Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Chapter 82: Chapter 78: The First Super Rebate, Breaking 7 Million in 2 Hours

The next morning, an ordinary Sunday.

Chen Yansen slept until 9:30 AM. He first went to the cafeteria for brunch, then slowly made his way to the Innovation Park.

The FoxTao team had already expanded to seventy people. After more than three months of working together, though minor mistakes were common in their daily work, the project was progressing in an orderly fashion.

The website’s homepage UI had been switched to version 2.0, and the preview for the first round of Super Rebate products was live. There were a total of 37 brand collections and 104 limited-time flash sale items. The value of the flash sale goods alone was ten million yuan.

The categories were mainly apparel, shoes, bags, small home appliances, snacks, and beauty products. Nearly every flash sale item had over 50,000 pre-sale clicks, a clear sign of the users’ anticipation for the event.

As soon as Chen Yansen walked into Room 206, he saw Xu Xingxing and Du Yaoyao huddled together, gossiping.

"It’s over for Jay Chou and Cai Yilin. I saw the news yesterday. Taiwanese paparazzi caught him entering and leaving a mansion on Guting Street with a seventeen-year-old model," Du Yaoyao said with an air of authority.

"I don’t believe it! The ’Double J’ romance is true love!" Xu Xingxing shook her head, utterly unconvinced.

"Morning, Class President!"

"Morning, President Chen!"

When the two of them saw Chen Yansen walk in, they quickly shut their mouths and greeted him with sheepish smiles.

Chen Yansen gave a slight nod without speaking and walked past them to his desk.

"Boss, I’ve finished communicating with the channel director from Wine God Network. We’re signing the contract tomorrow, and we’ll start on the mall integration next week." Seeing Chen Yansen, Song Yuncheng immediately stood up to report.

Wine God Network?

Chen Yansen knew of this website. He’d dealt with them in his past life. It was a vertical e-commerce platform for alcohol. While it didn’t seem particularly hot, it was actually the leader in alcohol e-commerce.

"Not bad! The profit margins in the liquor industry are high. For something like wine, a 90% commission rate isn’t even that surprising. Congratulations, President Song. A million in commission is right around the corner."

Chen Yansen leaned back and teased with a smile.

Song Yuncheng had transitioned from design to business. His current title was Channel Operations Director, responsible for B2C mall business development. It was unexpected that he had secured the partnership with Wine God Network in just a few days.

"It’s mainly because you’re a good teacher!" Song Yuncheng replied with a faint smile, adding silently in his head, ’Master taught me well.’

"After Wine God Network is integrated, talk to their Market Department. See if we can use the brand collection format to let FoxTao users get familiar with their website’s shopping process."

Chen Yansen smiled faintly and reminded him softly.

"We already discussed that yesterday. They’ve sent me the product list. It’s three types of whiskey, seventeen types of wine, and two types of baijiu. The commission rates are all over 60%, and for the three items designated as flash sale products, they’re giving us an 80% commission rate." Song Yuncheng squinted, a smug look on his face.

"Impressive! If you can hit 500,000 in gross profit for December, I’ll raise your base salary by another 2,000 yuan," Chen Yansen said, dangling a carrot.

"Thank you, Boss!" Song Yuncheng quickly bowed slightly, happily flattering him.

"Get back to work!" Chen Yansen waved his hand.

"Brother Sen, ten minutes until the Super Rebate starts! Some of the old users are already placing orders with their queue-jumping codes!" Xu Kun shouted.

"Zhuang Rui, send me the browser extension for viewing page sales data," Chen Yansen nodded and instructed Zhuang Rui.

"You got it, right away!" Zhuang Rui looked up and called back.

To make it easier for the category operations team to adjust product sorting in real time, Chen Yansen had specifically asked Zhuang Rui to create an extension. Once loaded into the browser, it could display the real-time sales volume, sales revenue, and gross profit for individual products.

Products with high sales and high gross profit could be manually pinned to the top to gain more exposure and further boost sales.

Once Zhang Wenbo and Xiang Pengfei were free, they would also implement an algorithmic model for the Super Rebate product pool. It would re-sort the products every fifteen minutes based on brand tier, historical monthly sales, previous event performance, and current-day sales data.

