With two months remaining until the official launch of China's vacuum high-speed maglev pipeline train, the immediate impact of this event could not be directly reflected on the pipeline train service.
Of course, this statement isn't entirely accurate. The pipeline train section from Nanning to Guangzhou, which had already been opened, saw an explosive surge in passenger traffic the day after the event concluded, more than tripling its usual numbers and reaching full capacity for the entire line. Many people even flew in from distant locations to Guangzhou, just to experience the incredible journey from Guangzhou to Nanning, which took less than 30 minutes for a round trip.
It's believed that once the entire line is officially operational, the results will be even more impressive.
On the other hand, the effects of this event were truly palpable for "E Bu Pa" (饿不怕). The day after the news broke, Zhao Yao, the Chairman and CEO of E Bu Pa, discovered that the entire company headquarters was in a state of fervent excitement, as the company was breaking its historical data records every minute.
In its previous five years of operation, E Bu Pa's peak daily order volume was in August 2013.
On that day, E Bu Pa reached its apex, with a total of 1.63 million food delivery orders placed in a single day, and the company's daily sales commission reaching 5.2 million yuan. E Bu Pa earned over 120 million yuan in sales revenue that month, with its annual sales revenue exceeding 1 billion yuan.
Although E Bu Pa tried its best to keep this data confidential, countless eyes across the country were watching. Therefore, the sales data was leaked by interested parties.
The direct result was that in 2014, over a thousand food delivery apps were launched nationwide, and hundreds of capital investors flocked into the food delivery industry, all eager to strike gold.
Consequently, E Bu Pa's performance began to decline. The highest record in 2014 was only 1.12 million orders.
By 2015, E Bu Pa's highest daily performance so far had not even broken one million orders, with only 860,000 orders.
The current leader was "Dida Waimai" (滴答外卖), which launched last year but received investment from three foreign capital firms. In March of this year, Dida Waimai proudly announced that its highest daily order volume had reached 9.2 million orders, more than seven times the peak performance of E Bu Pa in its prime.
The second-ranked food delivery platform also had a highest daily order volume of 8.8 million orders. Therefore, with a highest daily order volume of only 860,000 orders, E Bu Pa, although nominally still the third-ranked food delivery platform in China, had practically lost all presence in the industry.
Some might wonder why the gap between the second and third positions is so vast. This is because in the latter half of 2004, E Bu Pa once fell to ninth place in the industry, narrowly avoiding dropping out of the top ten.
This happened because at the time, over a dozen food delivery platforms were engaged in a fierce subsidy war, with platforms subsidizing 6 to 20 yuan for almost every order placed by a customer. E Bu Pa, which refused to participate in subsidies, naturally couldn't acquire new users and could only watch its existing users leave, making its drop out of the top ten unsurprising.
As of now, out of the ten platforms that were heavily subsidizing, six have burned through all their funds and gone bankrupt, while two others have ceased their subsidy activities.
However, as soon as their subsidies ended, users flocked to other platforms that were still offering subsidies. As a result, the daily order volume of these two platforms plummeted, leading to their closure and bankruptcy within the last one or two months.
The remaining two platforms that are still offering subsidies are now the first and second ranked. This has also led to the commercial miracle of nearly ten million daily orders for both.
However, this commercial miracle is built upon the staggering cost of subsidizing 100 million yuan daily, burning through over 3 billion yuan a month.
Therefore, according to industry professionals, the two platforms will either continue this subsidy war until one runs out of funds, leaving the other to dominate the market.
Or, they will reach a cooperation agreement, simultaneously cease subsidies, and jointly divide the food delivery market.
In any case, in the eyes of these professionals, the future of the food delivery market belongs only to the first and second ranked platforms. E Bu Pa, the former leader now ranked third, is doomed.
If no external forces intervene, such predictions are generally accurate in history.
After all, historically, only Ele.me and Meituan survived, and they both stopped their food delivery subsidies, eventually competing for the market through their respective operational strategies.
However, an unexpected event occurred. After the top two food delivery platforms collectively refused the cooperation invitation from China High-Speed Rail Development Company, E Bu Pa accepted this event.
