What is the most painful thing in this world?
It's when you've finalized your strategy, intending to race your opponent on your home turf, only for them to take a sharp turn and head onto a completely different track.
This is the situation Chen Hu found himself in. Chen Hu had been brimming with confidence, planning to implement a close-quarters subsidy strategy against E Bu Pa, aiming to crush them with a 12 billion RMB advantage.
However, when Chen Hu discovered that his opponent had stopped subsidizing altogether, he was left utterly dumbfounded.
What was even more baffling was that his own company was also restricted, unable to continue its subsidy campaign.
According to Chen Hu's orders, Di Da Wai Mai was supposed to follow E Bu Pa's lead in subsidies. For every yuan E Bu Pa subsidized, Chen Hu would subsidize the same amount, until E Bu Pa's funds were depleted.
But two months passed. Aside from the initial period where Di Da Wai Mai followed suit for half a month, bringing its daily order volume back to 10 million orders, E Bu Pa had not engaged in any further subsidies.
According to intelligence from Chen Hu's mole within E Bu Pa, Zhao Yao had directly admitted fault in a meeting and decided to revert to their previous strategy: discontinuing subsidies and focusing on winning through quality and service.
Upon hearing this news, Chen Hu was initially quite pleased. It meant E Bu Pa had abandoned subsidies, the most effective tool for customer acquisition. He believed his current daily order volume of 10 million orders was secure and that his top market position would be unassailable, even without further subsidies.
However, as two months slowly slipped by, Chen Hu began to feel that something was amiss. Di Da's daily order volume was in steady decline.
On the day the subsidies ended, the daily order volume was 10.64 million.
The next day, it dropped to 10.12 million.
Now, over a month later, Di Da Wai Mai's daily order volume had fallen back to 6.82 million orders, with nearly 35% of users disappearing.
This result left everyone at Di Da Wai Mai in a state of panic. However, in the beginning, Chen Hu considered these figures normal. After all, the daily order volume of over 10 million had been achieved through aggressive subsidies, attracting many users who didn't normally order takeout but were lured by the cheap deals.
Now, without subsidies, these users couldn't get cheap deals, so they naturally reverted to not ordering takeout. Thus, a 35% drop, Chen Hu thought, was not a significant problem.
Until this morning, when E Bu Pa's mole reported that Zhao Yao had convened another internal meeting. In the meeting, he shared internal news with all executives, including information on the daily order volume, which had always been a closely guarded secret.
Zhao Yao happily informed everyone that E Bu Pa's daily order volume had stably surpassed 4.4 million orders and was increasing daily. This was all achieved without any subsidies. Furthermore, E Bu Pa's total number of loyal members had broken through the 2.2 million mark.
This news struck Chen Hu a devastating blow, almost a slap in the face.
Chen Hu had consistently assured the company and investors that the 35% user drop was an inevitable consequence of ending subsidies. Yet, E Bu Pa's user base was steadily increasing after discontinuing subsidies, while Di Da's daily order volume was declining daily, clearly indicating a downward spiral.
The worst part was the membership issue. E Bu Pa had 2.2 million loyal members, while Di Da's membership had never exceeded 2 million, regardless of whether they were subsidizing or not.
What did this signify?
It signified that E Bu Pa's stable customer base had likely surpassed Di Da Wai Mai's. This sent a severe sense of unease through Chen Hu, and for the next few days, he was engrossed in contemplating how to break the deadlock.
Chen Hu understood very well why E Bu Pa had managed to overtake them in this regard: E Bu Pa was diligently improving its service quality. With no subsidies from either side, users naturally gravitated towards platforms offering better service. Chen Hu even harbored a suspicion.
He suspected that the users who had left might not have stopped ordering takeout altogether. It was possible they had switched to ordering from the E Bu Pa platform. After all, with E Bu Pa also entering the subsidy war, many users had experienced the takeout services of both E Bu Pa and Di Da.
With this thought, Chen Hu realized that the only way to break through was to do as E Bu Pa did: enhance takeout service quality and retain users through quality.
However, deep down, Chen Hu felt an extreme reluctance. If he were to adopt E Bu Pa's strategy, wouldn't that mean his departure from E Bu Pa had been a mistake? Wouldn't his entire subsidy strategy be wrong? It would essentially mean a complete negation of himself. Chen Hu, being the kind of person he was, could not possibly accept such an outcome.
"The key still lies in member subsidies. Perhaps I can design more ingenious member subsidy schemes to significantly increase our member count!" Just as Chen Hu was contemplating this, over the next few days, Di Da Wai Mai's daily order volume began to plummet rapidly. In a single day, they lost nearly 3 million daily orders.
