Chapter 284 The war of the previous generation continues to the present (6.2K)
“The current Hornbill will eventually have to transfer a layer in the middle.
It still needs to rely on companies like Pinduoduo, Taobao, and Meili
It is most likely that these manufacturers will find various reasons to refuse Hornbill to directly call their services. What comes to mind is data security." After Oraz finished speaking, he glanced at Mark. This was also raised by the foreign employees of Alpha Technology.
As a Malaysian company, Chinese people are undoubtedly foreign employees.
So Oraz knows very well that Tencent itself is a veteran in doing this kind of thing, and the other party will definitely understand what he means.
"Yes, this will be a very big problem.
You mean that we directly connect with the merchants and let them become Hornbill's suppliers?" Mark nodded frequently, yes, Why do we need platforms like Taobao, Pinduoduo, and Meituan? Wouldn't it be better to kill them directly and let Hornbill serve as the bridge between consumers and manufacturers?
“This can not only get rid of the possible risks of the platform, but also reduce the platform’s expenses.
This part of the cost can be turned into our profit. "Mark continued.
Any platform has a service fee. Generally, it will be charged according to your sales. Taking Tmall Mall under Taobao as an example, in addition to the annual fee, there is also a service fee. The software service fee is paid according to the proportion of sales (excluding shipping costs). This service fee will be charged according to the type of goods sold, ranging from 0.5% to 10%. Service fees and some advertising and marketing fees are even higher.
Other platforms also charge similar fees.
So in Mark's eyes, going through these platforms is harmful but useless.
“Yes, part of this fee will become our cost, and then we can transfer part of the profit to consumers.
Through Hornbill, we can definitely provide better services and lower prices,” Oraz said.
Mark remembered a classic joke from Warcraft: So what’s the price?
The price is naturally the loss of the pleasure of consumption.
But for some people it is fun, for others it is pain, and the latter are their best target customers.
“So we need Tencent to help us do this. In the early days, only China has such a huge merchants that can provide such a huge range of consumer goods.
China needs goods from Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia also needs products from China.
I will also negotiate with Microsoft soon. The next generation of Hornbill will be promoted globally at the same time. We need a large number of products as a source of goods.
Traditional. The online shopping platform is likely to react within a week and prohibit Hornbill from directly helping users place orders
Although users can authorize Hornbill, traditional online shopping platforms can technically block Hornbill.
Or add a face recognition process before payment, claiming that this is to distinguish whether the shopping behavior is done by humans or AI.
So on the product side, we need Tencent’s help. ”
As representatives of both parties, Mark and Oraz had a pleasant conversation. Mark accepted almost all of Alpha Technology’s demands.
He keenly sensed the opportunity and helped China. Opportunities for goods to go overseas
China's foreign trade industry has been gradually losing the American market in the past few years. This trend has been particularly obvious in recent years.
Products from China can be bought in places like Southeast Asia and Mexico, pretending that they are not produced in China, but it is useless.
Because the new White House’s increase in tariffs is a global indiscriminate attack, even Mexican goods entering Amerikan have been subject to additional tariffs.
For categories of goods that Mexico obviously does not have the ability to manufacture and can only purchase from China, they are particularly targeted by Amerikan’s tariff weapon.
Europe is also protecting its own industries. In the field of photovoltaic industry, Europe has to choose Chinese products.
Meyer Burger, the largest photovoltaic manufacturer in Europe and the Swiss photovoltaic manufacturer, has been defeated by Chinese companies. It has successively closed all its factories in Germany and retracted its front lines back to Switzerland.
Had it not been for the subsidies provided by Switzerland, it would have gone bankrupt long ago.
China's new energy vehicles are also squeezing the European automobile manufacturing market globally. Everyone wants to survive, and Europe has to adopt a more aggressive local trade protection strategy for other products.
In the past two years, China's foreign trade has shown an extremely unique structural trend.
Photovoltaics, new energy vehicles, and chips are selling very well, while others are shrinking sharply.
Mark sensed an opportunity and used Hornbill to help Chinese goods increase their export share.
Tariffs have increased, but China’s products are still competitive on a global scale.
What’s more important is the brand. Some international brands rely on Chinese OEMs. They can sell them at high prices by putting their logos on them, and the brands make all the money.
In a sense, Hornbill can kill brands.
For example, the fabric supplier of many outdoor brands is Jialinjie, a listed company in China. They also made a brand called Geoscientist, but they did not take off.
Ordinary users don’t have the energy or thought to identify alternatives to the brands they often wear. This kind of thing is no problem for Hornbill. Brand clothing that originally cost 500 yuan can be purchased directly from the manufacturer through Hornbill for only 100 yuan. Even with 100% tariff, the price is only 200 yuan.
Mark even thought that if Hornbill becomes popular around the world, the concept of the brand is likely to be completely eliminated.
