Reinventing the Millennium

Hubei Province, Jiangcheng, Luojiashan International Hotel.

Nine o'clock in the evening.

Fang Zhuo was soaking his feet in the suite, reading the information on the coffee table, and chatting with the team members who were accompanying him on this business trip.

"Penguin is very determined in building Paipai.com."

"Mr. Fang, what do you say?" Sun Qi, the supply chain director who was transferred from Yike, lit a cigarette and shifted his attention from his current visit to Hubei to the penguin that Mr. Fang mentioned.

"It's different now that it's listed. It has merged about 30 business departments into 8 systems, and the front-line business has also been divided into 4 business units. Penguin's corporate structure is much clearer." Fang Zhuo was chatting after a busy day. , wherever you see, wherever you talk.

Sun Qi nodded silently and said after a few seconds: "Mr. Fang, it's a bit like Sina's business group adjustment."

Fang Zhuo smiled and said, "Mr. Sun is still concerned about Sina's adjustments?"

Sun Qi said confidently: "Of course, Mr. Fang, I bought Sina stocks!"

"...There is nothing wrong with this." Fang Zhuo was startled and continued to flip through the information in his hand, "Penguin is divided into four business units: wireless, Internet, interactive entertainment, and online media. Although its Paipai.com is a B2 Internet It is under the business, but it is actually taken very seriously, and it is affiliated to the corporate development system of the President’s Office.”

Sun Qi was a little surprised. The material on the coffee table had been read by him, but there seemed to be no further information.

He leaned over and took a look to confirm that he was correct, and wondered: "Mr. Fang, how do you know? It seems that the affiliation system has not been announced?"

"Oh, I was curious, so I called Pony and asked." Fang Zhuo replied.

Sun Qi's doubts were all gone, and there was nothing wrong with Mr. Fang's way of solving his curiosity.

After a while, Du Yuhu, another deputy director who was promoted within the medical department, couldn't help but asked: "Mr. Fang, I see the media are saying that next year's C2C will be three-thirds of the world, what can Penguin's Paipai.com do? To what extent?”

"Where does the world come from? The media is all nonsense." Fang Zhuo directly dismissed the main premise, "But it's not their fault. E-commerce is developing so fast that front-line business people sometimes don't even understand it. What's more, What’s more, they are conducting several layers of analysis in a foggy manner.”

"Don't look at eBay's overwhelming advertising. Their promotions are all on TV and on the website. I estimate that its actual market share has been reversed."

"Next year there will be no C2C world, only Taobao will dominate."

"Penguin's Paipai.com..."

Fang Zhuo pondered.

Du Yuhu stood up and filled the boss's tea cup with water, and then poured tea for other people in the room.

Everyone was listening carefully when the boss was talking. At this time, they all put down the information and documents in their hands, curious about Mr. Fang’s opinion on Penguin Paipai.com.

Penguin went public in Hong Kong, and the number of users it had accumulated through its chat software suddenly became particularly dazzling. It seemed that the moment the stock market gave it its true market value, the industry and peers suddenly discovered the energy it had nurtured.

In fact, putting aside the memories from later generations, as the chairman of Sina, Fang Zhuo is most familiar with Penguin Portal's rapid growth into the fourth largest portal website in China with the help of QQ user traffic.

The three major portal websites, Sina, Sohu, and NetEase, as the most well-known Internet companies in China in the past few years, also know most clearly how amazing the traffic accumulated by Penguin Instant Messenger is.

but……

"E-commerce is a good business, and Penguin's entry is a normal choice."

"However, its users have internal logical conflicts with Paipai.com."

Fang Zhuo took a sip of tea and asked, "What do you think e-commerce is?"

Several people in the room were senior executives, and the more prestigious they were, the more they did not dare to answer easily.

Fang Zhuo was just chatting and didn't insist on others speaking, and said: "E-commerce, e-commerce, is to put business on the electronic network. Electronics is the means. In the final analysis, its essence is still business."

“But what is the traffic that Penguin has?”

"It's social."

"I am not optimistic about using social traffic to promote the development of its subsidiary Paipai.com. Instead, I think this is a way of 1+1 being less than 2."

"Penguin's online store needs to use its QQ traffic to promote development. How should this traffic be distributed? For example, if you, Mr. Du, open an online store, how will it support it? Push all your QQ friends?"

“Are your friends because of their social relationship with you, or because your products are cheap? If it’s the former, it can be one or the other.”

