Chapter 127 - 119: The First Talent
That afternoon, some FoxTao users who had browsed international B2C websites received pop-up ads and internal messages.
The content briefly introduced the launch of the Cross-Border Shopping Assistant feature and how to use it.
This news was a pleasant surprise for users who wanted to shop on international e-commerce sites but were held back by their lack of English, confusion over product sizing, and unfamiliarity with international shipping.
Zhang Peng was one of them. He loved buying sneakers, and international sites like Amazon, Eastbay, and Sneakersnstuff often had flash sales with rock-bottom prices.
But he didn’t have a dual-currency credit card, didn’t understand the customs declaration process, and didn’t know English. In the past, he could only do some window shopping on foreign sneaker sites.
But today was different. After reading the internal message, he immediately clicked on Mall Rebates, found the portal for Eastbay, and was redirected to its product page.
He skillfully entered the sneaker’s model number. After landing on the product page, Zhang Peng noticed a new "One-Click Purchase" button in the top right corner.
He tried clicking it and was taken to a new page. The layout was similar to Eastbay’s product detail page, but all the text had been replaced with Chinese by a built-in translation plugin.
Although it was a literal translation and read a bit awkwardly, it wasn’t difficult to understand.
The sizing section now had a detailed chart; he could choose the right sneakers just by his foot’s length and width.
Zhang Peng was overjoyed. He selected the size and color, continued to the next step, and arrived at the order submission page.
He quickly filled in his shipping information and used Wealth Treasure to complete the payment.
The total price was 580 yuan. In addition to the original product price and initial shipping fee, there was an extra 70 yuan service fee for proxy purchasing and freight forwarding, which included package consolidation, separation, reinforcement, and storage fees.
Of course, if his package was randomly inspected by customs, he would have to pay an additional tariff.
The shopping experience was incredibly smooth, no different from ordering on Taobao or Jingdong.
Zhang Peng studied it a bit more. He had used the one-click proxy purchase. If he had only selected the overseas transit warehouse service, he could have saved 10 yuan.
"Awesome! I’ve got to go tell those bastards back at the dorm."
Zhang Peng picked up his laptop and walked from the academic building toward his dormitory.
...
...
"Brother Sen, the pop-up has 390,000 impressions. Following the new user guide, 2,700 people have completed their first international order, with 72% of them using the one-click proxy purchase."
Hu Yun stood beside Chen Yansen, holding a laptop as he reported.
"What’s the conversion rate for this test group of users?" Chen Yansen looked up and asked casually.
"1.7%. We lost sixty percent of users in the funnel from the pop-up to the mall rebates," Hu Yun answered immediately.
"Much better than the previous 0.2% or 0.3%. You and Zhuang Rui monitor the data for another day. If there are no issues, we’ll do a full rollout the day after tomorrow."
Hearing the data was good, Chen Yansen made an immediate decision.
"Okay, understood." Hu Yun nodded and went to talk to Zhuang Rui.
The cross-border e-commerce market might have seemed to be only ten or twenty billion in scale, but its true demand had not yet been unleashed.
Not long after Ah Li, Jingdong, and NetEase entered the field, the market quickly grew to a scale of several hundred billion.
Chen Yansen wasn’t that ambitious. He just needed to carve out 1 billion in sales from the cross-border business to boost FoxTao’s valuation.
「A few days later.」
Far away in Yanjing, Sui Liangdong discovered that while organic traffic to What’s Worth Buying had recently increased, the overall conversion rate was dropping sharply.
Since he couldn’t track user shopping behavior on third-party platforms, he had to resort to the clumsy method of exporting user contact information from the database to conduct follow-up calls.
"Your product recommendations are pretty good, but I don’t know English and can’t tell which sites ship directly, so I just placed my order on FoxTao."
"FoxTao’s Cross-Border Shopping Assistant is amazing. Even though there’s a service fee, the rebates cover half of it. It’s a super good deal."
"Your What’s Worth Buying is just a site for me to find product information. When it comes to actually buying, I still go to FoxTao. You guys have no service and no rebates, so why would I use you?"
A few follow-up calls in a row nearly made Sui Liangdong explode with anger.
’You bastards!’