In the future, only luxury brands may be able to survive, and they must be high-end luxury brands. Some entry-level brands may not even be able to survive.
Mark smelled the smell of change. This is undoubtedly an opportunity for China to help China's manufacturing industry go overseas. For Tencent, profit is second, prove its own existence value, and create tz value in the present It is the most important thing for China.
With just a quick thought in Mark's mind, he decided to promote this as Tencent's most important project, which would require mobilizing all Tencent's resources.
Tencent is aggressively recruiting local promotion specialists, and they still sign contracts directly with Tencent headquarters, not with third-party outsourcing companies controlled by Tencent.
This news quickly aroused widespread discussion on Maimai.
You must know that Tencent is the giant that likes to use outsourcing in BAT. In recent years, even more so, even for school recruiters, many contract with third parties.
Another giant that likes to use outsourcing to become famous should be Huawei. In the early years, there was even a saying on Maimai that dogs would not go to outsourcing.
Of course, later on, everyone found that outsourcing was still being done. 985/211 went to do a lot of outsourcing, and the theory of instant computer collapse became rampant again.
"What is Tencent trying to do? After seeing Douyin's success in local life, now you want to start doing local life?"
"But I haven't seen any big moves from Tencent. Could it be that I want to rely on WeChat?" To engage in local life? But if Tencent doesn’t engage in local life, it will be like giving up this market to Douyin. It’s a pity.” Which big boss suddenly had the idea to compete with Byte in this field? "
"It is definitely with the consent of Xiao Ma that Tencent can recruit people through the headquarters, not by him. , Tencent cannot release so many positions at once.”
“This is a good thing. The Internet has been a stagnant water for so many years, and the biggest innovations in recent years have been made by a Malaysian company. Good thing.”
“Why do I feel that when giants fight, Meituan and Dianping suffer?”
“It’s not that easy. Can an old giant like Tencent really beat Byte? I’m afraid even Meituan can’t beat it. , you didn’t look at what happened to Yuanmeng Star, you spent so many resources, but it didn’t even make a splash. The Internet is no longer what it was ten years ago.
When Teacher Ma comes back, it’s not like that. I haven’t seen any improvement in Alibaba, otherwise Pinduoduo and Douyin Shopping will continue to squeeze out market share.
Essentially, their organizational structure is too old, and it will be difficult for them to lead the next wave of innovation. "
There was a lot of cynicism, and most of them were unfavorable voices.
"Isn't this funny? When the video account started to improve, we didn't engage in local push Tiejun, and all local pushers were outsourced.
Alibaba has Alibaba Tiejun, Meituan has Meituan Ditui, but when it comes to Tencent, I want to When engaging in online shopping, I was timid and had extremely limited resources to bring goods to the video account, so I completely missed the point in time when it was possible to compete with Byte.
Now Byte has taken over local life. Your online shopping and product sales have become bigger, and your video account has been played to death. If you want to vigorously promote online shopping and local life, isn’t this an inappropriate thing to do at an inappropriate time?”
According to Hexun Business, Tencent will focus on two businesses in 2024: video accounts and overseas gaming.
The video account carries Tencent’s new e-commerce dream. Although the old dream has been shattered several times in the torrent of history, today when Douyin and Kuaishou e-commerce are so popular, Tencent finally cannot sit still.
At the beginning of 2024, Tencent was promoting video accounts to bring products. They adjusted the threshold for video accounts to almost nothing: there is no limit on the number of followers for merchants to bring goods, and the threshold for individual users to bring goods for live broadcasts was adjusted from 1,000 fans. for 100 fans.
Tencent tried to use the WeChat ecosystem to directly attack Douyin's sales. However, the reality is cruel. The data of the video account's sales is not even a quarter of that of Xiaohongshu's live broadcast, let alone Tik Tok.
Such a reality has caused the video account to gradually become a marginalized business, just like Tencent's Paipai.com in the past. Although it will be mentioned internally from time to time, no executive will make up his mind to invest heavily. Trying to bring this business back to life.
“I can only say that everyone should wait. This time Tencent is serious about e-commerce and local life. In Tencent’s internal meeting, it was set as the highest strategy for the entire group in the next five years. Pony is in charge, Mark is responsible for the specific execution, and Tencent’s top two figures are all personally involved. For Tencent, it is already a project comparable to Xiaomi Leijun’s car-making project. Naturally, there are also internal employees of Goose Factory who came out to reveal the news on Maimai. .
"Brother Xiao Ma paid special attention this time and mobilized a lot of resources. Yuanmeng Star only used the resources of the game-related business groups. This time, the resources of all business groups must be mobilized to make way for this project. This time Tencent The e-commerce field is about to get serious.”
There has been a lot of discussion on Maimai about Tencent’s personal end in the e-commerce field, and the media has naturally noticed it, especially the financial media.