This would, one, increase efficiency, and two, prevent excessive interference from human factors, stopping people from using the opportunity to make illicit money.

The traffic difference between the first row of products on FoxTao’s homepage and the tenth row was enormous. Once merchants figured out the sorting rules, they might try to pay for a better position.

Which of the college students, like Hu Li and Xu Kun, could resist the temptation of a red envelope worth several thousand, or even tens of thousands, of yuan?

It wasn’t that Chen Yansen didn’t trust them; he didn’t trust human nature.

In the final minute before the sale began, Min Jie from Meiters called. "President Chen, I heard FoxTao has been revamped to focus on brand flash sales. It seems we’ll have more opportunities to cooperate."

"President Min, congratulations on your promotion to President of Banggou’s business operations. If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask."

Chen Yansen walked to the window with the phone, speaking with a smile.

"Can B2C products participate in the Super Rebate project?" Min Jie had called specifically to ask this.

Although Meiters had a certain user base, 90% of its customers were offline. Online, it had to rely on FoxTao to quickly acquire its first batch of core users.

"Of course, no problem. However, Meiters’ last brand collection just ended not long ago. To ensure the best results, I suggest you launch next week, President Min. We can combine it with the Double Twelve event resources and aim for a spectacular debut."

Chen Yansen’s mind raced, and he offered Min Jie a suggestion.

"Next week? President Chen, do you mean holding the second event on December 12th?" Min Jie confirmed.

"Banggou’s CPS interface can be ready this week. We can move forward with product selection at the same time. After we test the order tracking process next week, you’ll be able to participate in the Super Rebate normally," Chen Yansen replied in a clear and organized manner.

"Then I’ll have to trouble you, President Chen. When you have time to come to Hu City, our President Zhou would also like to meet you," Min Jie said enthusiastically, having received a satisfactory answer.

"Please tell President Zhou for me that the next time I’m passing through Hu City, I will definitely pay him a visit," Chen Yansen casually replied.

Zhou Jiancheng, the big boss of Meiters, was currently worried about the billions of yuan worth of unsold inventory in his warehouses.

The appearance of FoxTao and Chen Yansen was undoubtedly a solution to his pressing problem.

After hanging up, Chen Yansen returned to his seat and pressed F5. A string of semi-transparent blue text immediately appeared over the main image of the limited-time products.

He glanced at the time. Only fifteen minutes had passed, and the Supor electric kettle had already sold 600 units, the fleece-lined Semir sweatshirt had sold 1,100 units, and an out-of-season air conditioner blanket, with a final price of 9.9 yuan, had sold a terrifying 3,000-plus units.

A flicker of surprise crossed Chen Yansen’s eyes. In his previous life, he had entered the e-commerce industry in 2013. By then, 4G networks were widespread and smartphones had become mainstream, making shopping even more convenient than in 2010. Yet, the sales figures hadn’t been this exaggerated.

He pondered for a long time before finally arriving at the answer: while the shopping environment in 2013 was better, merchants and users had far more choices.

On one hand, shopping guide websites were popping up like mushrooms after rain. On the other hand, Taobao Network’s own Juhuasuan brand had also developed, creating immense competitive pressure.

But in 2010, apart from a few small discount websites like Zhe800 and Juanpi, FoxTao had virtually no rivals. Furthermore, Juhuasuan was just starting out, its model and methods still immature, which allowed Chen Yansen to seize the first-mover advantage.

’It seems the strategy of staying one step ahead of everyone else was the right one.’

Chen Yansen reflected.

Half an hour later, the total sales for the 37 brand collections exceeded three million yuan!

An hour later, total sales surpassed five million yuan!

Two hours later, total sales broke seven million yuan!

Chen Yansen checked the time, then called Wang Zihao. The two went downstairs, grabbing Song Yang and Wang Zhengqiang on the way to Cafeteria No. 2 for lunch.

Most people slept in on weekends, so even though it was lunchtime, there were few students on the paths.

"What were last month’s profits?" Chen Yansen asked, looking at Song Yang.

"A little over twenty thousand. It’s making money, but it’s just so exhausting," Song Yang sighed, speaking helplessly.

Wang Zhengqiang glanced at Song Yang, feeling his words were a bit pretentious. But since he was working part-time for Song Yang, he just chuckled.

