At 7 PM, Yuan Zhiyu excitedly rushed to the cinema closest to his company, wanting to check the seating situation in detail.
He planned to take some photos to use as promotional materials later.
After ticket checks began at 6:50, Yuan Zhiyu was the first to rush into the cinema.
"This first wave of movie ticket promotions is just an appetizer. Renrengou will suffer greatly this time, even if they don't go under,"
Yuan Zhiyu thought, a little smugly.
What if their market share was high?
As long as his own promotion was effective, he didn't believe consumers were fools who would ignore discounted tickets and turn to buy expensive ones.
Scattered moviegoers walked in.
These were all real Meituan customers.
Most of them were couples or families.
Even when the movie started at 7 PM, Yuan Zhiyu was still puzzled:
"The movie has started, where's the other half of the audience?"
No sooner had his murmuring stopped than a group of young men and women rushed in from outside.
They gathered in twos and threes, chatting and laughing as they walked.
Yuan Zhiyu said:
"Which real estate agency or sales company is this?"
They were all wearing work suits, so Yuan Zhiyu couldn't recognize them.
Only after the seats around him were filled did Yuan Zhiyu suppress his curiosity and ask,
"Buddy, which company are you from? Is this a company gathering organized by your leader today?"
The young man who was asked smiled and nodded:
"I'm from Renrengou. Big brother, you should use group buying. Here, let me give you a promotional poster. Welcome to our Double 11 big promotion tomorrow, with special prices on all items."
Yuan Zhiyu was stunned, then his mind felt like it exploded, and his face grew increasingly grim.
His chest began to heave violently, and his knuckles turned white from clenching his hands, but even so, Yuan Zhiyu still suppressed his anger and asked,
"Were all of you who just came in from your company?"
"That's right, all from our branch."
"This is going too far!"
Yuan Zhiyu directly cursed in anger:
"Such a lack of martial virtue!"
Renrengou's employees looked at Yuan Zhiyu, who had stormed out in a rage, still a bit confused.
Yuan Zhiyu felt he was still too naive.
He never expected Renrengou's tactics to be so dirty.
Who plays like this?
They bought up all his special offer tickets and then rewarded their own people.
"Liao Bochen, come here quickly, something's happened."
Yuan Zhiyu pulled out his phone, called the Nuomi representative, and then looked at the promotional flyer in his hand.
Soon, Liao Bochen rushed over:
"What's wrong? I was eating. You sounded so frantic on the phone, I immediately put down my bowl and came."
"Take a look at this,"
Yuan Zhiyu said, handing over the promotional flyer.
After glancing at the flyer, Liao Bochen's expression also changed:
"It seems our Double 11 big promotion news was leaked. The other party already got the information and is holding an event on the same day, aiming to ambush us. Where is Wang Shi? The event starts tomorrow, and he hasn't returned from headquarters yet."
"He won't be back. The back of the flyer is Dazhong Dianping's."
"What?!"
Liao Bochen quickly flipped the flyer over to look, and sure enough.
"This Wang Shi is actually playing both sides. I said I hadn't seen him these past two days, he's probably been deliberately avoiding us, and secretly colluded with Renrengou long ago."
Yuan Zhiyu nodded:
"They even gave up the first batch of 1 million yuan advance payment for participating in the event. Their resolve is quite strong."
"Damn it, this guy played us all. He initially acted like he was united with us against the enemy, but I never thought he'd actually..."
"After the event, I will settle the score with Dazhong Dianping's people. If we meet them offline, we'll go all out against them."
Yuan Zhiyu said:
"The big promotion is tomorrow, there's no time to adjust the plan. This time we can only bite the bullet and go through with it. The other party's goal this time is to hit us as hard as possible and reduce the impact of our event."
Liao Bochen sighed, feeling a bit weary.
"I have more bad news for you. Prepare yourself,"
Yuan Zhiyu said with a wry smile.
"Worse news?"
"Yes, I just went into Hall 3 wanting to take some photos for event promotional material, but a swarm of Renrengou employees rushed in, sat down on the spot to watch the movie. And that's not all, they even handed out this flyer to our original users."
After hearing this, Liao Bochen felt a wave of dizziness, and his blood pressure shot up.
"How can Renrengou's tactics be so dirty? We need to quickly gather our people and urgently tally how many tickets they've bought."
No sooner said than done, employees from both group-buying platforms, who had already finished work, dispersed to conduct secret visits to all cinemas in Shanghai.
Before long, a stream of bad news came in.
"We've finished checking the cinemas in Minhang District. Essentially, in the halls where movies are playing, Renrengou employees account for about half. They're very easy to spot in their work uniforms."
"About half of the consumers waiting were also their people."
"General Yuan, bad news. Renrengou not only arranged for their employees to poach our deals, but they even sold tickets online for the same screenings as ours, like this one and this one, which were clearly booked out by us."
"I also found some. I ran into two people who said they bought them for 25 yuan on Renrengou."
Yuan Zhiyu took a deep breath, really wanting to curse aloud:
"How dare those scoundrels!"