"Alibaba's own B2B business is pretty good, and Taobao, which is extended from this resource, has such a phenomenon that 1+1 is greater than 2."

"Paipai.com has the funds of a listed company and huge social traffic. It can make a name for itself, but it may not be able to compete with Taobao and eBay."

Fang Zhuo only said this.

Regarding the success or failure of Paipai.com, in addition to the nature of its own traffic, the nature of the two companies Alibaba and Penguin is also critical. The latter cannot produce comparable business operation capabilities in a battlefield such as C2C. This is a very important point. , which is also a relatively basic point.

As for Alibaba, its own team has experienced B2B experience, and now it is in a fierce battle with eBay. Its internal operations are several levels stronger.

The suite was filled with quiet thoughts.

"I just said that Taobao will be the standout in C2C next year. In fact, it is not just C2C, but the entire e-commerce market. Amazon and Dangdang are not living up to expectations. Let's fight for it. By the end of next year, we can have a little momentum, and then we can compete with Taobao. Give it a try on e-commerce.”

Fang Zhuo smiled and chased them away: "Everyone, go back and rest. If you are tired, just go to sleep. If you are not tired, think more about it, brainstorm ideas, and check for any gaps."

A group of executives got up and left the boss's room. Regarding Mr. Fang's views on the nature of traffic, they felt that this was a very novel angle from which they could observe and verify the future development of Paipai.com.

After Fang Zhuo soaked his feet, he put away the materials on the coffee table and began to think about an important question.

What is the name of its e-commerce brand?

This is a subsidiary jointly invested by Yike and Yike.

Otherwise, each of the two companies should use one word, "Yi" + "Ke" = Yike, "Ke" + "medical" = Medical College?

Yiyi? Koko?

From the time we decided to enter the B2C e-commerce market until now, we have been unable to decide on a name.

The goal is to build the Amazon of the East, but if it doesn’t work, just call it “Dongke”.

One night passed, and the name was still pending, but the matter of acquiring land from Jiangcheng to build a warehouse was progressing smoothly.

Compared with Yongke Real Estate's large-scale land acquisition in Shanghai, what Fang Zhuo is doing now cannot be said to be expensive. He personally leads the team not only to speed up the promotion, but also to give a symbolic meaning to his own people.

The position of this e-commerce company is quite important.

The warehousing in Jiangcheng was successfully completed. Before leaving, Fang Zhuo made a special trip to the Yellow Crane Tower to experience the image of "the misty waves on the river make people sad".

However, in this same place, he was still more complacent in his heart.

"President Fang, we will definitely be able to build an Eastern Amazon." Deputy Director Du Yuhu said this while the boss was watching the scenery.

"It's not that important whether it's an Amazon or not." Fang Zhuo replied with a smile.

Du Yuhu: "?"

Fang Zhuo continued: "It's quite interesting to play against other people."

Du Yuhu didn't know who the "others" the boss mentioned were, but he heard that Mr. Fang couldn't help but feel bad about it, and now he was going to do B2C. He estimated that one day it would be successful, he might even have a "Two Gifts for Li Guoqing".

On November 2, the medical team returned to Shanghai, and then Joseph, a warehousing and logistics expert poached from the United States, came to build a model warehouse in Kunshan.

When it comes to warehousing and logistics, Amazon is indeed at the forefront and is worth learning from.

However, before Fang Zhuo, who had led his team across half of China, could rest, the next day news came that another competitor's project had been officially approved.

On November 3, Penguin announced that it would launch QQ Qzone with blog function on January 1 of the coming New Year’s Day.

This is seen as another big move for Penguin to enter e-commerce.

Although there had been rumors in the industry that Penguin would open up its blogging business, it was quite surprising when it actually came.

First the e-commerce company Paipai, and then the blog Qzone.

Adjust the organizational structure first, and then attack in multiple areas.

Encouraged by such news, Penguin's stock price rose sharply, and everyone was optimistic about Penguin's move.

On the 4th, Penguin head Ma Huateng was interviewed and briefly responded to the two key businesses that the company has planned to carry out in the coming year.

"E-commerce is an important opportunity in the Internet era, and I hope Penguin can put together a good situation."

"As for blogs, this is a very good form of content presentation. I heard that Mr. Fang said that the public should become the main body of the Internet era. I agree with this and am willing to compete with Mr. Fang on the same stage."

