or later ending up in factories.

Having experienced hardship herself, Wei Lanlan always wanted to bring her youngest brother out for schooling, to not lose at the starting line. Jiang Qin, now somewhat influential in Linchuan circles, easily handled the matter over a couple of meals, even securing a spot in a decent school.

“Have the bosses attending the strategic marketing arrived?”

“I came to notify you about that. Everyone’s here, waiting in the meeting room on the second floor.”

“Okay, I’ll go meet them.”