To be honest, in the past few years, the Internet industry in China has been developing towards the American Internet industry, which is a stagnant water.
3Q war, WeChat vs. MiLiao, taxi-hailing war, Byte and Tencent blocking each other, etc. In the past, business wars in the Internet industry have become hot topics on the Internet every year, and the final winner will get to win. As a bonus from the business war, self-media and netizens can also get a lot of talking points from it.
However, after 19 years, the Internet business war can no longer become a hot topic of public opinion.
This time Tencent personally decided to engage in e-commerce, and the media smelled the Internet business wars of previous years.
"[Alibaba’s Hong Kong stock price plummeted by more than 7%, Tencent responded by personally stepping down to enter the e-commerce business] Alibaba’s stock price continued to fall in the afternoon, and the decline has now expanded to 7%. Recent market news said that Tencent plans to expand its investment in e-commerce In response to this, Tencent responded that it would not comment. "
Tencent did not respond, but Tencent’s public actions indicate that they are indeed going to end it personally.
What’s amazing is that the stock prices of Pinduoduo and JD.com did not fall, only Alibaba’s stock price fell sharply.
Obviously the capital market believes that Tencent cannot seize the market share of Pinduoduo if it is an e-commerce company. They can only seize the business of A, one of the remnants of the old era and BAT.
Even the capital market does not believe that Tencent can seize JD.com’s business.
“Changes in the overall environment have forced Tencent to choose to be an e-commerce company. This is not only for Tencent’s own consideration, but also for the current situation of the private economy in China as a whole. Tencent’s e-commerce business has a negative impact on all private enterprises. It will all be a good thing.”
Pony Ma’s remarks in an entrepreneur group were exposed. Although Tencent still refused to comment, a well-known entrepreneur in the group came forward and said this. It's true.
In a sense, not refuting the rumors is a sideways answer.
For a time, the Chinese Internet began to become restless.
Because China’s Internet has developed too fast and the changes have been too drastic. From the earliest Shanda, Sohu, and Sina to the later Baidu, Tencent, and Alibaba, and then to Weibo, Douyin, Bilibili, etc. in the mobile Internet era, China’s Internet giants One crop after another pops up.
Let’s take a look at America, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. They have dominated the market for twenty years, and no company of this level has been born again.
Internet competition in China is much more intense.
This has also led to netizens feeling as if the war of the previous generation has continued into this generation when they see that Tencent is going to end its e-commerce business.
“Tencent will end its e-commerce business. Why do I feel that this was news ten years ago?”
"I just want to know where Tencent got the courage. Facing Pinduoduo and Douyin, Taobao can't keep its market share. Why does Tencent think it can get a share of this market?"
Of course. Chinese netizens will not be lonely for long, because Microsoft, the old rival of Laos and China, the traditional technology giant of Laos and the United States, has also announced that it will end its e-commerce business.
This is when Chinese netizens realized something was wrong. Microsoft and Tencent, two laymen who had never proven themselves in the field of e-commerce before, chose to start e-commerce at this point in time. It was obvious that they had external forces. exist.
Soon the self-media dug up the BBC’s report on Alpha Technology. The report was long and informative, but most of it was ignored by the Chinese media.
China does not like an obviously decentralized organizational structure like Alpha Technology.
Opposition to cryptocurrencies and apparently similar attitudes to decentralized organizations.
Not to mention remote working from home, no fixed working hours, and companies only set work tasks and do not interfere with what you do. This kind of content is inconsistent with China’s national conditions and will cause dissatisfaction among Chinese netizens. , the Chinese media even consciously ignored it.
“According to the BBC report, artificial intelligence giant Alpha Technology will enter the e-commerce field. Alpha Technology employees interviewed said that their products will subvert the traditional online shopping form.”
That’s it. Obviously, this is all information on the surface. As the biggest beneficiaries after Hornbill was banned globally, Microsoft and Tencent took a large amount of search engine market share.
This also means that Alpha Technology’s cooperation with Microsoft and Tencent is very close.
Alpha wants to do e-commerce, and Microsoft and Tencent are also following suit. The e-commerce efforts of the latter two are most likely based on the technological breakthroughs achieved by Alpha.
Netizens finally understand where Tencent’s confidence lies. With Alpha’s blessing, Tencent is very likely to achieve results.
“Laxative, I very much agree with the current speculation on the market. It is obvious that Alpha has achieved technological breakthroughs related to e-commerce in the field of artificial intelligence. However, they are limited by the fact that they are only a company in Malaysia and want to enter The two largest markets, China and America, cannot avoid cooperating with local giants.
Based on the good cooperative relationship in the past, it is reasonable for Alpha Technology to choose Tencent and Microsoft to cooperate. < br>
I have suspected there is some conspiracy behind this before. Old people like Tencent are unwilling to invest heavily in video accounts and products. They are just routine actions. I didn’t see them when Paipai still had some buzz. How much resources should be invested in it?
