Reinventing the Millennium

At ten o'clock in the morning on April 2, reporter Lu Cunliang of China Securities Journal walked into the conference room on the 23rd floor of Tesco, somewhat confused, preparing to conduct a Schrödinger's cat-style interview.

This interview was scheduled on the 31st. Originally, Sun Qi, the vice president of Tesco, was interviewed. This was good because Sun Qi was in charge of Tesco's supply chain and had seniority in the Yike department.

However, Tesco informed yesterday that President Su Wei will be interviewed.

This change made Lu Cunliang even happier. However, on the way here today, Tesco informed that Mr. Su would no longer be interviewed, and Mr. Sun was on a business trip, and the executives to be interviewed were yet to be determined.

By the time he sat on the chair in the conference room, Lu Cunliang didn't know who he was going to ask questions for today.

At 10:05, his eyes lit up when he saw Mr. Fang walking in.

Then, he saw Mr. Su walking behind.

"Otherwise, I'd better do it."

"I'll come, it's okay."

When Lu Cunliang heard the brief conversation between the two and saw Mr. Su coming over to shake hands with him, he couldn't help but smile and said: "Mr. Su, Mr. Fang, our Securities News can interview them together."

Fang Zhuo also shook hands and said with suggestive eyes: "Who do you want to interview more?"

Su Wei said with a slightly straight face: "Don't make trouble."

When Lu Cunliang saw Mr. Fang take two steps back, he gave up what was in his throat and chose the best answer: "Yesterday, Suning and Tesco started a price war. Today, the stock market opened and Suning's stock price fell slightly. I still want to interview Tesco's Iron Man My wife, Mr. Su.”

Fang Zhuo smiled: "Then I have to say that Mr. Zhang misjudged Suning's development strategy."

Lu Cunliang became excited unconsciously. This sentence could be used as the headline of the report.

Then, when he saw Mr. Fang just saying this, he turned around and walked out.

"Hey, hey, Mr. Fang, tell me, how did Mr. Zhang misjudge? What's wrong with Suning's strategy? Mr. Fang, Mr. Fang..."

Lu Cunliang couldn't retain Mr. Fang. Seeing that he only smiled and didn't respond, he could only stop at the door angrily.

Unexpectedly, Mr. Fang turned around and said something again.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Su actually doesn't like the title 'Iron Lady'."

Lu Cunliang nodded and watched eagerly as Mr. Fang left completely. When he looked back, the Iron Lady had already sat down.

Regarding this title, the earliest one came from Dong Mingzhu from Gree.

Tesco is undoubtedly an important part of the entire Yike system. In addition to its own development in the field of e-commerce, it can not only undertake and digest traffic, but also has links with multiple businesses of Yike. For example, Tesco was the first to access Domestic customers of Yike Cloud business.

As the head of Tesco, Su Wei has an extremely low-key style. She rarely gives interviews and rarely attends public events. At the end of last month, even when she attended the "New Economic Era" business conference, she did not speak on stage.

However, despite being low-key, many people in the industry speak highly of her.

Gree is the No. 1 air conditioner brand. In the past two years, it had a conflict with Tesco, and the relationship was on the verge of breakdown. However, it eventually reconciled. It is said that Su Wei flew to Zhuhai to meet with Dong Mingzhu for an interview.

Since then, Dong Mingzhu has praised in interviews with the media, "Mr. Su is the iron lady in the e-commerce market."

"Mr. Su, Mr. Fang just said that Mr. Zhang made a strategic misjudgment. What does this mean?" Lu Cunliang's first question after sitting down changed as the situation changed.

Su Wei smiled and replied: "If I heard correctly, it should be literal."

"Then why do you think Suning has strategic problems?" Lu Cunliang wanted to dig into this matter carefully and turned on the interview recorder.

"Oh, Tesco is Tesco. If others don't know about Mr. Fang, don't you media know about it?" Su Wei said, "He speaks unscrupulously, and I have never discussed such matters with him in depth."

Lu Cunliang smiled and said, "Mr. Su, I don't believe this."

Regarding the relationship between Mr. Su and Mr. Fang, although they were not high-profile, they did not hide it. How could the two not discuss such a major competitive matter as Tesco?

"Really, the main reason is that we are just in a price war with Suning this time." Su Wei said half-truthfully, "I saw Suning's promotion yesterday, and it kept saying it was 'Suning Cloud Business'. But the size of 'Suning Cloud Business' is too small."

