127: Chapter 127 A Blue Ocean with Huge Market Potential?

A few minutes later, inside the JD.com conference room.

All board members were present; a few who couldn't make it back from out of town joined via video conference, their faces displayed on the screen.

Everyone was waiting for Liu Qiang's decision.

In their view, Taobao entering the fruit and vegetable e-commerce market without hesitation was proof enough that there was considerable room for profit.

Ma Kun was no fool, and Old Ma even less so. If they could make the Anli Group take such a massive action within a few days, the market potential for fruit and vegetable e-commerce was likely even greater than the outside world imagined.

Liu Qiang walked into the conference room and sat down at the head of the table.

Everyone quieted down, waiting for Liu Qiang's decision.

Liu Qiang scanned everyone present and spoke slowly.

"Build the fruit and vegetable e-commerce portal on JD.com as quickly as possible. The momentum must be massive; let everyone know that JD.com has officially entered the fray."

Several directors in the conference room looked pleased and began exchanging words.

Soon, with the general direction determined, all the directors left.

Inside the conference room, only Vice President Wang Bing remained. He was the main person in charge of this fruit and vegetable e-commerce initiative and one of the people Liu Qiang trusted most.

Just as he was about to leave the conference room to take action, Liu Qiang raised his hand to stop him.

"There are some things I couldn't conveniently say during the board meeting just now."

"Regarding fruit and vegetable e-commerce."

"JD.com shouldn't invest too much for the time being. We just need to put on a show that we are investing on a large scale. Lay out delivery routes in a few major cities, but don't utilize storage facilities for now."

There was a hint of confusion in Vice President Wang Bing's eyes.

"Big momentum but no investment? Isn't that just slapping our own faces? What if fruit and vegetable e-commerce really is a big market? Wouldn't we be missing out for nothing if we only do superficial work?"

Liu Qiang leaned back in his chair, his tone calm.

"We just need to continue to wait and see."

"The water here runs deep; you just need to do as I say."

Although he still didn't quite understand, Vice President Wang Bing nodded. He had followed Liu Qiang for so many years and knew what should be asked and what shouldn't.

Meanwhile, at the headquarters of Meituan, the leader in localized living in Great Xia.

Wang Xing sat in front of his desk, his brows tightly furrowed.

On the phone screen in front of him was a message sent privately, from the sender Qin Mo.

This message was very long, detailing some suggestions for entering the fruit and vegetable e-commerce market.

It covered how to build delivery routes, how to cooperate with local fruit and vegetable supermarkets, how to maximize the transport capacity of existing riders, and even went into detail about the differences in fruit and vegetable consumption preferences in different cities.

Every step was written very clearly, and the feasibility of every step was very high.

But Wang Xing completely failed to understand why Qin Mo would send him these things.

Meituan and Langchao Group had no previous cooperation, and the businesses of the two companies didn't have much overlap.

Letting Meituan enter the fruit and vegetable e-commerce market was essentially encroaching on Pinhaohuo's ecological niche. In other words, Qin Mo was actively pulling a competitor into his own bowl.

He couldn't help but reply to him.

"These suggestions are very good, but I don't understand why you would actively help Meituan enter the fruit and vegetable e-commerce market. This does you no good."

After the message was sent, only a few minutes passed before Qin Mo's reply arrived.

It was only one sentence.

"Langchao Group and Meituan will have a need for deep cooperation later; this is my goodwill."

"You can choose not to believe it."

Wang Xing stared at this line of text for a long time.

During this period, he had also been paying attention to Qin Mo, knowing that he was a rising star in the Great Xia internet sector and had not made a wrong move so far.

He originally had the idea of befriending him, but never had the chance. He didn't expect the other party to actually reach out to him first.

Subsequently, Wang Xing put his phone on the table and called for his assistant.

"Have operations put together a plan for fruit and vegetable delivery; I want to see it within three days."

The assistant was stunned for a moment.

"Are we doing fruit and vegetable e-commerce too?"

