Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

"Hu Li, you’re in charge of womenswear. Xu Kun, you’re on menswear. You have to try on all the clothes to see how they actually look. If you’re in operations and don’t understand the product, how are you any different from a chef who can’t cook?"

On the second floor of the Innovation Park on a Saturday, dozens of people were seated, just like any other day. The Meiters brand event was about to go live, and everyone was in the midst of frantic preparations.

Chen Yansen stood at the door of Room 206 and shouted to the room next door.

"You got it, Brother Sen! Should we cut open the down jackets to see if they’ve faked the type of down?" Xu Kun asked in all seriousness, holding up a men’s vest.

’Damn, he takes his work this seriously?’

Chen Yansen was taken aback. He gave Xu Kun a second look, thought for a moment, and replied, "There’s a seamstress over by the West Gate. Go ask her to come over. She can inspect the material without ruining the whole garment."

Xu Kun had a point. It was possible the supplier might pass off black duck down as white duck down, or white duck down as white goose down. If a real problem emerged, it would damage the user experience on FoxTao.

"Okay, I’ll go as soon as I finish sorting this batch of samples," Xu Kun replied with a nod.

In the empty space outside the door, four waist-high packages were piled up—all samples sent by Meiters. The dozens of scattered items completely blocked the entrance to Room 208.

Chen Yansen grunted in acknowledgment, turned back to his seat, and called out to Wang Zihao, "The A, B, and C creative sets—have you decided which one to use?"

"Brother Sen, let’s go with set B," Wang Zihao said, holding his laptop and pointing at the data on the ad platform dashboard. "It has the highest click-through and conversion rates. The ad spend is a little higher, but if you calculate the ROI, it’s definitely the most cost-effective set."

"Fine, set B it is! If our Daily Active Users don’t break one million on the 28th, I’m docking your bonus," Chen Yansen threatened without mercy.

"Relax! The ’Zero-Cost Slash’ feature added products in four new categories these past few days, and daily new user acquisition has already hit 500,000. I guarantee I’ll get you the remaining 500,000," Wang Zihao said, full of confidence.

In recent days, as Chen Yansen’s interview video went viral, it brought a significant number of organic users to FoxTao. With the existing customer base already surpassing the 200,000 mark, and after excluding growth from user referrals, Wang Zihao’s pressure was greatly reduced. With a budget in the millions, how could he possibly fail to attract users?

Chen Yansen gave a slight nod and beckoned to Meng Xibo. "Bo Bo, how’s the order system working? Are there any bugs affecting efficiency during exports and imports? If so, find Zhuang Rui and have him fix it immediately."

"There are indeed a few glitches, probably caused by spreadsheet incompatibility. I’ve already talked to Brother Rui, and he’ll have the problem solved by tomorrow," Meng Xibo replied as he stood up.

"Good, thanks for your hard work," Chen Yansen replied casually.

The number of participants in the ’Zero-Cost Slash’ feature was growing daily, and so was the number of successful orders, which had risen from a few hundred a day at the beginning to over 4,000.

Even though most of the successfully bargained items were low-value goods like tissues, milk, and cooking oil, the daily cost was already approaching 150,000 yuan.

The task of exporting and importing orders had been transferred from the operations team to customer service. Fortunately, the order system had been launched just in time; otherwise, even hiring ten more customer service reps wouldn’t have been enough—they’d all have been worked to the point of collapse.

Having finished the work at hand, Chen Yansen leaned back in his chair to rest. He wasn’t joking with Min Jie; he really was going to deliver a million users. His goal was to make the ’Brand Event’ concept a massive, instant success.

He wanted other brand owners and distributors to be green with envy. Only then could he expand FoxTao’s network of merchants and even its supply chain resources.

Across from him, Song Yuncheng lowered her head, able to see only Chen Yansen’s profile. His angular jaw was covered in dark stubble; he had clearly woken up late and forgotten to shave.

She didn’t know when it started, but whenever Song Yuncheng had a free moment, she found herself wanting to sneak a glance at Chen Yansen. Looking at him made her feel annoyed, but not looking left her feeling empty.

After closing his eyes for a brief rest, Chen Yansen sauntered into Cao Dahua’s office. The two of them drank tea and shot the breeze, passing the time in pleasant comfort.

Having spent so much time together recently, their relationship had become like that of a father and son.

