“Boss Huang, you’ve ruined my reputation in the industry! I’ve done such a wicked thing!” Upon seeing Huang He, Zeng Qing immediately began to complain.
“Enough, everyone in the industry knows that you, Zeng Qing, can step all over me. You’ve made a fortune!” Huang He chuckled and then said, “I’ve come to ask you for someone.”
“Someone?” Zeng Qing was stunned, then asked curiously, “Who?”
“Zhang Zhidong!” Huang He said very straightforwardly.
“You want Old Zhang?” Zeng Qing looked at Huang He with some surprise. “To be honest, the Old Zhang now is not the same Old Zhang as before. He’s changed!”
Zhang Zhidong had indeed changed. Ever since Tengda sold the QQ business to Microsoft, Zhang Zhidong had undergone a 180-degree turn.
Although he was still the head of the technical department at Tengda Group, he now sat in his office like a human statue, essentially handing over all his work to his subordinates. He did nothing himself, just stayed in his office, clocked in and out on time, and collected his salary.
This wasn’t a temporary state but a long-term one. It had been like this for the past half year. In Zeng Qing’s words, Zhang Zhidong was beyond despair. With the downfall of QQ, Zhang Zhidong had also died.
“If you want Old Zhang, I certainly have no objections. It’s just that he might not be willing to listen to you. To be honest, if it weren’t for our past friendship, I would have kicked Old Zhang out. Many people in the technical department complain to me, saying that following such a superior offers no future!” Zeng Qing said.
“Just let me meet him!” Huang He said calmly. Zeng Qing said no more and directly escorted Huang He into Zhang Zhidong’s office. Huang He only left three hours later. xxs1
No one knew what the two of them discussed. In any case, the next day Zhang Zhidong resigned from Tengda. It was rumored that the day after, he directly joined Jiangnan Group. After that, no one knew what Zhang Zhidong was busy with. Even many old friends never saw Old Zhang again until the press conference that changed the world a few years later.
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August 21, 2003.
In a private club in Hong Kong, several people were playing billiards.
Among them were Smith Yang, President of HSBC Greater China, Richard Li, President of Pacific Century Group, and our Mr. Ma.
“Everything is ready on my end!” Mr. Ma broke the balls with a powerful shot, scattering them across the table, and then said.
“Pacific Century Group has no problem either!” Richard Li’s eyes flashed with an ambiguous light.
“Headquarters has approved this brand new project. Gentlemen, we can finally set sail!” Smith Yang also showed a smile on his face.
“However, this means we will inevitably compete with Jiangnan Group and Jiangnan Wallet. I have to admit, their performance in the market is very strong. Old Ma, are you really confident you can take away the e-commerce market from them?” Richard Li’s mention of Jiangnan Group brought forth a latent aura of hostility.
The lesson from April was still too deeply ingrained. Richard Li could not forget the embarrassing situation of being denounced by the entire nation. However, this also made Richard Li very wary of Jiangnan Group.
“Who can be absolutely sure?” Mr. Ma said very candidly. “I can only say that this is an opportunity, an opportunity that can be very beneficial to all three of us! If this matter is successful, everyone will have great rewards! And the success rate is not low!”
“But if it fails… it fails. We won’t suffer significant losses!”
“Alright, let’s get started!” Richard Li forcefully struck the white ball, sending it into a pocket.
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A week later.
“Boss, the Forty Thieves Company has suddenly announced that they will launch a brand new p2p e-commerce online shopping platform!” Hu Jing placed a document in front of Huang He, looking at Huang He with great admiration.
Because half a year ago, Huang He had already asked her to keep an eye on the Forty Thieves Company and notify him as soon as they launched a p2p e-commerce online shopping platform.
At the time, Hu Jing thought it was impossible. After all, Jiangnan Mall’s reach now covered the entire country and was undoubtedly the number one e-commerce platform in China. Other e-commerce platforms had been squeezed out of any room to survive. Launching another e-commerce platform now seemed like a death wish.
“By the way, what’s the name of this e-commerce website? Is it called Haigou.com?” Huang He asked curiously.
“No, their name is Haigouwang!” Hu Jing said.
“Haigouwang?” Huang He was stunned. He hadn’t expected that he would eventually eliminate Taobao.
However, the name of a website often reflects its function. So, Huang He hesitated for a moment and said, “Could this Haigouwang be a website focused on overseas shopping?”
