"I know this is the courier company's problem, but the user complaints are directed at us!" Old Ma Ge rubbed his temples and said, "Send someone to communicate with the courier companies immediately and ask them to find a way to reach a settlement agreement with these users. Otherwise, I will cancel the cooperation with these courier companies!"
Old Ma Ge said this very dominantly in the end.
Jin Yuanying took the order and left. Old Ma Ge thought the matter was resolved, but he didn't expect that before the next day, people from the GS department would come again. This time, they brought over 500 complaints.
However, they didn't have the same pleasant attitude as before. It's estimated that they were also exhausted by these 500 complaints and demanded immediate rectification from the Forty Thieves, otherwise they would directly impose administrative penalties.
Administrative penalties from the Administration for Industry and Commerce are no small matter; they can directly lead to suspension of business for rectification, which can instantly ruin a company. The Forty Thieves at this time were not yet the invincible cancerous enterprise they would become in the future, and the GS department's hand was still very firm.
Old Ma Ge looked through the 500 different complaints and found that 350 of them were still related to courier issues. However, the remaining 150 involved various product quality problems.
Helpless, Old Ma Ge had to call Jin Yuanying over again and throw the 500 complaints in front of her. Jin Yuanying's expression instantly fell apart.
"How is the processing of yesterday's 100 complaints going?" Old Ma Ge saw Jin Yuanying's expression and knew her task had not been completed.
"The courier companies stated they don't have the capacity to handle these issues!" Jin Yuanying said in a low voice. "They said the tasks we've given them are already piled up to the sky, and their transportation capacity has been stretched to the limit. Even with a month, they can't handle this much express delivery."
"So, there must be a lot of packages accumulated in warehouses, and it's normal for most people not to receive their express deliveries. As for some damaged packages, because many people have handled them, they can't confirm who is responsible."
"Moreover, the key issue might not be with their courier companies, but with the users themselves. Perhaps they replaced the contents of the packages themselves and then accused them of damage or package swapping. If the users cannot provide conclusive evidence, they will absolutely not provide any compensation!"
"So?" Old Ma Ge asked, stroking his temples. "So, how many complaints were resolved in the end?"
"None at all..." Jin Yuanying said, lowering her head.
"What!" Old Ma Ge immediately felt a surge of blood and his head almost exploded.
"These courier companies are scoundrels!" Old Ma Ge cursed. "Go and find out which courier company has the most complaints, and cancel our cooperation with them immediately. We won't pay them any courier subsidies! They will be removed from our official cooperative couriers!"
Old Ma Ge dared to say such things. As for the courier companies of the future, in 2003, except for JD Express, Best Express, and J&T Express, most of them had already been established.
The Forty Thieves had also made thorough preparations for express delivery for this event. After all, the goal of this event was to make the overall prices in the mall lower than those of Jiangnan Mall. Therefore, the express delivery prices must also be lower than or at least on par with their competitors, otherwise, the prices would still be higher.
However, the problem was that although major courier companies across the country were basically established, they were all in their infancy. Many couriers did not cover the whole country, only one or two provinces and cities.
Instead of calling them courier companies, it was more accurate to call them logistics companies operating dozens of routes. The only ones that truly covered the whole country were SF Express and China Post.
The reason why these courier companies could spread across the country in the future was thanks to their cooperation with e-commerce platforms like Taobao. Otherwise, relying solely on traditional express delivery business could not support a nationwide express delivery network.
As for Jiangnan Mall, it was thanks to the behemoth Jiangnan Group behind it. In one year, they had forcibly built the monstrous Jiangnan Express, with tentacles spread throughout the country, basically reaching every major county-level city.
At the same time, all goods sold through Jiangnan Mall were exclusively delivered by Jiangnan Express.
However, the prices of Jiangnan Express have always been advantageous compared to the other two nationwide courier companies, SF Express and China Post.
Let's not even talk about China Post; their prices are frighteningly high, and their speed is frighteningly slow.
SF Express, as a former partner, also had good prices, but they couldn't compare to Jiangnan Express, which was subsidized by hundreds of millions of yuan annually. Therefore, merchants on Jiangnan Mall were happy to use Jiangnan Express.
It's just that Gouhuasuan Mall obviously had cooperation with Jiangnan Express. Old Ma Ge didn't expect Jiangnan Express to cooperate with him at that time, so Gouhuasuan had to cooperate with other courier companies.
