Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

February 8th, the sixth day of the Lunar New Year.

A black BMW 750 entered the He Xu Expressway and sped away.

Wang Zihao was in the driver’s seat, handling the driving.

Meng Jie was leaning back in the rear seat, catching up on the latest hit drama, *Palace*. After hearing a few lines of the show’s theme song, Chen Yansen quietly put on his earbuds and started scrolling through the news.

"Ali Baba and Yahoo’s equity dispute escalates; relationship deteriorates further."

"Fierce competition between group-buy websites like Meituan, Lashou, and Nuomi Network. Who will have the last laugh?"

"Weibo’s new user count for February continues to climb. Yang Mi and Feng Shaofeng join, solidifying its top spot in social media."

Chen Yansen narrowed his eyes in thought. Now that the first year of group buying was over, the competition in this arena had become utterly cutthroat. It looked like a battle between group-buy platforms, but it was actually a game played by the venture capital firms behind them.

To attract new customers and merchants, the companies were using every trick in the book. Service commission rates were slashed again and again. If you charged 5%, I’d charge 4%. Websites backed by big capital were even shouting slogans about 3%.

Compared to the 10% rates over a decade later, these fees were practically a charity.

Currently, Lashou had the highest market share, followed by Nuomi, with Meituan in third and Dianping in fourth. 24quan, Gao Peng, and 55tuan carved up the remaining forty percent of the market.

No one could have imagined that Meituan would become the ultimate winner of the thousand-company group-buy war.

’I need to get into the group-buy business before my competitors realize what’s happening.’

Chen Yansen made his decision on the spot.

Mogujie, Meili Shuo, and Taofenba were all imitating FoxTao’s Super Rebate model. What they didn’t know was that mall rebates and search rebates formed the other half of a shopping guide website’s protective moat.

With this in mind, Chen Yansen called Lin Chenfeng of Penguin Capital. After a brief conversation, Lin Chenfeng was astonished. "The group-buy business is already a special discount service model. You still want to take a cut of their commission?"

To put it bluntly, the current group-buy websites were all propped up by capital. With service fees under five percent, they couldn’t even cover their operating costs, let alone the high cost of advertising.

"If they can give their money to Qian Du, why can’t they give it to me?"

Chen Yansen retorted.

At this time, the group-buy websites’ external advertising relied mainly on search engines, web portals, and offline promotions, with a special focus on keyword bidding ads. During the thousand-company group-buy war, Qian Du had raked in a fortune from ad fees alone.

After hearing this, Lin Chenfeng laughed. "I’ll help you contact the person in charge of Gao Peng’s Market Department and see what happens."

Gao Peng was a group-buy website established as a joint venture between Penguin and Groupon. For its offline business, it had pulled a large number of staff from QQ Group. Although it had just been founded, its business was expanding at an incredible speed.

Penguin owned half the shares, so the probability of sealing the deal was much higher with Lin Chenfeng making the introduction.

Half an hour later, Zheng Yun, the Market Director of Gaopeng Network, called back.

"President Chen, how would you like to cooperate?" Zheng Yun asked politely.

"There are two ways we can cooperate: Mall Rebates and Super Rebates. I suggest you try both, President Zheng," Chen Yansen replied simply.

"But the group-buy model is different from e-commerce. The products have a very strong city-specific attribute. For example, a hot pot group-buy deal in Hu City would have low purchase intent from users in other regions, and the traffic would be fragmented..."

Zheng Yun looked at FoxTao’s daily active user count of over a million and was very tempted, but he was also worried that the results would be poor, wasting the Market Department’s manpower and financial resources.

"That’s an easy problem to solve. For one, we can choose group-buy deals from national chains like KFC, McDonald’s, and so on. For another, FoxTao can push targeted products to users based on their IP address."

Chen Yansen explained readily. From his perspective, the problems that were worrying Zheng Yun had dozens of solutions more than a decade in the future.

"President Chen, that’s a brilliant idea! I’m truly impressed. You managed to connect shopping guides with group buys. No wonder you built FoxTao to a 2.8 billion valuation in just six months."

Zheng Yun praised him without reservation.

Logically, as a Market Director with an O2O background, he should have been the first to think of this method, but his mindset had been confined by the shopping-guide e-commerce model.

"As for the cooperation details, let’s create a group chat to discuss them. Once we’ve ironed things out, we can talk about getting you on the mall platform and setting up the CPS API."

Chen Yansen didn’t waste any more words with him, settling the preliminary cooperation in just a few sentences.

Gao Peng had just completed its Series A funding and was only valued at 130 million US dollars, a far cry from FoxTao. With Chen Yansen having Zhang Jiancheng make the connection, it was an opportunity they couldn’t refuse.

After speaking, Chen Yansen added Song Yuncheng and Xiang Pengfei to the group chat. Zheng Yun also brought in colleagues from his market and tech departments, and the two sides began to communicate about product selection, commissions, new customer rewards, and other matters.

By the time Wang Zihao drove off the expressway and headed straight for Xucheng Academy, Chen Yansen and Zheng Yun had already decided on the flash-sale products.

KFC Family Bucket Meal: 30% commission, 20% rebate to the user, effectively a 20% discount.

Zhen Gongfu Steamed Chicken with Mushroom Meal: 35% commission, 25% rebate, effectively a 25% discount.

Dicos Pistol-Grip Drumstick Burger: 25% commission, 15% rebate, effectively a 15% discount.

Little Fatty Sheep Combo for Two: 20% commission, 12% rebate, effectively a 12% discount.

The selected products were primarily from national chain brands. Aside from the 3-5% merchant commission, Gaopeng Network would cover the rest of the price difference.

Therefore, Gao Peng strictly limited the inventory for the event, capping the subsidy cost at 8 million. Combined with a 40-yuan reward for each new customer, this campaign consumed almost their entire advertising budget for February.

Twenty minutes later, Wang Zihao parked the car at the entrance to the Innovation Park.

Chen Yansen handed his luggage to Meng Jie, asking her to help put it in 0418, while he went up to the second floor.

"Brother Sen! Happy New Year!" Xiang Pengfei’s eyes, as if equipped with auto-aim, always spotted Chen Yansen immediately.

"What’s the attendance rate for the backend team?" Chen Yansen asked casually as he walked into Room 206, patting Xiang Pengfei on the shoulder.