Initially, these two food delivery platforms planned to watch E Bu Pa fail. After all, accurately delivering nearly 400,000 orders within two hours across over sixty cities was a task that even platforms with nearly 100,000 riders could not accomplish. They absolutely did not believe that E Bu Pa, a platform with less than one-tenth of their performance, could achieve it.
However, the facts proved that they underestimated the superiority of E Bu Pa's unique employee system. Led by Zhao Yao himself, they managed to complete this near-impossible task perfectly, with almost no errors.
During an interview that evening, Chairman Yan of China High-Speed Rail Development Company personally admitted to reporters from "Xingwen Lianbo" (xw联播) that E Bu Pa had performed excellently in this event. Out of a total of 379,232 orders, only 1,632 orders could not be delivered due to temporary closures of catering establishments.
Among the remaining orders, only 13 experienced delayed delivery or errors. The remaining 377,587 orders were delivered without any issues, all reaching the stations on time and completing their tasks.
Concurrently, this world-shaking event, along with related news, flooded the entire nation.
After all, China High-Speed Rail Development Company is a state-owned enterprise, and the "Wan Li Jia Yan" (万里家宴) event, due to its high humanistic care, demonstration of its system's superiority, and the nation's rapid development, received full and strong support. Almost all official media outlets reported extensively on this news, and some private media followed suit, also reporting extensively from the perspective of the official media.
Within a single day, over 120,000 related text and video reports were produced, and these reports invariably included the name of E Bu Pa.
The result was a comprehensive surge in orders for E Bu Pa the next day.
By 9 AM that day, during breakfast delivery alone, E Bu Pa had already surpassed its historical best performance, with a daily order volume reaching 1.7 million.
By 2 PM, after lunch delivery concluded, the daily order volume had exceeded 4.8 million.
Finally, by 12 AM, E Bu Pa had refreshed its historical record to 6.42 million orders.
As a consequence, everyone at E Bu Pa, from Zhao Yao himself to the grassroots riders, was exhausted. After all, for E Bu Pa, which normally handled around 500,000 orders a day, this order volume was a 13-fold increase. If Zhao Yao had not anticipated the surge in orders and preemptively warned the riders, and if he hadn't recruited four times the number of riders a month in advance, bringing the total number of riders to over 20,000, E Bu Pa would not have been able to handle this influx of orders.
That evening, E Bu Pa excitedly announced this glorious achievement to the public, astonishing everyone in the food delivery industry. What was expected to be a battle between two giants had seen E Bu Pa miraculously turn the tide. Was the food delivery industry about to enter a "Three Kingdoms" era?
However, unexpectedly, the top two food delivery platforms did not show much vigilance towards this development; in fact, their overall attitude was quite relaxed.
According to the Chairman of the top-ranked Dida Waimai, this was merely a temporary marketing effect.
He believed that short-term viral marketing events had led to a significant increase in their competitor's performance. But such viral marketing events were unsustainable and would fade away as the hype dissipated.
He argued that no matter how high the current news hype was, it would likely disappear within one to two months.
He pointed to the example of "Pangu Homeland" (盘古家园) two months prior, which had generated unprecedented hype, almost breaking all social platform records. Yet, two months later, no one cared about it anymore.
He maintained that what truly attracted and retained customers was subsidies. As long as their platform's per-order subsidies remained, users who were drawn to their competitor's platform by temporary hype would obediently return.
He questioned if customers who had grown accustomed to paying one yuan for braised pork would be willing to spend 20 yuan for the same dish.
A similar sentiment was echoed by the second-ranked platform. They largely dismissed the suddenly rising E Bu Pa. Furthermore, upon learning through an insider that E Bu Pa had recruited four times its usual staff in preparation for this event, increasing its rider count from over 4,000 to 20,000, the bosses of these platforms became even more excited, declaring that E Bu Pa was finished.
They reasoned that E Bu Pa riders had to be provided with social security and a basic monthly salary. Once the order volume declined, these riders would become a drain on E Bu Pa's finances, bleeding the company dry.
They believed this was merely a fleeting phenomenon!
Moreover, it was rumored that the bosses of the two companies, under the direction of their respective investors, had begun holding secret meetings.
These meetings had already occurred several times, and each time they ended without agreement. However, the opinions and attitudes of both sides were gradually converging, making cooperation and mutual benefit almost inevitable for the development of both companies.