Because he had finally met a kindred spirit, Bezos, who had been holding back a lot of grievances for years with no one to confide in, simply poured out his dissatisfaction and grievances to Mrs. Versailles beside him.
As mentioned earlier, what frustrated Bezos the most about the supermarket fresh food business was the lack of cooperation from his "pig teammates." Just as Bezos went on to explain, "I've found ways to solve the internal problems of the company. I gritted my teeth and offered employees higher base salaries than our competitors. At the same time, I persuaded the supermarkets to send one of their employees to help us with stocking and packing, and only then did we manage to stabilize the entire supermarket fresh food business." xxs
"But I don't understand why those supermarkets would deliberately坑 me!" Recalling his story over the past few years, Bezos couldn't help but feel a surge of emotion, and he said through gritted teeth, "What truly destroyed our supermarket business came from customer bad reviews. So, although the bad review rate displayed on our website is less than 0.1%, in reality, over 6% of customers have given us bad reviews. This is because the goods they received often had a lot of damage, spoilage, and defects."
"I really suspect those supermarkets deliberately gave us their unsellable items to deliver. I communicated with these supermarkets countless times, had face-to-face meetings with their presidents and even their boards of directors, and tried every possible method, but still couldn't solve the problem of a high rate of defective products during delivery." Bezos spoke through gritted teeth, because in early 2008, due to suffering from user bad reviews, the order volume plummeted... In fact, these orders didn't disappear into thin air; they almost entirely shifted to Oriental Amazon's fresh food business platform.
After all, after experiencing online grocery shopping, for some users, online shopping was indeed more convenient and comfortable than driving to shop themselves. They actually needed online grocery shopping services, but they needed a more reliable service provider.
As the order volume decreased, the fresh food business, which was already unprofitable, completely became a gaping wound. Wanbaoge had to pay huge operating costs every day, but the income was very little. This business only continued to bleed Wanbaoge dry.
Wanbaoge initially announced a continuous reduction of its fresh food business, but it still kept losing money. Finally, it decisively announced that it would completely abandon all fresh food business segments. The fresh food business, which had been vigorously developed for nearly two years, was thus over.
This was also a fatal blow to Wanbaoge, causing its stock price to plummet, which further led to the disintegration of Wanbaoge.
Every time Bezos thought of this, he felt extremely distressed. He had clearly tried his best in this business, but for some reason, he was teamed up with a bunch of "pig teammates."
So Bezos, feeling very helpless, complained to Mrs. Versailles, "If only my cooperation partners could be swapped with Oriental Amazon. If we could only cooperate with high-quality partners like Walmart and leave those damn teammates to Qiangdong Liu, then the ultimate winner would be me!"
"The situation is probably not like that, is it?" Mrs. Versailles, who had been listening without speaking, suddenly said.
And with her first words, she directly contradicted Bezos, which made Bezos a little embarrassed. But Mrs. Versailles continued, "As far as I know, the source of Walmart employees is actually the same as that of other supermarkets. And the training their employees receive is even less than that of other supermarkets, because Walmart pays its employees less. So the actual situation of these employees is likely even worse; they are full of complaints about Walmart itself."
"But miraculously, these employees are very fond of Oriental Amazon. They even praise Oriental Amazon as the greatest company in the world, and Qiangdong Liu as the best CEO in the world. Although Oriental Amazon has stationed dedicated stockers in every Walmart store, all Walmart employees, whether they are responsible for checkout or stocking in the supermarket or manage the warehouse, are very enthusiastic and proactive towards Oriental Amazon. They often actively help Oriental Amazon when it gets busy, assisting with stocking and packing. When there's a shortage of inventory, they even proactively call drivers from other stores to deliver the missing goods to help Oriental Amazon fulfill orders!" said Mrs. Versailles.
"That's impossible!" Bezos was completely stunned by what he heard. He couldn't help but open his mouth wide. Was there such a perfect teammate in the world?
"These are things I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears!" Mrs. Versailles said seriously. "A large part of my life has been spent with the common people, living with them and experiencing what they experience."
"And many of these people are employees of supermarkets like Walmart. When I chat with them, they often talk to me about various things in their lives and work. I also often participate in their work to further experience their lives, and I have indeed witnessed many facts."