It's bad enough that you poach my deals, but you even bought my discounted tickets and resold them at full price on your own platform.
So, damn it, I organized an event just to work for you entirely?
"What do we do now?"
"What to do?"
Yuan Zhiyu thought for a long time, then was dismayed to realize he had no way to deal with the current situation and could only reluctantly accept it.
If they called the police, no one would care, and ultimately, Renrengou's methods were just dirty, not illegal.
They couldn't just grab some guys and go pick a fight now.
"Are we just going to put up with this? If the event goes badly, the higher-ups will hold us accountable,"
Liao Bochen said, displeased.
Yuan Zhiyu retorted:
"Then what good ideas do you have?"
Liao Bochen choked, unable to speak.
"If you don't want the higher-ups to come after you, first order your people to keep quiet, and then report it separately."
Yuan Zhiyu truly hadn't anticipated Renrengou's unconventional methods: two days ago, they lowered rankings; today, they poached deals; tomorrow, they'd challenge directly.
The offensives came one after another, all targeting Meituan and Nuomi's weaknesses.
The two group-buying platforms could only defend passively.
......
According to a tip-off from the verified account "Dianshang Yingxiao Guancha",
"Renrengou, unable to tolerate market division and in disarray, urgently mobilized its employees overnight to perform fake orders on Meituan's group buys, preventing these promotional offers from reaching users."
The leaked information was very detailed, and its impact was significant, with the general public treating the news as juicy gossip.
They never expected the group-buying war to be so exciting!
Weibo also revealed Renrengou's fake order method: mobilizing employees to register a large number of Meituan and Nuomi accounts using their phone numbers to place fake orders, then selling these discounted tickets on their own platform.
Any unsold tickets were used by their own employees for viewing, with some employees even watching three movies in one night.
It was said their eyes became strained from watching so much.
Even more surprisingly, this new media outlet even managed to interview Chen Pingjiang.
"What does this have to do with fake orders? Fake orders refer to fraudulent transactions or malicious acts of canceling orders after purchase. What's malicious about our behavior? Meituan's tickets are cheaper than those on our own platform. Is it wrong for me to buy them to reward my employees? Even if I sell them on my platform, it's just a normal competitive strategy issue."
"If Meituan and Nuomi are upset, then they shouldn't hold any more events in the future. Holding events and then wanting to treat consumers differently is consumer discrimination, and we firmly oppose it."
"After all is said and done, this is not a matter of values or ethics. Our competitors need to seriously reflect on why such good group-buying discount activities cannot reach real consumers."
This commotion was quite significant.
It was said that Wang Xing was furious and wanted to stir up trouble to tarnish Renrengou's reputation.
He didn't know where to find a bunch of internet professionals and group-buying users to question Renrengou's "bottomless" competition.
Lawyer A:
"Renrengou's actions constitute unfair competition by maliciously exploiting business rules. Operators in market transactions should adhere to the principles of voluntariness, equality, fairness, and good faith, and comply with recognized business ethics.
Wasting merchants' normal marketing resources and disrupting their normal business order clearly violates the principle of good faith and should be considered an act of unfair competition."
Analyst: "Renrengou's actions have set a very bad precedent, and in the foreseeable future, they will inevitably lead to an escalation of vicious competition in the group-buying war."
However, these people could only engage in verbal sparring and couldn't actually harm Renrengou at all.
Before operating this way, Chen Pingjiang had already anticipated the possible consequences.
But even considering the consequences, it had to be done.
The Shanghai market was their home base.
If a competitor dared to reach out, they would cut them off.
Dazhong Dianping, seeing Renrengou's series of audacious moves, began to secretly rejoice.
Although backstabbing a teammate sounds bad, who cares about such empty reputation?
Can it be eaten for food?
If they had continued following Meituan, they would have starved nine meals in three days.
Now, holding onto the big boss's leg, isn't it great to enjoy good food and drinks?
Without even Renrengou needing to instigate, Dazhong Dianping's Shanghai team went after Meituan and Baidu Nuomi with full force.
They were seizing territory while also showing their loyalty.
The Double 11 big promotion the next day proceeded as scheduled.
This was the first Double 11 in its true sense, originally concocted by Zhang Yong of Tmall Mall, and eventually turned into a major fixed promotional event.
Today, the competition among various group-buying platforms was almost white-hot.
Everyone adhered to one principle: even if they lost money, they wouldn't let the other win.
If you offered 50% off for a meal, I'd offer 40% off.
If you offered 40% off, I'd offer 30% off!
In short, no one was going to have an easy time.
Meituan and Nuomi were both a bit carried away after being heavily humiliated yesterday, while Renrengou was fiercely defending.
When giants fight, it's ultimately the consumers who benefit.
"Holy crap, I can get a cup of Miaochang for just 5 yuan?"
"Haha, my massage only cost 40 yuan."
"..."
Ultimately, Meituan, getting carried away, created a hundred "free meal" slots.
Renrengou gave a thumbs up:
"You're f***ing awesome, I'm not following. I'll save this money and come after you once your event is over."
(End of Chapter)