Chapter 136： Zoom

"Price?" Rick frowned and said, "Do you want to be like Amazon and offer discounts on more categories?"

"This is one aspect, Rick, but we need to be cheaper than them, well, at least 10% lower than the price of the supermarket, I'm talking about the whole category of products, not just some products at low prices to attract customers , only by letting users know that we are a real offer can we keep them and become our loyal users.”

"In this case, how can we ensure that we are profitable? If we sell through joint small businesses, 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 way of playing the mobile Internet, which may be the difference between the Internet in Europe and the United States and China:

"Are you short of money? Rick? You're not short of it! I'm not short of it either! Don't forget what your original intention for this project was, so what's the most important thing for us? It's the user! The user! The user!"

"So throwing away the profit-oriented thinking of traditional industries, we not only do not need to make profits, but we also need to burn money in the early stage to give profits to users. For our merchants, we will not charge them any fees in the early stage. The only requirement is that they The price of goods sold here is at least 10% cheaper than that in the physical store. We can clearly tell them that our push algorithm, the price will be a very important factor, in the same range of users, whose price is lower , who can get the priority recommendation, get the best promotion, and get the most eye-catching position, let them understand that although their profits may be reduced on a single product, every product they sell may be originally the turnover of their competitors."

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

"You can rest assured, Rick, we are not profitable in the early stage, it does not mean that we will never be profitable. As long as we have users, a large number of users, profit is a matter of time. When you have 10,000 users, and you have 1 million, or even With 100 million users, your sales volume will be completely different, and your bargaining power with manufacturers will also be fundamentally different. We will eventually do our own business. At that time, our price advantage will be No one else can. As a member of the Walton family, I'm sure it's easy for you to understand."

Chen William knows that in the United States it is still impossible to completely replicate the methods of Huaguo. The simplest point is that the salary of the delivery staff here cannot be as low as that of Huaguo, which will also lead to an increase in costs. Therefore, their APP, It cannot be all free shipping, only a limited amount, which reaches the free shipping threshold, can enjoy this service.

The other is that the geographical differences in the United States are also very large. A metropolis like New York is densely populated, and it is relatively easier to deliver. In the same hour, it may be possible to deliver 10 or even 15 users here. In a sparsely populated place, it is completely impossible to arrive on the same day, only the next day or the next day.

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

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

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

After unifying the ideas, the specific team formation has also begun to be put on the agenda. They need to recruit algorithm and logistics talents, and then develop the zoom APP. After completing this step, they will initially choose New York as the first stop to improve the entire system. .

"Rick, have you heard of Groupon?"

"What is this, a website?"

"Yeah, right now over there in Chicago, it's a group buying business, and it's still a startup, and I think they'll be useful to complement our zoom."

Next, William Chen told Rick Walton about group buying in general. After hearing this, Rick Walton also realized that this novel sales method would be very attractive.

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

"You can try it, Rick, you can buy the best, you can't buy them, but also invest in them and become a major shareholder. What this Groupon company means to us is that through their group buying activities, we can understand which products are the best. If it is popular with users, it is very meaningful for the stocking of our self-operated warehouse."

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

So William Chen and Rick Walton started to register the zoom e-commerce company. The company's shares were held by William Chen's Meta Investment Company, which held 60%; Rick Walton held 40%.

But in a non-disclosure agreement, William Chen will give Rick Walton 20% of the voting rights, giving him 60% of the voting rights and maintaining de facto control of the company.

As compensation for this supplemental agreement, Rick Walton and William Chen will each invest in half, so in the initial $100 million investment, they will each contribute $50 million, because William Chen is currently investing all of his funds Among them, because Rick Walton lent him $50 million, allowing him to complete the investment.

Compared with William Chen's investment, Rick Walton values ​​his endless new ideas for the Internet. In his eyes, this is William Chen's greatest value.

And William Chen also understands that the Zoom company's model will always be self-operated, so as to ensure that the commodity prices have an advantage, so it is more similar to Huaguo's Jingdong model, which is an investment with heavy assets.

He doesn't intend to focus his energy on this, so Rick Walton would be a very ideal partner for him. It's enough for him to maintain a certain amount of influence on the company, and there is absolutely no need to lead.

In fact, without Rick Walton's involvement, he wouldn't even go out to do e-commerce himself, so he might as well invest in Amazon directly.

So he was also happy to hand over the leadership to Rick Walton, let him be in charge of the main practical work, and he would just pay for it and give his ideas.

After the establishment of Zoom, the first task was to build a team, and the other was to contact Groupon and try to acquire this startup.

Of course, these are all left to the company's CEO Rick Walton to complete. As the nominal chairman, William Chen has other things to do, such as meeting Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd W. Blankfein.

After Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein noticed the huge risks faced by the subprime mortgage bond market, UUkanshu promptly reduced its holdings of CDO bonds and bought The decision to enter CDS for risk hedging.

And they are very cunning and calm on the surface, continue to promote the low-risk and high-yield of subprime mortgage CDO bonds to investors, and successfully sold most of the bonds, avoiding more significant losses.

However, while cleaning up their books in this area, they found that if the subprime mortgage market broke out, William Chen's Meta Investment Company, under their Goldman Sachs contract to short CDO bonds, could earn more than $1 billion in up to $1 billion. profit.

If this is still bearable—because of Chen William’s short contracts, the counterparties are mainly Goldman Sachs CDO bond buyers, and the losses that are really attributed to Goldman Sachs can be ignored—but the counterparties bought from their own hands by their company. Guaranteed CDS bonds, that's terrible, and those CDS bonds, the total amount of guarantees is more than $1 billion.

Once the subprime mortgage business corresponding to these CDS bonds defaults, it means that Goldman Sachs will pay the entire amount, that is to say, the redemption of more than $1 billion really needs Goldman Sachs to pay, which will be relevant Goldman's biggest loss in business.