Moderator: No. 1th Shop is a network supermarket, how do you think of the establishment of the shop No. 1th?
Gege: I did a couple of different things after I sold the American company I created. It's like Amazon dug me up and worked as Vice president of global supply chains. Manage inventory, warehousing, storage and procurement. Later, Dell recruited me back to China as a foreign staff, managing global sourcing, and I am the Dell Global Sourcing VP. Manage about 18 billion dollars in the Asia Pacific region.
When I was working at Dell, my partner, Liu, and I had a regular lunch party. Every time you talk about the recent events and some ideas, Majestic is the president of Dell China, he is in charge of sales, I am in charge of procurement. I am the big buyer, he is the big seller.
But, he is to beg, I am someone else to ask me. So he hoped that every time I went shopping, I helped him sell some of Dell's products. As a result, he asked me to be in a Hubei restaurant. When we were eating in that restaurant, he mentioned the idea of starting a business. He felt that China's economy was growing so fast that we should do one thing together and do something bigger.
In fact, after the idea, I think it is very interesting, the idea was actually quite simple. I think we work in Dell, although the position is very high, but we feel that we are a screw, is screwed on a large machine. We are Dale's screws, but none of us are engines. Many of the strategies, ideas, are basically the company set, we are more to put it into place.
We hope that in the middle of our life, we can do something directly change the world, change is like saying some patterns, can do some vigorous things. Can change the way people live.
In fact, the idea was relatively simple, as long as we two people can wholeheartedly commitment, will do a bigger thing, and do not want to know what to do.
Moderator: Do you want to shop No. 1th?
Gege: Then we started to decide what to do and start talking. In the middle of the discussion, I mentioned doing e-commerce. Because I think E-commerce has a future, because I have done in the Amazon, and participated in the Amazon acquisition of China's outstanding project.
After we pulled out of Dell, we were in the building, we were under the building, and now the whole building was basically rented by shop number 1th. We used to live downstairs in a small room with only 10 square meters, and we face each other at a table. We went to do a lot of market research, direct market research. We first studied E-commerce inside the other companies, we found that there are some vertical category, there are books to do, have to do 3C digital, have to do clothing, have to do mother and child. I think they are also very good and grow well.
But we are thinking, also found that these vertical sites, finally to a certain stage, must be horizontal expansion. When they expand horizontally, they all encounter some obstacles. Like the mother and child, always be seen as mother and child, do books and so on, even if the horizontal development, always feel as if the same as before, in the middle of the customer, the mind has planted a deep impression.
Moderator: So you are making a comprehensive platform?
Gege: So we decided to do a comprehensive, a at least give us a chance, in the future can expand indefinitely. So even our name will take nearly three weeks to discuss the 两、三百个 name. Later we decided to take a more modest and show our ambitions. Also make it easy for customers to remember the "No. 1th Shop", and not a constraint, not others feel that you are a limited in a certain category, this shop can be a huge store, can be a comprehensive shop.
So we started thinking, starting with the synthesis. But the synthesis, how to let the customer understand, we are a comprehensive platform. We just thought, how about we just hit the supermarket concept. Because the concept of the supermarket can be a huge, can be said to be everywhere, but also can be a medium-sized, small, large can be. But its category must be very rich.
Another advantage of supermarkets is that customers are easy to remember and easy to relate to. Everybody thinks the supermarket daily necessities all things have. So our concept is to say, to do a comprehensive, so that customers can leave home, all things can meet the needs of a mall.
Moderator: Like the Internet supermarket, it is a very big idea, and then you start to consider all kinds of problems. For example, backstage technology, as well as suppliers, including warehouses, logistics. How did you first open the situation?
Gege: When we started thinking about doing a comprehensive online supermarket, it was really hard to say it was simple. In fact, no one looked at us at first, and everyone thought it was not feasible. Because the goods are big and heavy, and the gross margin is low, then many bottles and cans are fragile. No one is watching us. The results prepared for one hours of conversation, talked about more than 10 minutes, 20 minutes, the other party began to teach us. Say that we are only professional managers, do not start a business. Say we will only from one to 10, do not know how to do one from zero.
Even if I explained to him that I had ever done it from zero in America. He said it was the United States, this is China. Been taught for half a day. There was really not a lot of people watching you.
We think that the concept of online supermarket is really a concept because it has not been practiced. Although we have a lot of market research, we write our own business plan analysis, we are very confident. But there is no practice, and it cannot be said that this thing can be made absolutely. So there was really a big challenge, and when we did it, it was really challenging.
Because we do e-commerce, in China to do E-commerce, and do the integrated type of supermarket model, there is no precedent, no one has done, we can imitate some of the patterns of some practices. A lot of groping, we began to make a lot of mistakes, made a lot of mistakes.
