boyutpedia Chapter 57 Taobao's Ugly Item Festival Proposal
Chapter 57 Taobao's Ugly Item Festival Proposal
Lin Mu returned to his workstation and casually placed the newspaper on the table.
This newspaper was a brilliant prop he would use later.
Just then, Wang Zaixing's voice came from beside him. He said, "Dayan, you're late again today. Isn't the staff dormitory quite close to here? Why are you always so late?"
Lin Mu knew that Wang Zaixing meant no harm and was just curious.
He joked, "What? What are you doing? Are you preparing to torture me?"
Wang Zaixing was a smart man, and he immediately realized that his question had been a bit provocative. He quickly waved his hand and said, "No, no, I was just asking casually."
Lin Mu casually replied, "Haven't I been staying up late every night lately? So I've been waking up a little later in the morning."
In 2008, as Taobao continued to grow and expand, its management shifted from relaxed to standardized and strict, and Taobao began to focus on attendance.
If you are one minute late, you will be fined 1 yuan, and so on; if you are late three times, you will be fined 50 yuan. The company does not call these deductions fines, but rather "donations".
What does "voluntary donation" mean? It means you donate happily. Of course, the real meaning is a fine, as everyone knows.
The donated money will be used for company team building activities or to buy afternoon tea, which can be seen as a way to return the money to the employees.
When Lin Mu was a newcomer, he was just like Wang Zaixing, always on high alert and never dared to be late. He would even arrive at the company half an hour early to start working, just to put on an act of "I love my job".
Moreover, in this era, there is a strong emphasis on the culture of hard work, and inspirational literature is very popular. People generally have a positive view of hardworking young people.
Furthermore, Alibaba will also consider your attendance record when promoting employees. If your attendance record is truly appalling, it will make it difficult for you to get promoted; if it is too outrageous, you may even be at risk of being fired.
However, having lived two lives, Lin Mu was no longer bothered by such things. Now a seasoned veteran in the workplace, he knew that as long as you brought enough value to the company, minor issues like being late or leaving early wouldn't bother you at all.
Even after you succeed, such trivial matters can become your charming anecdotes, becoming topics of conversation and topics of discussion.
So when Wang Zaixing asked Lin Mu why he didn't care about attendance, it was because he was someone who grew up in a culture of motivational quotes and hard work, and he was questioning Lin Mu, who had been influenced by a culture of relaxation, apathy, and complacency.
Wang Zaixing changed the subject, saying, "Dayan, I still don't quite understand this case about using benign bugs for community marketing. The Three Little Bees store you're operating is currently attracting a large group of price-sensitive people."
"If the products in your store aren't at the lowest price online, these customers definitely won't buy them. So, is it really worth spending so much effort on marketing?"
Lin Mu replied, "Of course it's worth it. Fugui, your research on the current online bread and pre-made bread food categories may not be in-depth enough."
"Let me analyze the current costs for you. On Taobao, the top-ranked seller of pre-made bread is Chengyi E-commerce."
"The flagship product of Chengyi E-commerce is a breakfast bread. This breakfast bread is priced at 20 yuan for 15 breads, excluding shipping. On average, the price of each bread is about 1.3 to 1.4 yuan."
"The production cost of a bread priced at 1.3 to 1.4 yuan is about 0.8 yuan, which means that their gross profit is over 60% and their net profit can reach 20%."
"This net profit margin is unreasonable. Do you know what the typical net profit margin is for a pre-made loaf of bread offline?"
Fu Gui shook his head.
Lin Mu held out one hand and said, "5%."
Fu Gui gasped, "5%? That's all? How can they keep this business going?"
Lin Mu explained, "5% is quite high. In the fast-moving consumer goods industry, there are plenty of brands with net profit margins of 2% and 3%."
Next, Lin Mu explained in detail why such a low-profit-margin business could be done; the secret lay in the capital turnover rate.
For example, Three Squirrels, a company that grew up in the future, had an annual turnover of over 70 billion yuan, but a net profit of only 2%, or 1.4 million yuan. However, the amount of capital circulating within its system was only 8 million to 10 billion yuan.
In other words, based on the return on investment, its 10 billion yuan could achieve a 14% annual return.
Furthermore, there's a magic trick involved in payment terms. Because of the massive orders generated by the huge flow of goods, it can put pressure on downstream factories to demand an extremely long payment period, such as 80 to 120 days.
E-commerce payment cycles are quite fast, almost always within 30 days. The 80-day payment period and the 30-day payment period create a time difference.
During this time lag, it gains access to interest-free funds. It can use these interest-free funds to expand its business.
And that's not all; many factories openly offer kickbacks.
For example, if you place an order with him this year with a total turnover of 1 million, he will give you a rebate of 3% to 5%. And this 3% to 5% rebate is not recorded in the company's accounts.
In other words, most of Three Squirrels' 10 billion yuan in working capital may be leveraged, meaning they are using other people's money to play a game of borrowing to make money.
If we only consider the pure investment of Three Squirrels, the return on investment could even reach a staggering 20% to 30%.
Furthermore, in the physical industry, Three Squirrels is not a very large company.
If you've reached the size of some leading companies, you can do some more fancy and trendy things. For example, you can use commercial paper instead of cash, or even consolidate and package your debt to raise funds in the bond market. The intricacies of this are quite interesting.
Lin Mu gave a brief explanation, and Wang Zaixing, being a smart man, quickly understood. He said, "So, Da Yan, you're going to help Three Little Bees Company take the low-profit, high-volume approach, using its massive size to crush the competitors?"
Lin Mu shook his head: "No, what does it mean to kill the competitors? It means to make the pie bigger, to raise the ceiling of the online pre-made bread niche market by a lot, and to increase the height and breadth of the market."
"In this process, a large number of e-commerce companies that cannot keep up with market changes will inevitably be eliminated, but more new e-commerce companies will be born, making the pie bigger together."
Wang Zaixing suddenly realized that Lin Mu's approach and vision were far more ambitious than that of a typical Taobao assistant, who simply focused on the development of individual stores. Instead, Lin Mu was directly thinking about how to drive the entire industry to upgrade and transform.
"Oh, right, Zaixing. Didn't I recommend you have that pillow manufacturer change its positioning and make pillows with a mesh design? You told me the changes were going well, how's it going now?"
Wang Zaixing replied, "That shop can now achieve 500 orders a month. But the change brought about by this mindset doesn't just affect that one shop."
"In the pillow industry, many businesses have started to follow suit. If we use 'ugly pillow' and 'pillow with a mesh design' as standards and labels, these labels can bring in about 1000 new orders per month."
"Thank you, Wild Goose. This achievement will definitely boost my year-end report."
Lin Mu said, "Let me give you another suggestion. Think outside the box, it's not just about cushions. What if we made slippers? What if we made clay figurines? What if we made decorations? Then you could combine all these things and create a Taobao Ugly Goods Festival."
"Follow the methods I taught you before, do marketing on Baidu Tieba and various social media platforms. Finally, you can go to Tudou or Youku and co-host a small event, an online live broadcast to select the ugliest item of the year on Taobao, letting netizens vote for which item is the ugliest item of the year, creating a brand concept that is ugly-cute, interesting, and fun."