’Exhausting my ass!’

Deliveries and pickups were now all handled by Wang Zhengqiang and a few other part-time students. Song Yang just went to the Innovation Park once a day, sat around playing a few games, and his day was over.

Chen Yansen knew this full well, but he didn’t call him out on it.

"Brother Sen, I got my hands on two tickets to a Wang Fei concert. I’m not really into music, so they’re for you."

Seeing that Chen Yansen didn’t say anything, Song Yang took two tickets from his pocket and handed them over.

"VIP Section 1. You must have had someone special buy these, huh? Thanks!"

Chen Yansen took the tickets, glanced at them, and teased with a smile.

Song Yang gave an awkward smile and scratched his head nervously.

He had told his father about running the proxy courier station. When his dad heard that Chen Yansen had given him the idea, he told him to give Chen Yansen a gift.

"Even though you two are roommates, favors need to be returned. From what you’ve said, I think this Chen Yansen fellow will definitely be very successful in the future. You need to maintain a good relationship with him."

Song Yang’s father had repeatedly advised.

But Chen Yansen didn’t lack money, nor did he need a phone. The courier station brought in around 200,000 yuan a year, and gifting a car wasn’t appropriate. After learning that Chen Yansen’s girlfriend loved music, Song Yang had someone get two scalped tickets, spending ten thousand yuan.

"I knew I couldn’t hide it from you, Brother Sen. I heard from Brother Zhe that my sister-in-law loves Wang Fei’s songs, so I got these two scalped tickets."

Song Yang gave a dry laugh and admitted it openly.

’A favor is a favor. You have to let the person know its value.’

Chen Yansen narrowed his eyes and thought for a moment. He understood that this must have been his father’s doing. With Song Yang’s current emotional intelligence, he wouldn’t have thought of this. At most, he would have just treated him to a meal.

"I’ll have your sister-in-law treat you to a meal later. She really does like Wang Fei. This was very thoughtful," Chen Yansen said with a smile, patting Song Yang’s shoulder.

Meng Jie’s birthday was at the end of December. This could serve as her birthday present.

After they finished lunch, the group split up at the entrance. Chen Yansen went back to Room 0418 for a nap, Wang Zihao went to find Liu Muyan for tutoring in finance, and Song Yang and Wang Zhengqiang returned to Room 8302.

...

...

「Hu City, Yixun Network Headquarters.」

Yuan Wei sat at his desk, secretly opening a job search website.

Three years after graduation, he had started at Yixun Network as an operations assistant and was now a category manager, but he was only making a fixed salary of 8,000 yuan a month.

You had to understand, housing prices in Hu City were already over 20,000 yuan per square meter. It wasn’t that there were no places under 10,000 yuan, but those neighborhoods were all in districts like Jinshan and Fengxian. Even if you bought a place there, it was impossible to live in.

Desperate to advance his career, he decided to job-hop. The days of being broke were too hard to bear. He was scrolling through job postings on a webpage when he suddenly froze.

"Investment Attraction position, monthly salary 10,000 to 100,000 yuan, tiered commission. Requirements: Experience as a category operator on comprehensive e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, Jingdong, Yihaodian, etc., with extensive merchant resources..."

If it had been any other company, Yuan Wei wouldn’t have given it a second glance, but the poster for this position was ’FoxTao’.

As an industry insider, Yuan Wei was all too aware of the buzz surrounding the name ’FoxTao’ over the past two weeks. Even some of the merchants under him, who had stores on Taobao, were participating in FoxTao’s Super Rebate brand sales events.

He scrolled through his chat groups and finally found a screenshot from that merchant. In four hours, they had sold over 2,000 sets of brushed four-piece bedding, with sales revenue reaching 400,000 yuan.

Calculated at a 15% gross profit margin, this one product generated 60,000 yuan in gross profit!

If the investment attraction commission was 3%, that would be a cut of 1,800 yuan!

And that was just one product! For the remaining hundreds of miscellaneous flash sale and regular items, the long-tail effect could easily push the gross profit over 100,000 yuan!

The investment attraction commission would be at least 3,000 yuan!

If he could onboard a few dozen brand collections in a month, wouldn’t he be able to make tens of thousands?

Yuan Wei was instantly tempted and immediately clicked to send his resume.