Chen Yansen often spoke without regard for their age difference, teasing Cao Dahua as if he were scolding his own son. But Cao Dahua didn’t mind. On the contrary, he found Chen Yansen to be unconventional, mature, and steady.

If he weren’t more than twenty years older than Chen Yansen, he would have genuinely wanted to acknowledge him as a brother from another mother.

"Old Cao, you’ve got a great job. Just drinking tea and slacking off every day, living like a god," Chen Yansen teased with a smile, taking a sip of his tea.

"Haha, you’re jealous, aren’t you, kid! When it comes to money, having enough is all that matters. Those billionaires don’t live as comfortably as I do. Getting to see these young, beautiful college students every day, I’ll live to be ninety-nine at least."

With the door closed, Cao Dahua dropped his teacherly airs, put an arm around Chen Yansen’s shoulder, and spoke with a hearty laugh.

One was hardly a model teacher, and the other was hardly a model student, but they got along exceptionally well.

"Meiters sent over a batch of samples. You should go up later and pick out a few things for our niece," Chen Yansen suggested.

"You rascal! My daughter is a year older than you, and you really want to be her uncle?" Cao Dahua feigned a stern expression, scolding him with a laugh.

"Hey, Old Cao, that hurts. Aren’t we friends who’ve transcended age? Why can’t your daughter be my niece? Don’t tell me you want to throw the rules out the window, where I call you Brother, and your daughter has to call me Little Brother?"

Chen Yansen continued to joke, crossing his legs and sipping his tea.

"I give up on you! I’ll go take a look later." Cao Dahua burst out laughing, agreeing with a helpless shrug. He was, at least, accepting the kind gesture.

Chen Yansen smiled. ’Human relationships are all about give and take. If you offer up enough small, inexpensive favors, you might just get a pleasant surprise one day.’

He lifted his wrist to check the time. There were only ten minutes left. He had a movie date with Meng Jie this afternoon. He immediately got up to leave.

On his way out, he also swiped a box of Zhan’s Peach Cookies from Cao Dahua’s desk.

’He didn’t like them, but Meng Jie did.’

Cao Dahua scoffed at Chen Yansen’s retreating back, cursing inwardly, ’This kid! He just helps himself to my food and drinks and walks right out.’

If it had been any other student, he would have surely given them a stern talking-to, but when it came to Chen Yansen, he couldn’t find a single thing to dislike.

’He’s a lot like I was when I was young,’ Cao Dahua sighed softly, adding leisurely, ’Though in the looks department, he’s still a little bit behind what I was back in the day.’

「Five days later.」

When FoxTao users logged onto the site, they discovered a new activity banner above the product feed on the homepage: ’Meiters 11.28 Brand Sale Day.’ Its red and yellow color scheme was particularly eye-catching.

Users who clicked into the event page were stunned.

’Their first reaction was that the platform must have set the prices and cashback ratios incorrectly!’

A short-sleeved T-shirt, selling for 79 yuan, with 71.1 yuan in cashback, for a final price of just 7.9 yuan! Limited to 2,000 pieces!

A fleece-lined sweatshirt, selling for 159 yuan, with 143.1 yuan in cashback, for a final price of 15.9 yuan! Limited to 1,000 pieces!

A down jacket, selling for 299 yuan, with 269.1 yuan in cashback, for a final price of 29.9 yuan! Limited to 1,000 pieces!

The discounts on the items in the second row of the event page couldn’t compare to the doorbusters above, but a 99-yuan shirt still had a final price of only 49 yuan.

Further down, the page was divided into a dozen more sections by secondary categories like jackets, T-shirts, sweaters, casual pants, jeans, cotton-padded jackets, and down jackets. Each section featured 20 products hand-picked by the operations team.

On the far right of these sections, there was a hyperlink that led to a secondary event page where users could browse and select even more products.

As they scrolled all the way down, they saw that the final price for everything was half off!

In first and second-tier cities, Meiters was no longer a mainstream fast-fashion brand, but that didn’t affect its status in third-tier and smaller cities at all.

Furthermore, boosted by the hit drama *Let’s Go Watch The Meteor Shower*, many people still considered Meiters a major clothing brand.

Now, FoxTao had partnered with the Meiters brand for a special event with discounts ranging from 50% to as high as 90% off, which instantly shattered the users’ perception of value.

