America's Road to Fame

Chapter 189 Delphine?

In the end, the breakfast was still a bit cold, but it was not a big problem, but Jessica didn't want to drink milk anyway, and she didn't know why.

While Jessica was clearing the dining table, William Chen opened the Zoom APP on his mobile phone, and now Zoom has been rolled out in major cities in California. Of course, because the storage center is still being established, only the earliest San Francisco storage system has been completed. Completed, so in Los Angeles, we still need to rely on cooperative merchants for supply.

It’s just that during the subprime mortgage crisis, Zoom’s development is still very good, because it has invested funds in marketing in the early stage. For example, William Chen was lucky today. After opening the Zoom APP, he randomly got a coupon of $60 off when he spends $10.

Uh, this coupon strategy, needless to say, came from his own idea, and there were many such things in various e-commerce apps in the previous life.

William Chen randomly selected some products from the nearby merchants recommended by the Zoom APP, and then placed an order.

After the experience, William Chen found that the delivery speed of shopping on the Zoom APP was still acceptable. Two hours later, the delivery staff of Zoom had already delivered the items to his villa, and then William Chen took the goods with the delivery staff. After swiping the credit card on the credit card machine, the shopping is completed.

And on Zoom, you can also choose to specify the delivery time of the courier. For example, you can select the purchased items from the partners near your home during work, and then note the delivery time. After you get home from work, you can Waiting for the courier to deliver.

Of course, Zoom, as an asset-heavy model, not only requires a huge investment in the construction of the logistics warehousing system, but also requires a lot of money to recruit and train delivery personnel for the efficiency of delivery.

However, it is precisely because it is an asset-heavy investment. Compared with other asset-light e-commerce projects that only build platforms, whether it is source of goods or distribution, it is more irreproducible. It's not something that small entrepreneurial teams can play around with.

However, doing so also has great benefits, that is, once the system is established, Zoom will be able to conduct large-scale purchases of self-operated products, reduce the cost of products, and thus provide users with lower prices and improve competitiveness.

Recruiting Zoom's exclusive delivery staff requires payment and management, but it can also reduce disputes with users and increase users' sense of security and user experience.

This approach is fundamentally different from that of a small team. For a small team with weaker strength, what they need is to quickly occupy the market, raise funds as soon as possible through the increase in the number of users, and continue to occupy new markets after obtaining funds for development. The market keeps pushing up the company's valuation.

After they finally reach a certain size, they will either improve themselves, or sell the company directly, cash in and leave.

Zoom, on the other hand, relied on the strong funds of William Chen and Rick Walton to develop steadily, pushing across the battlefield like a group of tanks, and eventually occupying the entire territory.

It happened that Rick Walton is also in Los Angeles now, so after parting with Jessica, William Chen went to find him and talked about Zoom.

Jess Ramos from Zoom is also there. This is the commodity director of Zoom that Rick Walton specially recruited from Walmart. He is responsible for the standardized pricing of commodities with partners and the management of self-operated commodities.

"How is the preparation of our self-operated products now?" William Chen asked.

In response to this question, Rick Walton glanced at Jess Ramos and signaled him to speak.

"Our warehousing system is still being established. In the California area, we plan to build a warehousing center in Monterey, which is located in the central part of California and has a port. It is more convenient to disperse to other cities in California. Other cities Warehousing is also being established, and what is currently built is the warehouse in the old JS area, which can be the first to carry out tentative self-operation here in San Francisco."

"However, because of the small scale there, and because we have just started self-operating, we also need to gradually accumulate experience in the turnover rate of goods, so the initial purchase volume will not be too large, and there will not be much advantage in price."

This is indeed the case. Self-operated business still needs to be scaled up in order to have an effect.William Chen thought for a while and asked:

"Then can you purchase some products that don't have a shelf life in advance, so that you can stock up in large quantities and lower the price. After the warehouses in other cities are built, you can transfer some of them there."

"This is also a way, but the backlog of funds is also a problem. After all, we are not considered a big buyer now, and we don't have much say in the settlement period."

Jess Ramos said hesitantly.

"Funding is not a problem. The most important thing now is to retain users. To make users really believe that the prices of our products here are the lowest."

William Chen said firmly.

"Haha, William, you are a rich man now. You invest everywhere, and your funds are much stronger than mine." Rick said with a smile.

"I'm already in debt of 100 billion US dollars, but I still have money to invest in Zoom." William Chen thought about it and said:

"Can we choose some types of goods and buy them in large quantities from Huaguo? The cost of goods in many places over there, such as Yiwu, is much lower than that in other places, so that we have a very large price advantage in similar goods. advantage."

"Supply from Huaguo? But you can't just look at the price, the quality of the product..."

"Don't worry too much about the quality. You don't know much about Huaguo yet. They are still very strict about the quality of foreign trade exports. And we can send some people there, choose the OEM method, and find some decent manufacturers. As our designated manufacturer, such as some small household appliances, there are limited options for self-operation.”

When Jess Ramos heard Chen William's suggestion, he agreed with it: "Many supermarkets actually use this method. We have also used this method at Wal-Mart before, and it is indeed very feasible."

Since this is the case, Rick Walton also agreed to come down and prepare to send personnel to find suppliers in Yiwu, Huaguo, so that when the goods are produced, they will be shipped to the United States. The logistics and warehousing system in California will be almost established. Now, the first batch of self-operated products can be put on the shelves.

For Zoom, William Chen is quite optimistic. Zoom’s model is different from Amazon’s. It’s not like JD.com or Tmall Supermarket. Zoom is more like the “convenience store” of Meituan, which is based on location. A combination of grocery store alliance and self-operated approach.

Users choose products from their nearby cooperative grocery store or Zoom’s self-operated products. After placing an order, the nearby partners or self-operated warehouses will pack the goods, and then the delivery staff will pick up and deliver the goods.

This method is more suitable for cooperation with physical merchants. In the future, with the increase of self-operated categories, the positioning of cooperative merchants will change to supplement products with low demand. Of course, that will need to wait until Zoom develops into a later stage. After the big guy, it is still mainly relying on cooperative merchants for supply.

At this time, Chen Weilian's cell phone rang, he picked it up, and saw that the caller ID was an unfamiliar number, and it was not a number from the United States, so he couldn't help but get connected in a strange way.

There was a pleasant female voice on the phone:

"Hello, is this Mr. William Chen?"

"Yes, may I ask who you are?"

When William Chen was thinking about whether it might be a sales call, he heard something saying:

"I'm Delphine Arnault, may I ask if Mr. William is in Los Angeles now? Can we meet and talk about something."

Delphine Arnault?Chen Weilian thought for a while, but he didn't remember knowing a woman with this name, so he couldn't help asking strangely:

"Ms. Delphine, I'm sorry, I don't know you, can you just tell me what you want to talk about?"

"That's right, I'm from the LVMH group, and I hope to talk to you about the Hermes group."

"But I don't think we have anything to talk about."

"Just give me an interview, can you, Mr. William?"

Unexpectedly, this woman was quite persistent. William Chen was a little speechless. After thinking about it, he reported his current location and said:
"I'm leaving here soon, so you only have 10 minutes, and I hope it doesn't feel like a waste, Ms. Delphine."

"Okay, I'll be right there."

Hearing that the other party hung up the phone, William Chen looked at Rick Walton's puzzled eyes, and said inexplicably:
"A woman named Delphine Arnault insisted on seeing me and said she was from the LVMH Group..."

"Delphine Arnault?" Rick Walton repeated the woman's name, and seeing William Chen nodded, he said with some uncertainty: "If she is from the LVMH group, and she happens to be called This name... that should be that one."

(End of this chapter)