The reason for this was immediately apparent: Tian Tian Wai Mai had started to make its move.
As a passive participant in the battle, Tian Tian Wai Mai had initially taken no action, almost making Chen Hu forget about them as a competitor. To his surprise, he was suddenly backstabbed by this opponent.
It turned out that Tian Tian Wai Mai had suddenly announced subsidies, and with considerable force. Users, like water, flocked back to Tian Tian Wai Mai to place orders. A few days later, Tian Tian Wai Mai triumphantly announced that its daily order volume had surpassed 12 million orders.
This figure was clearly not truthful, as Di Da's peak order volume during its subsidy period hadn't even reached 12 million daily orders.
Yet, this was a highly stimulating piece of news for Di Da. As their users continued to bleed away, Chen Hu realized he had no choice but to respond.
Although Chen Hu's greatest rival would always be E Bu Pa, and he preferred to conserve his funds to deal with them rather than engage with Tian Tian Wai Mai, the problem was that if he ignored it and didn't pay out subsidies, the next decisive battle would be between Tian Tian Wai Mai and E Bu Pa, not his Di Da Wai Mai.
Therefore, it didn't take long for Di Da Wai Mai to announce its own subsidies, and the two sides were once again locked in a direct confrontation.
E Bu Pa, meanwhile, remained indifferent to external affairs and continued to optimize its own takeout service quality.
While E Bu Pa was diligently working, the war between Di Da Wai Mai and Tian Tian Wai Mai finally concluded. Di Da Wai Mai, as expected, emerged victorious.
Tian Tian Wai Mai was unaware of the trump cards Chen Hu held. They exhausted their 5 billion RMB in funds, but Di Da Wai Mai was still subsidizing. Consequently, Tian Tian Wai Mai was forced to retreat, becoming completely inactive.
Di Da Wai Mai, on the other hand, ostentatiously extended its subsidies for another half month, successfully poaching most of Tian Tian Wai Mai's users before contentedly halting its subsidies.
Soon after, news broke that Tian Tian Wai Mai had faced a capital chain rupture, with numerous merchants collectively demanding payment.
Then followed the announcement of Tian Tian Wai Mai's founder's resignation, and Tian Tian Wai Mai's investors began seeking to sell their assets. In short, the most innocent of them all, Tian Tian Wai Mai, became the first casualty of this war.
The victor, undoubtedly, was Di Da Wai Mai. Whispers in the industry revealed that Tian Tian Wai Mai's investors intended to use their stake in Tian Tian Wai Mai as capital for Di Da Wai Mai. With the two delivery platforms merging to form a new company, Di Da Wai Mai would have achieved ultimate victory.
At this juncture, Huang He, responsible for organizing this bet, had already spread the word throughout the industry. Everyone knew that Huang He stood behind this delivery war. If E Bu Pa failed, it would be tantamount to Boss Huang's failure, which would undoubtedly become a major news story. The person who could defeat Huang He would inevitably become the new darling of the business world.
In September 2015, Di Da Wai Mai officially announced its merger with Tian Tian Wai Mai. Following this, Di Da Wai Mai's daily order volume officially surpassed 15 million orders, setting an unprecedented new record that shocked the nation.
Consequently, Chen Hu enjoyed a period of considerable happiness. Various forms of flattery were overwhelming. Some media outlets even hailed Chen Hu as the next commercial titan of the 2010s, with the previous position naturally belonging to Boss Huang.
Being compared to Huang He was undoubtedly an extremely glorious matter.
Amidst these waves of praise, Chen Hu inadvertently forgot many things. For instance, E Bu Pa was still alive and thriving, and out of the 17 billion RMB in his hands, 6 billion had been spent fighting Tian Tian Wai Mai, and approximately 2 billion had been consumed by his own operations. He actually had only 9 billion left.
Of course, this figure was still enormous and continued to dwarf E Bu Pa's delivery service. Thus, Chen Hu didn't have time to dwell on it.
It was only when Chen Hu, having calmed down, was astonished to discover that although the daily order volume had briefly peaked at 15 million, it had now fallen back to 13 million. Given the current trend, it was not unreasonable to expect another 2 million order drop within a month.
A chill ran down Chen Hu's spine at this moment. He suddenly realized the severity of the problem. Chen Hu then urgently convened an internal meeting, announcing that Di Da Wai Mai would also begin to change its business philosophy and system, shifting from capturing the market through subsidies to capturing the market by improving service.
Although this seemed to negate his previous actions, Chen Hu could no longer afford to worry about such matters. He hastily instructed his secretary to find E Bu Pa's original optimization plan and then directly presented it to the executives, demanding that they replicate E Bu Pa's optimization plan to enhance the company's competitiveness!