Ma Huateng did not avoid reporters' questions and mentioned the head of Sina, which has occupied the largest market share in online blogs.

On the same day that this interview was published on Penguin's own portal, Fang Zhuo attended a meeting at Sina's Beijing headquarters via the Internet to discuss how to deal with Penguin's huge traffic competition.

As of November 2004, according to data released by Penguin itself, the number of registered QQ users exceeded 300 million, the number of simultaneous online users of QQ games exceeded 700,000, and the number of concurrent QQ online users was about to exceed 10 million.

This is a jaw-dropping amount.

It gives the successfully listed Penguin the confidence to fight on multiple fronts, including e-commerce, games, and blogging.

Sina's meeting lasted for a long time, and the specific content was not known to the outside world, but a sentence from Sina's head Mr. Fang still spread.

"How to deal with Penguins with such traffic will be a serious issue that Internet companies must face in the future."

The attitude of the industry when talking about this sentence is that even Mr. Fang has a headache on how to deal with Penguin, this Penguin is really awesome.

They put themselves into Sina's perspective and found that this was indeed a serious challenge.

When we look at the perspective of small and medium-sized enterprises, we immediately find that this is an extremely difficult problem.

So, how to face the competition from Penguin?

C2C Taobao and eBay have no response.

Sina's blog took action immediately after the high-level meeting.

The first is the re-creation of some content on the Sina portal website.

Even though the Penguin Portal is gaining momentum and has become the fourth largest portal in China in a short period of time, it is preceded by Sohu and NetEase, and Sina is still the well-deserved number one portal.

Sina's online media team can be said to be the best team on the entire Internet. This is Sina's advantage over Penguin and it is a high-point position in the field of content output.

From now on, they will create more on Sina Blog, including social sciences, sports, finance and other fields.

Secondly, Sina Blog will have access to Sony Music’s contracted musicians in China within a week to further strengthen the celebrity game.

Compared with Penguin Qzone, which is more private-domain traffic-oriented, Sina Blog, which currently holds the largest market share, shows more public attention, and the latter is more consistent with the attributes of celebrities themselves.

The upcoming Penguin Qzone and Sina Blog, which is already the number one in the industry, have given Sina a lot of room for manipulation due to the celebrity selection tendency.

As for the musicians of Sony Music in China, this comes from the head’s personal resources, which is an unexpected surprise.

Finally, it is obviously what the blogger Huaxia Fangxing Dongfang said to "let the people become the main body of the Internet age", but now it is gradually spread to be the strategic thinking of Sina Fangzhuofang.

It will become more specific funding-driven in the last two months of 2004, with more ordinary users sharing themed essays.

Sina's response was swift and powerful.

The response of this blog to the challenger, and Fang Zhuo’s instructions that were not circulated during the meeting.

"Soldiers are expensive and fast, and Penguin's traffic conversion also takes time."

"Just like it announced this year that it would launch Paipai.com, the launch date is scheduled for March 1 next year. If it really wants to have something formal, it will have to be delayed. By then, the overall situation of the C2C e-commerce market will probably be decided. ”

"The same is true for our blog. Penguin's pace should be limited to its own users, rather than encroaching on Sina Blog's share."

"Pony said he wanted to compete on the same stage with me. It's okay to compete, but we have to take the initiative to differentiate this stage."

In November, with the action of Sina Blog, the words "blog" and "Blog" became increasingly popular words on the entire Internet, and it seems that it will also become the Internet word of the year in 2004.

Penguin wanted to start a blog, and Sina responded vigorously. Blog China, which was already struggling to support itself, was the first to fail.

Blog Huaxia received financing at the beginning of the year, but its subsequent development was not satisfactory. The continued decline in market share made the next step of financing a big problem.

The lack of new funds then limits the actions it can take. Such a vicious cycle makes its situation increasingly difficult.

Now, Sina Blog is fighting bravely, Penguin Qzone has not yet been launched, and Blog China has begun to lay off employees.

"The Sina blog is great, but Mr. Fang is still modest. Penguin is just a blog, so I'm afraid I won't get much share."

"Speaking of registered users and huge traffic, after all, it all depends on how it is used. Mr. Fang has elevated Penguin to a problem that the entire industry has to face, and he praises it too much."

Sina Blog's efficient response made the boss's words seem like polite compliments, and also made some people in the industry put aside their imaginary worries.