"Not e-commerce, localized delivery!"

Wang Xing corrected her.

"Relying on our existing rider network, we will cooperate with local fruit and vegetable supermarkets. Users place orders, riders go to the nearest store to pick up goods, and they are delivered quickly within two hours."

The assistant walked out of the office quickly.

Wang Xing leaned back in his chair again and took another look at Qin Mo's message.

Deep cooperation, goodwill.

A project that could be called deep cooperation by Qin Mo was likely not some small trifle. He decided to note down this favor first; as for what the project was, he would naturally know when the time came.

On the second day after Taobao entered the market, JD.com, Suning, and other e-commerce platforms also officially announced that they would enter the fruit and vegetable e-commerce market.

The headline of JD.com's announcement was quite eye-catching, and the announcement also hinted at huge investments. Suning even directly released a delivery network map covering more than a dozen cities across the country.

And with JD.com and other e-commerce platforms entering the market without concealment, this brand-new blue ocean market was completely exposed on the Great Xia internet.

At the same time, because there was no longer any need to continue hiding, Douyin began to comprehensively promote and place ads for Pinhaohuo.

This time, the scope of Pinhaohuo's advertising was no longer limited to users in lower-tier markets.

For all users, whether in first-tier cities or lower-tier cities, whether they had a monthly income of tens of thousands or were just interns who had just graduated, ads for Pinhaohuo were placed in all aspects.

The platform's startup screen, feed recommendation slots, and the pinned bar on the city page—every position where ads could be placed was replaced with links to Pinhaohuo.

Qin Mo's goal was very simple.

After Taobao entered the market, Pinhaohuo could no longer be hidden. Since it couldn't be hidden, there was no need to hide it anymore.

He now needed to let Pinhaohuo have a base number of users for social fission that Taobao couldn't stop in the shortest possible time, and this number had to be at the million level at least.

Once this magnitude was reached, even if Taobao reacted, it wouldn't be able to stop the exponential growth brought about by Pinhaohuo's social fission.

Of course, by that time, Pinhaohuo should already be called Pinduoduo.

That night, a trending search topped all major social platforms.

"The potential of fruit and vegetable e-commerce."

The content of the trending search was a summary of the actions of major e-commerce platforms during this period.

Someone made a detailed timeline: first, Pinhaohuo was quietly launched, then Taobao opened a fruit and vegetable channel on its homepage, followed immediately by JD.com and Suning, and now even Douyin was frantically placing ads for Pinhaohuo.

An analysis article wrote that being able to make so many top platforms enter the market at the same time meant the market scale of fruit and vegetable e-commerce was likely far beyond previous estimates from the outside world.

The trending search was hotly discussed by countless people, and all kinds of voices poured into the comment section.

"Interesting, interesting. A new market has appeared, and every platform is throwing money to snatch users. This is the best time to snatch up deals!"

"Are these e-commerce platforms crazy? Does this market really have such great potential?"

"Anyway, regardless of whether there is potential, I've had a blast snatching up deals. Can you believe I just bought two jin of apples for two yuan?"

Among these comments, an analysis appeared.

This comment felt that the delivery time requirements for fruits and vegetables were very high; if it exceeded two days, there was a high probability they would not be fresh.

Therefore, platforms either had to push prices extremely low so that users wouldn't care even if they received items that weren't fresh, or they had to achieve same-day or next-day delivery at the same price.

But now, all platforms were using extremely low prices to attract users, but this was not a sustainable model. After the subsidy wave passed, the truth about this market would be revealed.

Although this analysis made a lot of sense, under the heat of the whole internet 'snatching up deals', this comment was hardly noticed by anyone.

Most people were still busy snatching up deals in this fruit and vegetable e-commerce war. Promotions like buying one jin of apples for one yuan or a bag of oranges for two yuan appeared in rotation on various platforms.

For a time, the heat regarding the fruit and vegetable e-commerce market continued to skyrocket.