America's Road to Fame

Chapter 137 Zoom
"Price?" Rick frowned and said, "Do you want to have more categories and offer discounted prices like Amazon?"

"This is one aspect, Rick, but we need to be cheaper than them, um, at least 10% lower than the price of the supermarket. I'm talking about the whole category of products, not just some products. Low price to attract customers , Only by letting users know that we are offering real benefits can we retain them and become our loyal users.”

"In this case, how can we ensure that we are profitable? If we sell through joint small merchants, there is not much room for profit."

"We don't need to make a profit!"

After saying this, seeing Rick's surprised expression, William Chen knew that he still didn't know enough about the Internet, especially the mobile Internet. This may also be the difference between the European and American Internet and the Huaguo Internet:

"Are you short of money? Rick? You are not short! I am not short either! Don't forget what your original intention of doing this project is, so what is the most important thing for us? It is the user! The user! It is still the user!"

"So throw away the traditional industry's profit-focused thinking. Not only do we not need to make profits, but we also need to burn money in the early stage to give users profits. For our merchants, we will not charge them any fees in the early stage. The only requirement is that they The selling price of our products here is at least 10% cheaper than that in physical stores. You can clearly tell them that the price will be a very important factor in our push algorithm. Users in the same range, whose price is lower , whoever can get the priority recommendation, the best promotion, and the most eye-catching position, let them understand that although their profits may be reduced on a single product, every item they sell may have originally been turnover of their competitors."

Rick looked at William Chen dumbfounded, and said, "William, you are really a lunatic, but you are also a genius!"

"Don't worry, Rick, our lack of profit in the early stage does not mean that we will never be profitable. As long as we have a large number of users, profit will come sooner or later. When you have 1 users, and you have 100 million, or even With 1 million users, your sales volume will be completely different, and at the same time, your bargaining power with manufacturers will also be fundamentally different. We will eventually do self-operation. At that time, our price advantage will be No one else can surpass it. As a member of the Walton family, I believe this is easy for you to understand."

William Chen knows that in the United States, it is still impossible to fully replicate the methods of Huaguo. The simplest point is that the wages of the delivery staff here cannot be as low as in Huaguo, which will also lead to an increase in costs. Therefore, their APP, It is impossible to have free shipping for all, but only those who have limited the amount and reached the threshold of free shipping can enjoy this service.

Another thing is that the geographical differences in the United States are also very large. Metropolises like New York are densely populated, and delivery is relatively easier. It is also an hour, and it may be possible to deliver 10 or even 15 users here. In sparsely populated places, it is completely impossible to arrive even on the same day, and it can only be delivered the next day or the next day.

Therefore, at the beginning, they need to start from big cities, and then expand to more areas with the establishment of the logistics system.Fortunately, there is Rick Walton, who can find professional logistics talents from Wal-Mart to help build this system.

After this discussion, Chen William and Rick Walton had a specific and clear plan for this project. They revised and completed the final plan. In terms of naming the APP, they thought a lot about the name and finally decided , called Zoom, this word is simple and easy to remember, and it also means fast and fast.

At the same time, Rick Walton also had a higher evaluation of William Chen. During the whole process, his fantastic ideas deeply shocked him and made him confirm that he chose William Chen as the leader of his project. Partner, it really is a very wise decision.

After unifying their thinking, the specific team building has also begun to be put on the agenda. They need to recruit algorithm and logistics talents, and then develop the zoom APP. Complete.

"Rick, have you heard of Groupon?"

"What is this, a website?"

"Yes, currently in Chicago, the group buying business is being carried out, and it is still a start-up company. I think they are very useful to supplement our zoom."

Next, William Chen gave Rick Walton a general introduction to what group buying is. After hearing this, Rick Walton also realized that this novel sales method would be very attractive.

"Looks like we're going to buy them."

"You can try it, Rick. It's best to buy it. If you can't buy it, you have to invest in them and become a major shareholder. The significance of this Groupon company to us is that through their group buying activities, we can understand which products are the most expensive. If it is popular with users, it is of great reference significance for the stocking of our self-operated warehouse."

This is also when William Chen was thinking about the issue of e-commerce, he suddenly thought of the form of group buying. After investigation, he discovered the company Groupon. After launching the group buying model in Chicago, this website has been welcomed by users. , is developing relatively fast, and is ready to expand to other regions. This is also the best time for acquisition or investment.

So William Chen and Rick Walton began to register the zoom e-commerce company. The company's shareholding was William Chen's Meta Investment Company holding 60% of the shares; Rick Walton held 40% of the shares.

But in a non-disclosure agreement, Chen William will sell 20% of the voting rights to Rick Walton, so that he has 60% of the voting rights and maintains actual control over the company.

As compensation for this supplementary agreement, Rick Walton and William Chen will each invest half and half, so of the initial US$1 million investment, the two will each contribute US$5000 million, because William Chen is currently investing all of his funds Among them, because Rick Walton lent him 5000 million US dollars, allowing him to complete the investment.

Compared with William Chen's investment, what Rick Walton valued more was his endless new ideas about the Internet. In his eyes, this was the greatest value of William Chen.

William Chen also understands that Zoom's model will always be self-operated, so as to ensure that the price of its products has an advantage. Therefore, it is more similar to Huaguo's Jingdong model, which is an asset-heavy investment.

He doesn't intend to focus on this aspect, so Rick Walton will be a very ideal partner for him. It is enough for him to maintain a certain influence on this company, and there is no need to lead it at all.

In fact, without the participation of Rick Walton, he would not have planned to do e-commerce in person at all, it would be better to invest in Amazon directly.

Therefore, he was also happy to hand over the initiative to Rick Walton and let him take charge of the main practical work, as long as he himself funded and came up with ideas.

After the establishment of Zoom, the first task was to form a team, and the other was to contact Groupon and try to acquire this start-up company.

Of course, it would be nice to leave all of these to the company’s CEO Rick Walton. As the nominal chairman, William Chen still has other things to do, such as meeting Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Walton. Blankfein.

After Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, noticed the huge risks faced by the subprime mortgage bond market, he made a timely decision to reduce his holdings of CDO bonds and buy CDS for risk hedging. .

Moreover, they were very cunning, kept their faces on the surface, and continued to promote the low-risk and high-yield of subprime mortgage CDO bonds to investors, and successfully sold most of the bonds, avoiding more serious losses.

However, when cleaning up their business accounts in this area, they discovered that if a crisis broke out in the subprime mortgage market, William Chen’s Meta Investment Company, in their Goldman Sachs short-selling CDO bond contract, would receive a maximum of more than 10 billion US dollars. profit.

If this is acceptable—because William Chen’s short-selling contracts are mainly against Goldman Sachs’ CDO bond buyers, the real loss attributable to Goldman Sachs is negligible—but what the other party buys from them is up to them The CDS bonds guaranteed by the company are very terrible. The total guarantee amount of those CDS bonds also exceeds 10 billion US dollars.

Once the subprime mortgage business corresponding to these CDS bonds defaults, it means that Goldman Sachs will pay the full amount. In other words, the payment of more than 10 billion US dollars really needs Goldman Sachs to pay. Business, Goldman Sachs biggest loss.

　It's the beginning of the month, there are tickets ~ you know

　　
　
(End of this chapter)