"So I can assure you, Mr. Bezos, that what I just said is the truth. The situation at the grassroots level is just like this!"
"This is impossible. Why? Why are they so good to Oriental Amazon?" Bezos opened his mouth and muttered in disbelief.
"Because Oriental Amazon has not neglected them; it has given them great respect, and most importantly, actual benefits!" Mrs. Versailles did not hide anything, directly telling Bezos about everything Oriental Amazon did, such as the regular joint team-building activities they had every week. Bezos was once again stunned by what he heard.
"Doesn't this cost them money?" Bezos asked foolishly.
"Of course, it costs money, but not much, perhaps around 80 million US dollars per month!" Mrs. Versailles said lightly.
"80 million is not much..." Bezos retorted.
"That's still better than you losing billions!" Mrs. Versailles silenced Bezos with one sentence, then continued, "These 80 million dollars are well spent, because the entire fresh food business now brings Oriental Amazon a profit of over 300 million US dollars every month, and this profit total is still growing."
Mrs. Versailles's words left Bezos speechless. Mrs. Versailles then continued, "I have seen all your information. Overall, you are a strong person. The only problem is that you are too arrogant and completely fail to see, or rather, disdain to look at, the situation at the grassroots level."
"Of course, this problem is not just yours; all leaders in the United States have the same problem. So I want to tell you that your failure is actually built on your ignorance of the grassroots!"
"Do you know how your fresh food business went wrong? On the one hand, your competitors did too well, and on the other hand, you killed yourself."
"You tried every way to persuade those supermarkets to voluntarily provide one employee to be your stocker and help you with packing and delivery. But you didn't understand that those supermarkets would not be willing to increase an employee's salary to help you, so they would only order an employee to take on the job of stocker!"
"These employees are already not finding their daily work easy, and now they suddenly have an additional job of helping you pack and deliver, running around in the warehouse. Do you think they will be grateful to you, or hate you to the bone?"
"Then, can the frequent defective products in your delivered goods be understood now?" Mrs. Versailles's words made Bezos sweat profusely.
As expected of Bezos, he quickly understood where he had gone wrong and sincerely thanked Mrs. Versailles.
Mrs. Versailles nodded and then continued, "I think your pig teammates are not limited to those supermarkets, are they?"
"Yes!" At this point, Bezos smiled bitterly and gritted his teeth, "That's right, my biggest pig teammates are not the supermarkets, but Goldman Sachs, and their logistics company!"
As mentioned before, even if Wanbaoge didn't engage in the fresh food business, their normal e-commerce business was still the number one in the United States.
However, they encountered the biggest pig teammates in history: FedEx and UPS in the United States.
How much they were a burden is not worth mentioning, as it has been brought up before. Anyway, although Wanbaoge held a significant advantage in its normal business, with the rapid expansion of Oriental Express under Oriental Amazon, by early 2008.
Wanbaoge abandoned its fresh food business, but Oriental Amazon officially announced the completion of its nationwide layout, possessing its own express outlets in major cities and towns across the country.
This speed may seem exaggerated, but it is actually the brilliance of Oriental Amazon's long-term planning.
Previously, through cooperation with Walmart, Oriental Amazon had quickly built up its fresh food business and also established its own outlets in almost all cities and towns in the United States.
Of course, at the beginning, these outlets could only rely on Walmart's logistics and function as terminal delivery points. However, as Oriental Amazon continued to secure various investments and purchase a large number of vehicles to form transportation fleets, it began to expand at an unimaginable speed.
After all, the outlets were already established; all Oriental Express needed to do was connect these outlets together.
Especially later, Oriental Amazon found that traditional vehicle transportation was not entirely suitable for the actual conditions in the United States. Therefore, it directly acquired dozens of airlines, establishing a vast domestic air transportation network to transport time-sensitive express deliveries by aircraft.
In short, by early 2008, almost everyone in the United States, except for some living in rural areas, could see Oriental Express outlets in their local areas. The number and density of these outlets were already comparable to those of FedEx and UPS.
Therefore, it was inevitable that the three express companies would be compared, and then Oriental Express directly won.