She continued to preach: "Price competition is indeed an eternal theme in the market, but Tesco is more concerned about sustainable price advantages, and more about optimizing procurement scale and supply chain efficiency."

"Mr. Su thinks Suning's price war is just a hype?" Lu Cunliang grasped a meaning.

"The word hype may sound a bit derogatory. Publicity in competition is normal. As the old saying goes, lose money and make a profit." Su Wei said sincerely, "Tesco is willing to accompany Suning to make a fuss. However, we have to Make the scope of this shouting wider."

Lu Cunliang naturally did his homework in advance for the interview. Listening to Mr. Su's euphemistic words, he smiled and said, "Is Tesco going to expand the scale of the price war?"

"What Tesco values ​​​​is long-term value, but how to realize long-term value?" Su Wei said bluntly, "Domestic e-commerce can never escape price wars. Why can't Amazon do it in China? Their domestic team has relatively limited authority. The price war is going on in full swing, and they are still applying, regardless of whether they can apply for it. Even if they apply, it will be leftovers."

She continued: "The long-term value must also withstand the competitions in the middle. This is just another competition in the development of Tesco, but we go all out for every competition, because there is no such way of going all out." Spiritually, we wouldn’t be able to get where we are today.”

Lu Cunliang thought this was very beautiful.

He thought about this passage and asked: "If Tesco goes all out and Suning goes all out, who can win?"

"Consumers win first." Su Wei said without hesitation, "Then of course, Tesco, which has a better business model, wins."

Lu Cunliang asked for the reason.

Su Wei laughed when she answered this: "E-commerce has always been known as an asset-heavy company in the e-commerce field, but this time compared with traditional home appliance chain business models like Suning, we have become an Internet asset-light e-commerce company. "

"Why can e-commerce develop? It's because it eliminates the cost of intermediate links."

"Suning's physical stores across the country have become a huge burden for it. Compared with us, its high store rents, employee expenses and operating costs are deep constraints."

She concluded calmly: "This is a price war, or it may be a PK between the traditional model and the Internet model. Whether it is me, Mr. Fang, or everyone at Tesco, we are all determined to win this I’m very confident about this game and the future.”

Lu Cunliang thinks this statement is very interesting. The importance of assets depends on who you compare with/the stores that Suning is proud of are a burden/the essence is a competition of operating models...

He cheered up from the frustration of missing Mr. Fang and strived to show the philosophy of the head of Tesco and the original appearance of the parties involved in this price war in a detailed and appropriate manner.

However, what impressed Lu Cunliang most about this interview was not the development concept she expounded, but the smile on her face.

She is said to be an iron lady, but she always smiles as if there is some happy event. This magnanimity in the face of Suning's attack... If not, she can support the development of Tesco all these years.

The "China Securities News" compiled the interview content quickly, but it still took two days to publish the interview, and was subsequently reprinted in different sections by many portal websites.

In the past two days, Tesco's publicity and promotion only focused on Suning's one point, that is, the inconsistency between online and offline prices, Suning's lack of sincerity to consumers, and its lack of sincerity to online and offline customers. differential treatment.

Suning's reaction to this was ambiguous, and it still continued its previous approach and insisted on working hard on "Suning Cloud Commerce".

This competitive posture is different from Suning's previous forecast, which is reflected by the slight drop in the stock price.

The outbreak of the price war in April not only failed to stimulate Suning's stock price, but made people feel that Suning was incompatible with the Internet.

On April 6, Tesco made a job adjustment, and Sun Qi, vice president in charge of supply chain, became executive vice president.

This news has also been interpreted as Tesco will continue this price war and completely defeat Suning's e-commerce strategy.

That afternoon, Tmall held a high-level meeting to discuss the competition between Suning and Tesco.

"Suning can't do it either. If this continues, all this traffic will be eaten up by Tesco. The most important thing is that it might not come to us in June." Tan Yongqiang, vice president of Tmall, felt a little helpless, " Our electricity flow on Tmall is also greatly affected."

Tmall, which is operated independently, is highly expected by the group, which wants to build it into the main force against the development of Tesco.

Otherwise, Tesco, which has developed based on the B2C field, will not stop and will definitely make efforts in Taobao's C2C.

