152: Chapter 152 Pinduoduo's sales volume reaches 220 billion!

Taobao Headquarters.

Although it was already getting dark, the many executives in the conference room had not left. They had been waiting since the afternoon, and everyone's face showed varying degrees of exhaustion.

Feng Haicang had said early on that there was no need to be nervous, and the meeting had already ended, so they could leave.

But everyone stayed because of what Ma Kun had said earlier; they were all waiting for Pinduoduo's data.

At this moment.

The big screen in the conference room displayed Pinduoduo's Weibo page.

There were a few minutes left until 8:00 PM.

The latest Pinduoduo Weibo post was about the 50 billion record in Livestream E-commerce. The comment section was constantly refreshing, and with every flicker of the numbers, people were asking below when the total sales would be announced.

"We've been waiting for almost two hours, is Pinduoduo going to release the full data or not?"

An executive rubbed his eyes, his tone tinged with impatience.

"However, 50 billion in Livestream E-commerce is already an exaggerated enough figure."

"JD.com only sold 50 billion across their entire platform in one day. Qin Mo achieved this just by having those streamers shout a few times in the livestream room. I always thought Livestream E-commerce was just a gimmick; I didn't expect it to actually reach this magnitude."

Another executive chimed in.

"It's more than just a gimmick."

"When Douyin Mall was doing Livestream E-commerce before, I didn't take it too seriously. I thought that kind of thing was fine for a Short Video platform to amuse itself with, but compared to traditional e-commerce, the transaction volume would just be a fraction."

"Now it seems, I misjudged it."

Feng Haicang stood in front of the screen and looked back at the others.

The sound continued.

"We can't track Pinduoduo's Alipay transaction flow from yesterday."

"They set up a batch of shadow companies specifically for collecting payments, bypassing our monitoring nodes for a large number of user payment paths."

"The payment data was diverted from the source; it would take quite some time to investigate if we really wanted to."

The internal team at Anli Group had known about this for a long time.

Ever since the Pinhaohuo period, after Ma Kun ferreted out anomalies in the Alipay data, Qin Mo had taken precautions.

By the time Pinduoduo officially launched, this system of shadow companies was already quite complete. After every Alipay payment traversed these companies, the cycle to trace it back was so long it was almost meaningless.

In other words.

This time, Alibaba could only, like everyone else, sit in front of the screen and wait for Pinduoduo to announce the data itself.

Old Ma leaned back in the main seat.

Looking at the two sets of sales data projected by Pinduoduo, he couldn't help but speak up.

"Livestream E-commerce, a single livestream room can actually create a single-day sales record of 10 billion."

"And besides the one with the highest sales, the second-ranked livestream room also had 8.5 billion, which probably also has the potential for 10 billion. The replicability of this model is far stronger than we imagined."

Ma Kun nodded from the side.

"I've also paid attention to Douyin's Livestream E-commerce before."

"At that time, the volume of Douyin Mall was still very small, and the potential of this Livestream E-commerce wasn't that big."

"After I finished watching, I judged that the ceiling of this model wouldn't be too high; user impulse consumption couldn't support a sustained large market. But looking at it now, the volume at that time simply couldn't measure its true upper limit."

Ma Kun sighed deeply.

"Pinduoduo has the Multi-billion Subsidy for price advantage, Douyin's traffic pool for user acquisition, and game items from league of legends and crossfire for cross-circle traffic diversion."

"Only when these three conditions are superimposed can Livestream E-commerce reach 50 billion. If any one link is missing, it wouldn't reach this number."

Feng Haicang turned around from the screen.

"So the threshold for Livestream E-commerce is actually higher than imagined."

"It's not just about setting up a livestream room and putting up a link to make it work; it requires a sufficiently large traffic pool at the front end to import users, and sufficiently low prices at the back end to lock in conversion rates."

"Currently, outside of Pinduoduo, there aren't many platforms that possess these two conditions simultaneously."

"But we have them."

Ma Kun's voice was very calm.

"Taobao's traffic pool is no smaller than Douyin's, and the number of users is even greater."

"In terms of price, we can't move this time because the budget is tied up by the fresh produce e-commerce and the Slash campaign, but there will always be a time when funds circulate back."

Old Ma looked over.

"So what is your idea?"

Ma Kun leaned back in his chair.

"This 618 Shopping Festival made me realize one thing: Livestream E-commerce is not a short-term promotional tool, but a brand-new e-commerce consumption scenario."

"Users don't enter the livestream room to buy things; they enter to watch the streamer, to participate in interactions, and to snatch limited-time flash sales."

"The moment they place an order, they don't even compare prices, because the streamer has already compared them for them."

He turned his head to look at Feng Haicang.

"But the problem is."

"Livestream E-commerce relies heavily on the streamer's fan economy, and right now, the hottest streamers on the entire web are all in Qin Mo's hands. If we want to do Livestream E-commerce, I'm afraid we can only start from the celebrity direction."

"Celebrities come with their own fan economy; their fans will pay without needing price stimulation. If we add Taobao's own discount system, the conversion rate will be an order of magnitude higher than ordinary streamers."

"Moreover, the celebrity themselves is a topic; every livestream is a free promotion. Pinduoduo's top streamers were raised by Douyin's traffic pool. If we sign celebrities directly, the traffic can be matched from day one."

Feng Haicang pondered for a moment and nodded.

"We can try, but it takes time."

"The celebrity's schedule, brand docking, and the setup of the livestream room—every link is not simple."

"So start doing it from now."

Ma Kun stood up.

"You coordinate this matter. First, screen out the artists who are interested, and let the business department synchronize with the brands."