For example, our first promotion, just on the line, printed a very beautiful catalogue. Because we see some directory-making enterprises do a good job, we also design the directory, more than 300 pages is exquisite, each more than 10 yuan, we printed 100,000. The result also personally to send, I also in the subway station to send, in the community hair, in the office building hair.
Moderator: Is it useful?
Gege: Useful, of course, is useful to our brand image is very good, because so exquisite things, more than 3,000 kinds of goods in the above show. Its return on investment is very low, because it is expensive, and the cost is very high. And the directory is static, it is not dynamic.
Like the price of the site above now, you can modify at any time, found that the market changes, competitors price changes can be modified at any time to follow up. However, once the catalogue has been printed, it cannot be modified for a period of time, so many problems have been found, especially when the rate of return is particularly low.
As a result, we have not finished the hair, half of the time to give up. It's just one of the many mistakes we made earlier. Including the earliest packaging, I also personally made the packaging. Like many of our bottles and cans of goods, soy sauce, oil, vinegar, there are some shampoo, hair care, a lot of easy to leak things, fragile things. The beginning of the packaging method, we buy our own beer, the results of distribution to One-third are broken. So then we started making a lot of improvements and groping about how to improve the packaging.
Another big problem is shelf life because we run a lot of food. Food in the middle of a lot of short shelf-life products, such as room temperature milk, room temperature milk is 45 days of shelf life. How to guarantee the sale within the shelf life, there is enough validity period.
We started to develop the system again, and began to develop new processes.
Moderator: The equivalent is in a constantly groping process, stones.
Gege: Stones.
Moderator: What did you just talk about, whether it was development systems, hiring, or printing those brochures, where did the initial funding come from?
Gege: The first investment was made by me and two people in majestic mountains, and we gave up our position as Dell's own executive, and we paid zero. and entrepreneurship. We didn't get paid for a two-year period.
Gege response to six directors ' collective resignation message false
Moderator: From professional managers to entrepreneurs, this transformation is very large, in the process of the most difficult for you to accept?
Gege: I think there is nothing that I can not accept, in fact, we were very good mentality. We have been prepared for this, we know to start from scratch, we really start from zero, before history. Our glory is history, do not mention, from the beginning, we have this mentality.
So at the time we started our business, I just talked about, in a small room for four months, sinking down to write business plans. We moved out of the mansion we rented from Dell and lived in an apartment, and then we did a market survey and we crowded the subway and crowded the bus to see the suppliers. We go to the warehouse ourselves, all the warehousing, inspection, shelves, packaging, and even I have sent goods.
A lot of the negotiations were made by myself, like the negotiation of our distributor. We talk about the negotiation of many suppliers ' partners.
One time I went to work with a supermarket and went to see the store chief in that supermarket. He is a supermarket chain store shop long, said the time I went. After going to tell me to wait for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour, one hours, and finally waited for him nearly two hours to meet. Don't say a word of apology, in the past you can imagine, I was in Dell as a global sourcing Vice president, signed a single is more than tens of millions of U.S. dollars. So there was really some frustration at that time.
Then remember once to the trade and Industry Bureau to talk about one thing, a very young staff. He told me to stand in that place, not to sit, to train me like his grandson. But I've been through all these things, and I've come to think of it as a story to tell.
Moderator: What is your dream?
Gege: My dream has not changed with me at first, I think we are doing a great business, we are changing people's way of life. We can give the public a lot of concessions, facilities, so that they can not stay at home, allowing them to enjoy a new era, a fresh way of life. This in itself, let me feel very excited, very excited.
I think I'm not just a business to make money, but to do a career, the cause of change in the public life style. Bring value to the whole society and bring value to people. Bring value to our employees, shareholders, including ourselves. I believe that if I can create these values, I never worry that I have no value. Because I believe that if I can create value, I will get value in the end.
Moderator: Professional manager, entrepreneur This is the two completely different character, which do you think is more suitable for you? Which one do you like better? Why?
Gege: I think I prefer my current state as an entrepreneur. I think I take this thing as my own thing, I devote myself to it, I can say that all the efforts are spent on this. In the words of Majestic, we are in a state of excitement every day. So I sleep also want to eat also want to wake up the first thing to want to work in the company. Because I have so much to do, and so many challenges.
The key to my mentality is very good, every day I encountered many many challenges, including the media fabricated, and even is absolutely a lie information, Wal-Mart since the investment, the company does not have a director to leave. It is not appropriate to be said to be a collective resignation of six directors, which is misleading young people into thinking that capital is terrible, greedy, and that capital exploits our founders and breaks all the dreams of young people.
But I have encountered something like this every day, and I have also encountered more challenging challenges, including our warehouse. Like the customer experience, every day there are a variety of customer complaints, a variety of challenges. But I am very optimistic, I think it is because of these challenges, I need to do this thing, I think it can really show my ability and wisdom, finally solve the problem, I have a sense of achievement.