In their eyes, these prices were practically a giveaway!

"Damn! Why can’t I buy anything?!" In a small inland town, Li Wei, who ran a Taobao proxy-buying service, was frantically clicking his mouse, only to find that the links wouldn’t open at all.

After fumbling around for a good while, he finally noticed the countdown timer on the main product images.

"Holy shit! The sale doesn’t start until Sunday. I wonder if I’ll be able to grab anything then? This is too good a money-making opportunity to miss."

Li Wei’s eyes darted around for a moment, and an idea immediately struck him.

He took a screenshot of the FoxTao event page, then edited the cashback amount and final price. The products that were originally half-price became 40% off after his edits.

Once he finished editing, he rushed to a print shop and instructed the owner to enlarge the image tenfold. He planned to post it at the entrance of his own shop.

"Whoa! Boss Li, what’s this event? The clothes are pretty cheap. Meiters is a big brand, you know. At 40% off, these can’t be fakes, can they?"

The print shop owner asked familiarly, offering him a cigarette.

Li Wei wasn’t about to reveal his money-making secrets. He accepted the cigarette with a grin and said, "It’s the official Meiters flagship store. Would they be selling fakes? If they did, who would they sell the genuine articles to?"

"Oh! That’s great! My son loves this brand. Boss Li, can you buy a few items for me?" Hearing this, the print shop owner was instantly reassured.

"Sure thing. Since we know each other so well, I won’t even charge you a proxy fee," Li Wei said, feigning generosity.

"Thanks a lot, Boss Li. I’ll give you a little discount in a bit," the print shop owner replied with a satisfied smile.

Little did he know that for every 100 yuan of clothing he bought, Li Wei would make a ten percent cut. Naturally, Li Wei couldn’t be bothered with a few yuan for a proxy fee.

Unscrupulous resellers like Li Wei were already rubbing their hands together before the event even started, preparing to make a killing.

And online, there was no shortage of clever scalpers who planned to buy the clothes not to wear, but to list them on resale sites to make a profit.

Of course, regular users were still the core of FoxTao’s customer base.

Seeing such a generous brand event, their subconscious perception of FoxTao’s positioning instantly improved.

After all, if users were always buying items priced from 9.9 to 19.9 yuan on the platform, they would start to feel the site wasn’t very high-class. In the future, when they wanted to buy things like cosmetics or home appliances, they wouldn’t even think of coming here.

But if the platform elevated the caliber of its products, showing users high-quality goods from major brands, their trust in the platform would increase rapidly.

This was Chen Yansen’s transformation strategy.

Running a low-end shopping guide site was pointless; it had a very low ceiling. Only by having its own merchant resources and a distinct brand identity could FoxTao become a true e-commerce product.

「Two days passed in a flash.」

At 10 a.m. on the 28th, the three doorbuster items were completely sold out in just three minutes.

"Hu Li, release tomorrow’s 10 a.m. doorbusters. Keep attracting users," Chen Yansen instructed, leaning against his desk and addressing Hu Li.

"Brother Sen, it’s been ten minutes. The order count is 8,743. Excluding the 4,000 limited-quantity doorbusters, the rest are all regular items at 50% off," Hu Yun promptly reported.

"Buyers these days are so easy to fool... no, I should say they’re naive."

Chen Yansen was slightly taken aback, then a smile spread across his face.

More than a decade from now, for a brand like Meiters, a 50% discount would just be the normal selling price. It would take discounts of 70% or 80% off to even have a chance at moving customers.

Meanwhile, Min Jie and his operations team were also glued to their computers, the DING DONG—DING DONG— of order notifications ringing incessantly in their ears.

"President Min, as of 11 a.m., we have a total of 26,137 orders from FoxTao! Total sales volume is 3,607,000 yuan!" an operations team member shouted, staring at the backend.

"He actually did it? 3.6 million in one hour... At this rate, we’ll sell 20 million in a single day!"

Min Jie was dumbfounded, muttering to himself in disbelief.

During Taobao’s Singles’ Day sale, Meiters’ total store sales were only 750,000 yuan, not even ranking in the top ten for clothing brands.

"Make sure the product SKUs and inventory levels are set correctly! If we’re running low, restock immediately!"

Min Jie excitedly pulled out his phone to call Chen Yansen, not forgetting to give instructions to his operations team at the same time.