Around the beginning of October, Old Ma Ge personally invited representatives from dozens of major courier companies across the country to a meeting in Hangzhou and proposed a plan: courier companies would reduce their prices a bit, and the Forty Thieves would subsidize a bit, thereby compressing the courier prices to the same level as Jiangnan Express.
These major courier company representatives discussed the matter and communicated with their respective bosses, eventually agreeing to this mode of cooperation.
The reason was simple: each of them wanted to grow bigger and stronger and become a nationwide courier company.
But the result was that their business not only did not grow but also shrank significantly as Jiangnan Express continued to grow.
After all, Jiangnan Express covered the whole country and had a price advantage. Companies like them only had dozens or even a few individual routes and couldn't deliver to the door. Recipients could only pick up their packages at their logistics outlets.
Although this saved costs, the customer experience was not very good.
Of course, large item logistics still went through logistics companies, but for the small package market, it was almost entirely taken over by the subsequently rising Jiangnan Express.
These courier companies also realized that to survive, they had to rely on a huge platform.
Therefore, they agreed to cooperate with the Forty Thieves. The Forty Thieves unified their express delivery routes and created a temporary express tracking webpage, which they provided to their affiliated merchants to quickly find small courier companies that supported their seller cities. xxsYi Er
The fees for these courier companies were reduced by 20% compared to normal prices, and the Forty Thieves also subsidized 10% of the express delivery fee for each package, ultimately successfully bringing the express delivery costs to the same level as Jiangnan Express.
Through this matter, it must be admitted that Old Ma Ge and his team were exceptionally capable. After all, integrating dozens of courier companies nationwide to serve them would be impossible without excellent execution capabilities.
However, no matter how strong the Forty Thieves team was, they were powerless in the face of the current chaos in the express delivery industry.
Because there wasn't yet a vast logistics network connecting all courier companies like in later years, where a single tracking number could show the current location of every package, and all movement information could be updated in real-time.
Currently, with express delivery, as long as the merchant handed the package to the courier company, no one could figure out what happened until the user received the package.
In fact, even the courier companies themselves were unclear, as they didn't have a system for registering and recording package information. They mostly sorted packages in warehouses and then uniformly loaded them into dark trucks.
After rounds of sorting, they would only know the details of a package when it started to be delivered.
With the entire express delivery process being so chaotic, cases of lost, damaged, or swapped packages were naturally impossible to eliminate.
No, forget about eliminating them, it was impossible even to suppress them.
Getting back to the point.
When Jin Yuanying heard that Old Ma Ge wanted to stop subsidies for a certain courier company, she was terrified and immediately stopped him, "Boss, absolutely not! Otherwise, our express delivery network will collapse instantly!"
"What nonsense are you talking about? I'm just dealing with one courier company to kill the chicken and scare the monkeys. How could that cause the entire network to collapse?" Old Ma Ge said dismissively.
"No, you don't understand. All the courier companies are being pushed to their limits. We have generated a total of 160 million express deliveries so far, but less than a fraction of them, only 20 million, have entered the logistics status. The remaining 140 million are all stuck with the courier companies and various merchants."
"Just an hour ago, about 70% of the courier companies notified us almost simultaneously that their warehouses could not accept any more express deliveries. Many packages have even overflowed outside and were picked up by passing elderly people. They didn't even dare to chase after them. So, they are now refusing to accept any more express deliveries until they digest the current batch of packages!"
"If you cancel the subsidy for one courier company now, that courier company will likely return all the packages immediately, and our entire logistics system will be completely chaotic!" Jin Yuanying said.
"What?" Old Ma Ge stumbled, almost falling to the ground, and then sternly questioned, "Such important matters? Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"I only found out recently. At first, even though the courier companies were about to burst their warehouses, they didn't dare to tell us, because they were afraid we would hand over these packages to other courier companies, and they wouldn't make money."
"Many courier companies temporarily rented a few dilapidated factory buildings just to store the received packages, planning to muddle through the situation first."
"But unexpectedly, after we handed over so many complaints to them yesterday, they probably got scared too, so they rushed to refuse to accept packages to avoid more problems, and then we learned about the current situation!" Jin Yuanying said with a wry smile.
"Quickly go and invite Boss Huang!" Old Ma Ge struggled to say!
Huh, this line sounds familiar.