“Exactly!” Hu Jing nodded. “The homepage of Haigou clearly states that it is a website mainly selling various foreign products. They have also built large warehouses in Hong Kong, which can ensure that 90% of overseas goods arrive within half a month, and the prices are much cheaper than buying directly from abroad!”
“I see, isn’t this the same approach as eBay?” Huang He chuckled in exasperation. He had originally thought that with Taobao’s emergence, it would continue on its previous path and engage in another e-commerce war with him.
But he hadn’t expected Taobao to make a U-turn midway and become an overseas shopping website.
Of course, it could not be said that Mr. Ma was wrong for doing this. On the contrary, it was an extremely correct decision. Because Jiangnan Mall had gained unstoppable momentum, Mr. Ma could not surpass Jiangnan unless he was willing to subsidize tens of billions of yuan to compete on price.
Therefore, abandoning the main market and entering niche markets like overseas shopping was an excellent choice.
After all, Jiangnan Group had not yet entered the overseas shopping sector. So, with Taobao.com becoming Haigouwang and avoiding Jiangnan Mall, it could indeed survive.
It was just that this made Huang He feel a bit uninteresting. He had actually prepared to fight Mr. Ma, just like the interesting battle he had with Tengda Group back then.
Moreover, Haigouwang would also face competition, and the competitive pressure was not small, because they were facing eBay, the world’s largest e-commerce company.
Three months ago, eBay had completely completed the integration of the three e-commerce companies it had acquired and then entered the Chinese market.
At first, eBay had even attempted to compete head-on with Jiangnan Mall, aiming for a full-category war.
However, the battle lasted less than a month before eBay directly gave up because they discovered that they couldn’t even handle express delivery at that time.
In the domestic express delivery industry, Jiangnan Express had become the sole dominant player. Although there were still many other express delivery companies, their service level was incomparable to Jiangnan Express. The user experience was extremely poor.
Most importantly, most of the products on eBay did not offer free shipping, which was intolerable.
Therefore, eBay did not stir up any waves and hastily abandoned its dream of full-category competition, then focused on overseas shopping. eBay believed that by relying on the United States, it could obtain a large number of low-priced American goods, which was its only way to defeat Jiangnan.
So, eBay decisively established itself in the overseas shopping industry. Huang He had no reaction to this.
In fact, from the very beginning, from eBay’s establishment, to its all-out challenge, then its retreat after one month, and its consolidation in the overseas shopping domain.
Throughout this entire process, Huang He had not issued any related instructions or held any relevant meetings. If there was anything, it was probably when people from Jiangnan Mall asked how to deal with it, Huang He replied, “Treat it as if it doesn’t exist. Just do our own jobs well!”
As expected, Jiangnan Mall did nothing, and eBay retreated on its own.
And now, Mr. Ma had also entered the overseas shopping sector. This was perhaps going to lead to a fight with eBay first!
Huang He shook his head. He suddenly realized that the world had truly changed. The two internet giants from his previous life, one was eliminated by him to the point of disappearance, and no one knew where it was for more than half a year.
The other was forced into a corner by him, lacking even the courage to engage in a direct confrontation with him.
“It seems Mr. Ma’s fate ends here!” Huang He shook his head and was about to dismiss Mr. Ma, the man who had lost Taobao.
“Wait… something feels wrong!” After more than ten minutes, Huang He thought about it more and more and felt that something was not right. He didn’t believe that someone as active as Mr. Ma would make such a foolish move and compete in the overseas shopping market.
Huang He wasn’t worried that Mr. Ma couldn’t compete with eBay. After all, with eBay, you didn’t even need to pay attention to it; it would mess itself up.
The problem was that the overseas shopping market was too small. Especially in 2003, China’s middle class could not freely consume overseas goods. This market was estimated to be at most a few billion yuan in consumption annually.
Why would Mr. Ma go to such lengths to enter such a market?
Was it for the fact that overseas shopping didn’t offer free shipping?
Huang He felt something was wrong, so he entered Haigouwang and began to browse the entire website carefully. He found that the website was very normal, with nothing unusual.
So, he tried to buy something on the website.
Huang He chose to buy a PS2 game console, then selected the specifications and entered the delivery address.
Everything was normal, with nothing unusual, until Huang He was about to pay. He was stunned to find that there was only one payment channel: “Alipay” payment.
There was no problem with this. The problem was that when he chose to pay with Alipay, he saw a bold black option: “Pay with Youqianhua, enjoy 0 yuan!”