’You’re all users of What’s Worth Buying, how can you do this to me!’
However, he also learned the key piece of information: FoxTao had launched a plugin called the Cross-Border Shopping Assistant that helped users with zero language skills to easily shop internationally.
At this time in the country, there were only a few cross-border freight forwarding companies, most of which were newly established with pitifully low business volume.
Sui Liangdong had no idea that cross-border shopping rebates could be handled this way. After trying out FoxTao’s Shopping Assistant feature, his spirit completely deflated.
He had only one option: establish his own or partner with a third-party forwarding company and copy FoxTao’s Shopping Assistant to stop the user drain to FoxTao.
After weighing his options, he approached Zebra Logistics.
This cross-border logistics company, founded less than two years ago, specialized in "package receiving and forwarding" services and hadn’t had many orders before.
When they met Sui Liangdong, it was a perfect match.
A few days later, they launched an officially promoted cross-border transit service, hoping to retain users.
Meili Shuo, Mogujie, and Taofenba also followed suit, launching similar services to get a piece of the cross-border rebate market.
When Chen Yansen learned of this, he just smiled faintly and didn’t take it seriously.
In the shopping guide space, these platforms that could only copy and imitate were just eating his dust. The users looked down on them.
A week after FoxTao’s Cross-Border Shopping Assistant was launched, the conversion rate increased from 0.3% to 3.7%. Although there was still a huge gap compared to the 15%-20% of domestic business, it added 40 million in sales.
That would amount to 100-200 million a month, greatly increasing the likelihood of achieving the 10 billion revenue target.
At the same time, the payment license that Chen Yansen had applied for in the name of Senhai Technology was approved.
Before long, he had transferred it to Senlian Capital.
IDG, Siwei, and Penguin called to inquire. After all, this license was a company asset. Although in 2011, a payment license wasn’t rare—you could apply for one as long as you met the conditions—Chen Yansen’s move of using company resources for his own gain made them frown.
Chen Yansen wasn’t polite about it. He directly cited the "Administrative Measures for the Payment Services of Non-Financial Institutions" issued last year, stating that since IDG was a foreign investor, keeping the payment license under Senhai Technology could pose policy risks in the future.
The three investment firms felt his explanation had some merit, but they also knew in their hearts that Chen Yansen had indeed used company resources for himself.
Then, Chen Yansen casually mentioned April’s revenue, and the three representatives promptly shut their mouths.
Compared to a single payment license, FoxTao’s April sales of 760 million was far more shocking to them, especially since the peak season for e-commerce was in the second half of the year.
If Chen Yansen could achieve the 10 billion revenue target by the end of the year, the company’s valuation would be well over 6 billion, and they would make a huge profit.
What was a payment license?
One or two hundred of them were issued a year. If Chen Yansen wanted to take it, so be it!
「In the blink of an eye, the May Day holiday arrived.」
Because the holiday started on the 1st, FoxTao deposited salaries into the employees’ accounts on April 29th.
Chen Yansen had just finished washing up when his Human Dao Fire increased by 393 wisps. Since the establishment of the Aurora Research and Development Team, the monthly increase in Fire had been growing.
When May came, and the B2C commissions from the Investment Attraction department for February and March were paid out, he estimated he would gain another 500 wisps of Human Dao Fire.
Chen Yansen had long since experienced the benefits of improving his Spirit, so this time he decisively allocated the points to Spirit.
But to his surprise, the effect of allocating points this time was noticeably weaker.
When everything settled, he summoned the system panel. His Spirit value was 10, and he had 236 wisps of Human Dao Fire remaining.
A new talent appeared in the talent column: [Eidetic Recitation]: A mountain of books, a sea of learning, all absorbed in a single glance!
Chen Yansen didn’t have time to think about it. He returned to his bedroom, picked up an unopened copy of "Concrete Mathematics," and a strange sensation washed over him as lines of obscure text drilled into his eyes.
The page held over a thousand characters. He only needed a single glance, and with his eyes closed, he could recite the content in his mind.
’A photographic memory!’
The corners of Chen Yansen’s mouth turned up. ’My learning efficiency will be even higher now.’ The gap between 8.43 and 10 was narrow, but being without the talent buff made for a completely different effect.