"I told you long ago not to bother with these useless things. Unless you directly ban Jiangnan Group from operating in the US, these tactics won't be very effective. Customers really don't care about a platform's reputation; they only care about two things: price and convenience!" Bezos said, facing the new representative sent by Goldman Sachs, who was also the executive vice president of Wanxian Pavilion, with an expression that suggested he saw through everything, completely forgetting that he himself had once suggested Tucker try to ruin the reputation of the Eastern Amazon.
"I see, I understand!" This new vice president was completely different from Tucker. In front of Bezos, he rarely expressed his personal opinions, only agreeing with Bezos as if Bezos's opinions were his own. This attitude greatly pleased Bezos.
"So, Mr. Bezos, how do you plan to develop Wanxian Pavilion next? And how will you defeat the Eastern Amazon?" the new vice president asked.
"My strategy is very simple: one fist to attack, one fist to defend. The defense is to consolidate our advantages, meaning to continue strengthening Wanxian Pavilion's advantage in the variety of goods. Don't be fooled by how popular the Eastern Amazon is now; they are completely reliant on Walmart's logistics system."
"Don't you see that over 90% of the Eastern Amazon's sales come from Walmart, and that there are actually very few individual merchants on the Eastern Amazon?"
"This is because the Eastern Amazon cannot get the cooperation of nationwide express delivery companies, and Walmart cannot truly hand over its entire logistics system for the Eastern Amazon to piggyback on."
"According to my predictions, the Eastern Amazon's focus for the next one to two years will definitely be on establishing a nationwide logistics network. This means that within the next one to two years, the Eastern Amazon will not be able to attack our strong points!"
"So, what we need to do next is to continuously consolidate our strong points. The best way to do this is to stabilize all our merchants! As long as we can firmly hold onto all our current merchants, even if the Eastern Amazon establishes its logistics network, they won't be able to attack our strong points!"
"Therefore, within the next year, I will require all merchants in Wanxian Pavilion to sign exclusive cooperation agreements with Wanxian Pavilion. We can use preferential rebates and policies to entice these merchants. Once they sign exclusive cooperation agreements, they will be legally prohibited from cooperating with the Eastern Amazon."
"So, some merchants will likely find ways to circumvent this exclusive cooperation agreement, but most merchants won't have the ability or energy to do so. This way, we can firmly control all merchants through this exclusive cooperation agreement, completely cutting off the Eastern Amazon's possibility of expanding into the large e-commerce market!"
"By the way, express delivery is also a very important aspect of this. Currently, both FedEx and UPS are too ill-suited for e-commerce. I once again hope that Goldman Sachs can urge reforms in express delivery and quickly provide a more suitable express delivery solution for e-commerce platforms. This is also an important condition for us to defend our market!" Bezos said very earnestly.
"No problem!" The vice president immediately patted his chest and said, "I will report to headquarters as soon as I get back and ask them to push for reforms in the express delivery companies in which we have invested!"
"Thank you!" Bezos was very satisfied with the vice president's attitude, which was worlds apart from Tucker's.
However, what Bezos didn't know was that Tucker, who had a bad attitude, actually drafted a reform proposal and submitted it after returning, fulfilling his promise.
But this vice president, who patted his chest and guaranteed, directly tossed the matter somewhere unknown.
Pushing for express delivery reform?
Such a thing is too troublesome, too dangerous. Smart people wouldn't step into this pit!
Of course, Bezos didn't know these things. He excitedly continued, "As for the attack of the other fist, it is to attack the e-commerce system that the Eastern Amazon has just established in cooperation with supermarkets!"
"We must admit that the Eastern Amazon is ahead of us, and they have also secured Walmart as the best cooperation partner!"
"But there is a gain for every loss. Because of Walmart's strong exclusivity, while the Eastern Amazon cooperates with Walmart, it is destined that they cannot cooperate with other large supermarkets. Therefore, all these large supermarkets are our cooperation targets. I sent a negotiation team a week ago, and negotiations with major large supermarkets nationwide are currently underway."
