"Hmph!" Bezos's expression was somewhat numb, but he managed to restrain himself, coolly retorting, "Does Goldman Sachs always mock its partners like this?"
"I'm merely providing you with some intelligence!" Tucker said with a smile. "So you don't need to think about using technical means to deal with Oriental Amazon anymore, nor should you harbor any illusions about Oriental Amazon. This is no longer your child!"
"Alright, then let me see how Oriental Amazon plans to begin!" Bezos started to explore Oriental Amazon, which had been maintained in a homepage state.
Oriental Amazon's homepage displayed many products, but Bezos paid them no mind. What kind of website homepage would be empty? That would be suicidal. Even if there were only 100 items, the homepage had to be filled.
What truly needed attention was Oriental Amazon's product category list. Seeing how many products were under each category would reveal how many products Oriental Amazon had at its launch.
The moment Bezos saw the category list, his pupils almost widened. It wasn't that the category list was incredibly rich. After all, even one or two products could warrant a category. The key was that Bezos actually saw fresh produce as a major category in the list.
This discovery made Bezos find it incredibly unbelievable. After all, his Amazon had been in operation for a full eight years, and it hadn't managed to develop the fresh produce category!
"Perhaps it's just some easily preserved fruits…" Bezos told himself, trying to convince himself that the fresh produce category was merely a facade.
However, when Bezos actually clicked on the fresh produce category, dozens of different sub-items popped out in succession: fresh fruits, fresh meat, vegetables and fruits, frozen meat, cooked food, eggs and milk, freshly baked bread, and even ice cream and pet fish were listed. Bezos was utterly stunned into numbness.
Bewildered, Bezos clicked on these sub-items and found that they too were filled with a dazzling array of products. The category with the fewest items, aquatic pets, surprisingly had a selection of twenty-six different aquatic pets to choose from.
Not to mention the major categories within other fresh produce, there were hundreds of different products, almost covering all the necessities of life.
"How is this possible? This is absolutely impossible! The current e-commerce and logistics systems simply cannot deliver fresh produce. This is utterly impossible!" Bezos almost choked out these words.
Bezos wasn't speaking without basis. This was based on his own experience, as Amazon had once considered selling fresh produce. This was about a year ago. At that time, Bezos noticed that Amazon's growth rate had slowed, and the monthly order volume had barely increased. Bezos attributed this to market saturation for existing products, so it was only natural to explore new product markets.
And what were these new product markets?
Naturally, they were the fresh produce items that e-commerce couldn't sell before and could only be purchased in supermarkets. These products couldn't withstand extensive shipping times and required additional protection during transit. Most of them also needed refrigerated vehicles for transportation.
Therefore, only a large-scale cold chain system for fresh produce could support the transportation of these items.
However, e-commerce platforms operated on a point-to-point model, meaning from seller to buyer. If you asked a seller to develop cold chain logistics nationwide to transport a maximum of a few hundred orders daily, and also required couriers to deliver products from cold storage to the customer's home as quickly as possible, all while ensuring no damage during transit, then given the current capabilities of courier companies in the United States, this was an impossible task.
Cold chain, express delivery, timeliness, and safety – these factors were all indispensable. At the time, Bezos invested over $200 million to test a set of e-commerce fresh produce systems. In the end, less than 50% of the products could be guaranteed to reach the customer fresh; the rest were damaged during transportation.
What was even more critical was that even if the products were delivered, the associated costs were exorbitant. Amazon's calculations revealed that the shipping cost for even the smallest fresh produce order exceeded $15. Such a shipping price was unacceptable to any e-commerce platform.
After all, buying a whole chicken at a supermarket in the United States cost only about $2. This price was simply unacceptable.
Ultimately, Amazon's product department concluded that unless a company with its own comprehensive cold chain system, coupled with a perfect courier service for every single delivery, emerged, it was utter nonsense for Amazon to attempt fresh produce on its own. It wasn't a problem that money could solve.
Therefore, Bezos quickly abandoned the idea of transporting fresh produce and believed that, under the current conditions, no e-commerce platform had the capability to open a fresh produce category. Then he saw Oriental Amazon's fresh produce channel.
"Right, Oriental Express only has operations in five cities. If fresh produce transport is limited to these five major cities and there's widespread distribution, then it might not be impossible. After all, Oriental Express is the kind of groundbreaking courier company mentioned in the report!"
"If that's the case, then we don't need to worry for now. We also need to quickly invest in such a company, otherwise, we'll be a step behind when Oriental Express continues to expand!" Bezos mused, believing he had discovered the truth. He then tentatively clicked on an ice cream link, and a pop-up window immediately displayed the bold, black text "Nationwide Delivery."
"Nationwide Delivery!" These three words severely stimulated Bezos's eyes. He immediately clicked the buy button, then clicked the delivery address, entered his address information, and then placed the order.
Then, small circles began to spin on the page, and finally, a prompt box suddenly appeared, starting with a failure to place order notification.
"I knew it, it's impossible to order successfully!" Bezos couldn't help but smile, then looked at the prompt, which indicated that the order failed because he hadn't activated the Western Mustang Wallet and couldn't complete the payment.
"Huh, didn't you play that coin-shooting game yesterday?" Tucker, who had been silent all along, couldn't help but ask when he saw that Bezos hadn't bound the Western Mustang Wallet.
"I did, but when I saw it required activating some Western Mustang Wallet, I just refused!" Bezos said with a cold face. He was particularly displeased with the Western Mustang Wallet.
After all, it was because he refused a partnership invitation from Western Mustang Wallet that Jiangnan Group bought out his company. Who the hell...
"If he actually dares to redeem it, then someone will immediately take his social security account information, play the game with him, and then exchange it for cash. That scenario would be absolutely marvelous."
"Of course, he can't not redeem it either, because users nationwide are playing his game. If he dares to cheat, he'll be roasted alive, and you'll immediately mobilize relevant agencies to investigate him and demand that he forcibly redeem the rewards!"
"So, I believe that these dollars will eventually turn into vouchers, and not vouchers that can be used all at once. Instead, they will be like vouchers where you get $20 off for every $100 spent."
"This way, it avoids the hassle of paying cash and also encourages users to shop continuously to consume these vouchers and increase the average order value. These are common tactics used by our e-commerce platforms. Nothing to be surprised about!" Bezos said indifferently. He had used such tactics when he first created Amazon, and almost the entire e-commerce industry used them. What was so surprising? Did Jiangnan Group really intend to pay cash?
"That's true!" Tucker didn't argue. After all, he also thought it was just the voucher gimmick; otherwise, could it really be cashed out?
As they were talking, Bezos completed the creation of the Western Mustang Wallet and found that he indeed had $60 in his account. He immediately clicked to withdraw, and a prompt appeared: "Congratulations, your $60 cash has been successfully withdrawn to your Western Mustang Bank account. You can go to the Western Mustang Bank lobby to withdraw cash, or you can deposit it into your Western Mustang Wallet for spending, shopping, purchasing financial products, etc.!"
"..." Both Bezos and Tucker were dumbfounded. It actually succeeded in withdrawing directly?