"The first snow of 2002 is coming later than usual …" Ma Yun's phone rang.
"Hello? Manager Ma, what's up? Alright, I got it. "
April 10, 2003. Ma Yun invited Feng Yu, Zong Qingxian, and the rest to attend Taobao's unveiling ceremony.
Taobao is a shopping website established by Alibaba. It uses the C2C model, which is a person-to-person business model. Everyone can be a boss, and everyone is a potential consumer.
Alibaba had been doing wholesale in the beginning, which is the B2B model. After that, they tried the C2B model. This year, Alibaba felt it is time to start the C2C model. They felt this model is better than the B2C model as they do not need to invest too much.
Alibaba has no choice. Alibaba's funds are tight, and setting up a website requires a significant amount of investment. Also, they must be prepared to incur losses as they do not want to collect rental fees from the sellers.
Of course, rental fees are not their main source of income. Alipay is their main source of income. Alipay is a payment software jointly developed by Feng Yu, Kirilenko, and Alibaba. Although Alibaba does not own much of this software, they still get a share of the profits.
It takes about a week for the buyer to send the money to the seller, and it will take about four to five days for the money to be transferred from the buyer's Alipay account to the seller's account.
It is too low for Alipay to earn interest, and it can be used to invest in other areas. Furthermore, many sellers are not in a hurry to withdraw their money and keep their money in their Alipay account. This will give Alipay more room to operate.
After that, Alipay will use your spending records to advertise. This is also another source of income. There are also direct trains, Wangwang, etc., which can generate profits.
Most importantly, in Feng Yu's previous life, Wangwang is an instant messaging software in Hua Xia, second only to QQ and MSN. It has more users than NetEase.
When the number of users increases, Alibaba can start an e-commerce business. This is also the strongest point of Alibaba in Feng Yu's previous life, and it is also the reason why so many people chase after Alibaba's shares.
Furthermore, through the accumulation of users, they could also develop a B2C model in the future. That would be the future Taobao Mall, which was later renamed to Tianmao Mall.
Right now, there was only one Taobao website. In the future, it would be split into three — Taobao website, Taobao website, and Taobao shopping mall. All of them were doing well.
Compared to user consumption data and e-commerce finance, the seemingly huge rent was actually a small profit.
But now, Ma Yun decided to waive the rental fees for the next 3 years and continue to provide quality services!
In other words, for at least three years, Taobao would not be able to earn any money. They would have to give up on the most direct source of income.
Now, the most important thing was to attract users, sellers, and buyers to come and spend money.
At this time, the data wasn't that huge. The income from Alipay was their biggest income. However, they had to pay a huge price.
The funds needed for the construction and maintenance of the network were not a small amount. Their profits from other areas would be invested into the operations of Taobao for the next few years.
But Ma Yun and the rest believe that Taobao will become Hua Xia and Asia's biggest retail platform in the future and might even surpass Tai Hua Supermarket Group!
But Feng Yu does not agree with this.
The locations occupied by Tai Hua Supermarket Corporation were all prime locations. Also, they were developing the surrounding commercial properties to form an ecological business district.
Most importantly, in Feng Yu's previous life, the top few supermarket groups in China had fierce competition. But now, Tai Hua Supermarket Group was the biggest supermarket.
The two overseas supermarket giants, Wal-Mart and Carrefour, did not manage to enter Hua Xia. Although they had a few supermarkets in Hua Xia, their sales were not doing well.
If these supermarkets could not reach a certain scale, they would not be able to use their membership cards to make profits. Also, they will not be able to lower their purchasing costs.
Even their reputation and influence will not be as good as Tai Hua Supermarket Group. These factors were restricting the development of their supermarkets. Also, some supermarket groups in China had started to rise. Although they were not as big as Tai Hua Supermarket Group, they were much bigger than Wal-Mart and Carrefour.
The smaller ones had seven to eight branches, and the bigger ones had 30 to 40 branches.
They were mainly concentrated in the third and fourth tier cities. The first and second tier cities were controlled by Tai Hua Supermarket Group.
Last year, Tai Hua Supermarket Group's annual turnover was more than 30 billion RMB. Even Taobao would not be able to surpass this figure in three years.
Furthermore, Tai Hua Supermarket Group was still expanding. Those third and fourth tier cities were not suitable for Tai Hua Hypermarkets, but they could set up Tai Hua Supermarkets.
In the future, Tai Hua Supermarket Group's sales will continue to increase. It was not impossible for them to compete with Taobao.
Although the appearance of Taobao and other online shopping malls had a huge impact on the traditional retail industry, no one had ever heard of those supermarkets losing money.
After all, many people like to see and touch products, and it was better to buy fresh products on the spot.
Also, Tai Hua Supermarket Group's profits were not low. At least, it was much higher than Taobao's profits. If Feng Yu wanted to, he could ask Tai Hua Supermarket Group to use some competitive tactics to slow down Taobao's development by at least two years!
Of course, Feng Yu would not do this. Both of them were in the same boat, and the money would still end up in his pocket. If Taobao developed well, it could prevent other competitors from appearing.
… …
"Our Taobao welcomes everyone to set up shop and spend money. For the first three years, our shops will be free of charge, and we will not collect any rental fees from the sellers or the buyers. We use the guaranteed consumption model of Alipay, which can guarantee the interests of customers to the greatest extent. Of course, we also have online payments from major banks, Paypal, and other advanced international payment methods. In the next five years, we will be able to provide 1 million jobs … "
Ma Yun was giving a speech on stage, and many reporters had gathered. If it was only Ma Yun, there might not be so many reporters. But there were rumors that Taihua Holdings's Zong Qingxian, Lenovo Group's Liu Chuanzhi, Ma Huateng, Ding Lei, Wang Zhixi, Zhang Chaoyang, Shi Yuzhu, and many other tycoons will be attending the event.
Someone even mentioned that the World's Richest Man, Feng Yu, might also be attending the event, and the reporters were excited. If anyone could take a picture of Feng Yu, then it would not be a dream for them to get a promotion and a raise!
Feng Yu was also there, but he was sitting in a corner. No one knew this young man was the World's Richest Man, and many people beside him thought Feng Yu was an Alibaba employee.
However, they found it strange that this staff member was wearing sunglasses. Could he be a security guard? His figure does not look muscular, and no one knew why.
… …
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