Feng Haicang nodded, already taking out his phone to start sending messages.

Although everyone in the room was waiting for Pinduoduo's 618 Shopping Festival sales report, they were indeed not too nervous. At this time, they actually had the leisure to arrange Taobao's Livestream E-commerce.

But this couldn't be blamed on them either.

After Pinduoduo announced the data for Livestream E-commerce.

Everyone understood.

From this moment on, Livestream E-commerce on all e-commerce platforms across the web was just a matter of time; other e-commerce platforms would not let go of this entry point.

And there weren't many people in the room who really thought Pinduoduo's 618 Shopping Festival sales could exceed Taobao's.

Meanwhile.

After sending the message, Feng Haicang thought of something and looked up at Ma Kun.

"There is one more thing."

"Before the 618 Shopping Festival, we discovered that food delivery entry that Pinduoduo suddenly launched. At that time, we didn't have time to pay attention because the 618 Shopping Festival was right in front of us."

"Now that the 618 Shopping Festival is over, how should we handle this Flash Buy channel? Should we follow up?"

Everyone in the conference room turned their attention to Ma Kun.

Pinduoduo Flash Buy, it had only been online for a few days.

Behind it was Meituan's interface and delivery system, and the front end used Pinduoduo's price subsidy tactic.

This combination model of food delivery plus e-commerce had never been done by anyone before. No one knew if it was a card Qin Mo really wanted to play, or just another smokescreen deliberately released.

Ma Kun was silent for a long while.

"What do you want to do? Enter the game?"

He threw the question back to Feng Haicang.

"Can you be sure that this food delivery entry isn't another 'fresh produce e-commerce' trap to lead us into?"

Feng Haicang opened his mouth but ultimately did not make any promises.

And Ma Kun's voice continued to sound.

"We won't make any moves for now."

His fingers tapped lightly on the table.

"Let's watch for now and see what tricks this Pinduoduo Flash Buy actually has."

"We have Ele.me in our hands. If it is determined that Qin Mo is serious and really intends to keep the food delivery entry in Pinduoduo for the long term, then we can directly let Ele.me connect to Taobao as well."

"Interface to interface, rider to rider; whatever Meituan has, we have. The time difference can always be made up."

Feng Haicang immediately added.

"But if we don't move now, and wait until Meituan establishes the market on Flash Buy before following up, we will be behind on the timeline."

Ma Kun shook his head.

"The food delivery war has already been fought once, have you forgotten?"

"The most important thing in the food delivery war was never who entered the market first, but whose food delivery was cheaper."

"Users have no loyalty to food delivery platforms; they go to whichever one has higher subsidies."

"After we confirm that this isn't a trap, we can directly let Ele.me connect to Taobao and use Alibaba's funds to raise the subsidies, and we can pull these users back."

Feng Haicang didn't say anything more.

The memory of the food delivery war was still quite fresh. Last time, Ele.me used Alibaba's money to forcefully smash out market share. If Pinduoduo wasn't a trap, then when the time came for Ele.me to connect to Taobao, they could just fight another round of price wars.

The topic temporarily came to an end.

The conference room quieted down again, and everyone's eyes returned to the projection screen. Pinduoduo's official Weibo was still stuck on the announcement of 50 billion in Livestream E-commerce, and there was still no movement on the total sales.

An executive glanced at the time.

"It's already eight o'clock. Pinduoduo wouldn't really not announce it today, would they? They already released the Livestream E-commerce data; are they still going to hide the total sales?"

Ma Kun also frowned.

"Could it be that they didn't even cross 100 billion, so they're embarrassed to release it?"

This sentence relaxed the atmosphere in the conference room a bit.

Several executives leaned back in their chairs, their expressions much more relaxed than before.

Feng Haicang also analyzed along with him.

"That possibility cannot be ruled out."

"They have 50 billion in Livestream E-commerce, but if the non-livestream product categories are not numerous enough and the conversion rate cannot be raised, then the sales of ordinary products might be overshadowed by Livestream E-commerce."

"It's not unreasonable that it didn't add up to over 100 billion."

"In that case, we really don't have to worry too much."

As soon as this sentence was spoken, several executives in the conference room breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.

If Pinduoduo really didn't even have 100 billion in sales, and half of it was achieved by Livestream E-commerce, then for Pinduoduo itself, it really wasn't as exaggerated as they had thought before.

Excluding Livestream E-commerce.

With the Multi-billion Subsidy added, Pinduoduo's sales would be on par with JD.com, and it really wasn't worth their worry at all.

Even Old Ma's eyes lit up.

"Perhaps, that really is the case."

Listening to Old Ma's words, someone finally stood up from their seat.

Stretching their body.

"Waited all afternoon, I'm not waiting anymore."

"I said long ago that this Pinduoduo definitely has no possibility of threatening Taobao. Ma Kun, you were too cautious before."

"I think, maybe the facts are really the same as we guessed, Pinduoduo's sales didn't even reach 100 billion..."

Before he finished speaking.

His body seemed to be nailed to the spot, the whole person stiffened there, and his face drained of color within a few seconds.

"What's wrong with you..."

Feng Haicang frowned. Just as he opened his mouth, he instantly realized something and looked sharply at the projection screen to the side.

Meanwhile.

Seeing the actions of the two, everyone in the conference room reacted.

Everyone's gaze turned towards the nearby projection screen.

They saw that Pinduoduo's official Weibo had already announced the complete battle report for the 618 Shopping Festival.

The next moment.

The conference room, which had been a bit noisy, suddenly became dead silent, a silence as if they were dead.

Only because.

What appeared before them was a number they couldn't imagine at all!

220 Billion!