However, in this price war between Suning and Tesco, Tmall, which is preparing for the 618 promotion, found that in addition to the decrease in user traffic, suppliers also announced their withdrawal.

In particular, the latter has a great impact on Tmall. There are only those major home appliance brands. By then, I am afraid that the entire major home appliance sector will not be in the cold.

"Suning can't do it. Mr. Zhang has been unable to make a decision." Tmall President Zhang Yong shook his head and said, "His online and offline prices are not unified, and consumers are not happy. The offline stores have such a large traffic, and everyone has heard that Everyone who has passed will have opinions.”

"Then we still have to do it ourselves." Tan Yongqiang frowned, "I still suggest that we hold an April Home Appliances Festival and share some of the traffic."

Suning is ineffective. Although Alibaba has reached a certain degree of cooperation there, he is still dissatisfied with the current situation.

"I also agree. We still need to have our own home appliance traffic import. Suning's propaganda this time is a giant crocodile, a Paramecia-style showdown, which is disappointing." Another vice president Sui Yuanwen also complained.

Suning started to warm up for April in mid-March. As a result, Tesco backhanded Suning and it seemed that Suning was confused. It seemed that its decision-making path was as rigid as the traditional model.

If your response is so slow, how can you expand your territory on the Internet?

"Okay, I'll do some more research, Suning, maybe they're holding back." Zhang Yong still had hopes for Suning.

But the Tmall Home Appliances Festival should still start.

That night, despite a lot of complaints within Tmall and not being optimistic about Suning's situation in the past week, Suning's flagship store on Tmall was still launched as promised.

Suning Cloud Commerce opened a flagship store on Tmall Mall!

It sounds like the two sides joined forces in April to compete with Tesco.

The next day, when many media reported the news, Suning indeed launched a new trick.

——Suning announced that it will acquire Hongbaizhi, the largest maternal and infant e-commerce website in China, for US$66 million and will retain the brand for independent operations.

There was no news about this acquisition beforehand, but it was suddenly released...

At the very least, Suning's stock price did rise.

Redbaby.com is a well-known brand in the domestic B2C segment. This time Suning will approach it from this angle...

The next day, May 8, Suning's stock price fell back after it had just risen.

The reason is that a screenshot said to be from Mr. Fang’s circle of friends has been circulated on the Internet.

——Fang Zhuo: Why did Suning seek medical treatment in such a hurry? The online problems of his core business had not been resolved, and his strategy was suddenly diverted to mother and baby business. Mr. Zhang was confused.

This screenshot cannot be authenticated by the person involved, but it seems that there is no denial.

Is Suning’s acquisition of Redbaby a bad thing?

Perhaps noticing the relevant reactions and news spread, Zhang Jindong accepted media interviews for the first time since the price war broke out in April, and responded optimistically to market doubts.

"The domestic maternal and infant market is developing rapidly and will be a dark horse for e-commerce in the future."

"Suning's strong alliance with Redbaby this time not only empowers it, but also serves as a fulcrum of our cloud business strategy."

Zhang Jindong also talked about the competition with Tesco this month and said with a smile: "Tesco is the predecessor of e-commerce. Suning still has a lot to learn. We are studying online and offline price issues and will soon I believe that we will have good discussions and exchanges with Tesco."

The head of Suning has not forgotten his intention to compete.

However, when Ma Chen and Zhang Yong discussed Tmall’s actions this month, they couldn’t help but slap their thighs when they mentioned Suning’s changes.

"Fang Zhuo is really right, why is Zhang Jindong distracted by the red kid again!"

"What maternal and infant head brand makes more than one billion a year? It sounds great, but the CEO is an investor picking peaches!"

"Apart from telling stories, apart from showing Suning's strategic problems, what's the use of these billions of dollars in revenue being acquired?"

Ma Chen was very dissatisfied with the strategic problems of Suning revealed by this acquisition. As Fang Zhuo’s circle of friends said, the core problems must be solved first.

He agreed with Tmall’s proposal to join the war. Instead of doing it in June, it would be better to take advantage of the public opinion spread effect and jump out to eat traffic this month, letting everyone know that Tmall can buy major appliances.

Two days later, on April 10, along with the slogan "Home Appliances Festival" launched on Tmall Mall, many advertisements were also launched.

This is seen as a real player entry into April's price war.

The traditional model of Suning is not good. To succeed, e-commerce veterans like Alibaba will have to do it themselves. (End of chapter)