This time, the headquarters directly recruited the local promotion team, and Xiao Ma personally came out to shout out the news. The internal group chat would not have released the news unless Xiao Ma agreed.
So guys like Tencent, who don’t let go of the rabbit before they see the rabbit, obviously have some chips that can impress them, so they choose to follow up with the chips in their hands.
Now it is clear that if Alpha can subvert the search engine industry, then they can subvert the e-commerce industry. Tencent and Microsoft have obviously experienced it, so they are determined to follow Alpha Technology. Do it together.
I just don’t know what kind of bargaining chip Alpha Technology brings to make Tencent and Microsoft think they can overthrow the dominance of Alibaba and Amazon.
In addition to those discussed in the self-media, I also observed a very interesting phenomenon, that is, Tencent is quietly selling off the stocks of JD.com and Pinduoduo.
This is enough to illustrate Tencent’s confidence. In addition to selling these two companies, they are also reducing their holdings in Meituan.
So I seriously suspect that Tencent is not just doing e-commerce business, they are also extending their tentacles into Meituan’s business model, which is local life.
This is an all-round attack on Douyin. In short, there is a good show this year. "
"This reminds me of the golden age of the Internet, when people from all walks of life were fighting each other. At that time, I still had eight-pack abs, but now I only have a belly.
No matter where Tencent’s confidence comes from, I am very happy to see that some companies and entrepreneurs still have the spirit of innovation. A fight is a good thing for the industry, consumers, and merchants.
It is obviously impossible for Tencent to take the same route as Pinduoduo. There is no need to take that route, and it is impossible to do better than Pinduoduo.
I think Tencent can only take the high-quality route similar to JD.com and Tmall. This is also consistent with what Pony said in the group. Tencent’s e-commerce will be a good thing for all private enterprises.
The existence of Pinduoduo represents a downgrade of consumption and volume. Enterprises have no profit or even lose money on Pinduoduo. Tencent takes the high-quality route and allows everyone to make money. This is what is said to be a good thing for all private enterprises.
I look forward to seeing the vitality that Tencent brings to the entire market. I am also curious about how Tencent can make users accept the premium strategy in this era of consumption downgrade.
Starbucks is unable to stand in the face of the squeeze from Luckin and Cudi, and Tmall has no power to fight back against Pinduoduo. What trump card does Tencent have that makes them so confident? ”
The above are all answers with more likes on Zhihu.
The Internet in China is full of voices about Tencent’s end of e-commerce.
This is a rare event since the Internet has been silent for so many years.
Many veterans of Ali Tiejun and Meituan’s local promotion team have received poaching calls from headhunters.
“Hello, I’m Kelly, a headhunting consultant responsible for recruiting local promotion specialists. It’s a pleasure to call/meet you.”
I am contacting you because we are working with one of the top companies in the industry and they have a very attractive position that I think your experience and skillset would be a good match”
Zhang Chao hung up the phone without even finishing the call Now, it’s headhunting again.
As a local sales veteran who has worked for Alibaba for more than fifteen years, he has risen from ordinary front-line local sales staff to middle management. Alibaba has not treated them badly in these years, so Zhang Chao He never thought about running away.
After receiving the call from the headhunter, he listened to the familiar opening remarks. At first, he would ask if it was Tencent, and then the other party would brag about Tencent as if a trap had been triggered. , and how promising the future of Tencent e-commerce is.
Zhang Chao also believes that cooperation with Alpha, relying on artificial intelligence that does not know the specific details, is definitely promising.
Tencent's executives are not fools. If there was no prospect, they would not be able to make such a heavy bet.
But the prospect does not mean that he is willing to go. Zhang Chao is very satisfied with his current life and has no thoughts of moving.
Until his old leader came to ask what he meant: "Zhang Chao, do you have any thoughts about moving?"
Yu Jiawei, his former leader, joined Alibaba two thousand years ago A veteran figure, he can be said to be the front-line commander of Ali's Tui Iron Army.
In Alibaba, he worked from front-line promotion to vice president. Alibaba’s B2B team has about 12,000 people, and he managed more than 6,000 people. Then he switched jobs to Meituan to engage in local marketing, and even participated in the most intense 100-group war, leading Meituan to rank first in group buying share.
After leaving Meituan, he switched jobs to Hillhouse Capital and successfully landed.
Compared with investing, local marketing is a hard job. Zhang Chao found it difficult to understand: "Boss, you were also poached by Tencent?"
"You are still as smart as ever. , Yes, I have reached an agreement with Pony, and the onboarding procedures have not been completed yet, but it should be this month.
Tencent is going to launch a big battle this time, and it is in urgent need of manpower. You have it. Are you not interested in joining me and doing something big together?”
(End of Chapter)