"The entire process is going very smoothly, and all negotiations and agreements are basically in the final stages. They will all be reached in about another week. This is also thanks to the Eastern Amazon. If they hadn't used e-commerce to help Walmart achieve significant sales growth and capture 20% of the market from other supermarkets, these supermarkets wouldn't be so eager to cooperate with us."
"Because if they don't cooperate with us, they will lose more market share, which is a situation they absolutely cannot accept."
"So, the focus of this work will be the same as the Eastern Amazon: to establish outlets around the market and carry out distribution."
"The total number of stores our cooperation partners have is three times that of Walmart, and they reach into many areas that Walmart has not covered. These markets are currently completely blank."
"Therefore, next, I have developed a complete marketing plan, including advertising marketing and commercial promotions. As long as we can control the prices on our website to be always slightly lower than the Eastern Amazon, we can immediately attract consumers from the Eastern Amazon to switch to Wanxian Pavilion, thereby completely completing the harvest and occupation of the Eastern Amazon market!"
"Here is the marketing plan that I and our executives have compiled over the past week, without omission or revision. You can take a look!" Bezos handed a plan of over a hundred pages to the vice president.
The vice president seriously read the first two pages, then solemnly put it into his briefcase and sincerely stated that he would read it in detail when he got back.
"You must read it carefully. After you finish, you will see how perfect our plan is!" Bezos said confidently. "Although Liu Qiangdong's ability is indeed strong, he is a complete novice in the e-commerce industry. The Eastern Amazon has made many shallow mistakes in e-commerce."
"These mistakes haven't become mistakes simply because there are no competitors. But if we join the game, these mistakes will become our most advantageous weapons to completely kill the Eastern Amazon!"
"So, I hope you will carefully read our plan so that you can understand the development logic of Wanxian Pavilion for the next few years, as well as the difficulties and key points of the entire plan, and where Goldman Sachs needs to help us!" Bezos said sincerely. The vice president's eyelids twitched slightly, and then he smiled, "It seems this is the key issue. Where do you need Goldman Sachs Group to cooperate?"
"To be honest, Goldman Sachs Group will spare no effort to provide help where it can. But if you encounter problems that Goldman Sachs Group also cannot solve, please do not make things too difficult for us!" the vice president said.
"Don't worry, what we need is definitely what Goldman Sachs Group possesses!" Bezos replied immediately. "That thing is investment!"
"To implement our offensive plan, Wanxian Pavilion needs to establish over 8,000 outlets across the country. The construction cost for each outlet is about $100,000, so we need $800 million in cash."
"However, $100,000 is just the beginning. Considering early marketing investments and labor costs, there may be a funding gap of about $50,000 per month for the first year, which amounts to $600,000 per year. So, we may need an additional $4.8 billion in cash."
"This is a huge funding gap, but it is the necessary capital to defeat our opponents. I can personally invest all my remaining dollars into the company, so I hope Goldman Sachs can also invest the corresponding funds according to its shareholding ratio to help the company's development! If Goldman Sachs is willing, I can also give up more equity in exchange for a larger investment from Goldman Sachs!"
"This is the capital we need to defeat our opponents, please help us complete this financing!" Bezos said with genuine sincerity.
"I understand!" the vice president nodded. After that, the two chatted happily about many topics until closing time. The vice president then quickly found an excuse to leave work, surprising Bezos, who had intended to chat a little longer.
After returning home, the vice president did not carefully read the entire marketing development plan as he had said. Instead, he directly turned to the last few pages, where the detailed data for this financing was presented.
According to this data, Wanxian Pavilion needed Goldman Sachs to invest nearly $5 billion more, which left the vice president speechless.
After hesitating for a moment, the vice president sent the entire report to the chief secretary without any changes.
Damn it, who would be foolish enough to get involved in something that required the parent company to spend money!
Moreover, Goldman Sachs would absolutely not approve such a financing plan. As expected, the report vanished into thin air, and Bezos's anxious inquiries yielded no results.
Then, the vice president finally picked up his pen, and he wrote another proposal and submitted it.
This proposal was very simple, only one page long, and contained a hundred words.
However, these hundred words could ultimately be condensed into one sentence: IPO.