「October 11th, 10:30 AM. Inside an office building in Hu City.」
"Brother Yi, do you have the Pinbei app on your phone?"
Liu Tianle asked his colleague next to him from his desk.
"Hell no! Don’t tell me you want me to help you slash a price? Heh, no way!"
Ye Yi grinned and flatly refused.
"Brother Yi is a new Pinbei user?" Another colleague’s eyes lit up as he eagerly leaned over.
"Go on, get out of here! If you want to slash prices, go find Brother Nan. He’s a new user too."
Ye Yi picked up his coffee cup, took a sip, and joked.
The Brother Nan he mentioned was the project manager and their own boss’s superior. Who would dare march to their death by asking the general manager for a price slash?
In his eyes, e-commerce platforms like Pinbei, which relied on viral sharing among social circles to grow, were nothing but trouble. Taobao was full of fakes, so he exclusively used Jingdong for his online shopping.
The prices might have been higher, but the platform won out with its excellent after-sales service and fast shipping, which made the decision to buy much easier.
"You’ve got it wrong, Brother Yi. Am I that kind of person? Pinbei is running a promotion right now where you get Yu’e Bao trial funds with every order. I saw you researching Yu’e Bao a few days ago, so I just wanted to let you know."
Liu Tianle explained with a smile.
Yu’e Bao trial funds?
Ye Yi was slightly taken aback. His biggest hobby was personal finance, but he was very cautious, only daring to put his money in fixed-term deposits. He didn’t dare to play the stock market or hoard Gold.
But last month, his mother had suddenly fallen ill and was hospitalized, urgently needing money. All his savings were tied up in fixed-term deposits, so he had no choice but to withdraw them early, losing several thousand yuan in interest.
This made him realize that while fixed-term deposits had a high annualized interest rate, their flexibility was terrible.
After that, he happened to see a promotional poster for Yu’e Bao on the Lingxi Browser. After doing some research, his interest was piqued.
Just after midnight today, he had deposited ten thousand yuan to test the waters, wanting to see if he could really get the 5.1% annualized return.
He had also seen the Orange Pay promotion that gave you trial funds for inviting friends to open a Yu’e Bao account. He’d roped in his family members to open accounts and had earned 20,000 in trial funds in one go.
The estimated seven-day return was nearly 20 yuan, enough for three or four days’ worth of breakfast money. For him, it was just a matter of tapping his fingers anyway.
Now, hearing that the Pinbei Mall also had a trial funds promotion, he was immediately tempted.
"They give it to you just for placing an order? How much do they give?" Ye Yi quickly asked.
"For every 99 yuan you spend, you get 5,000 yuan in trial funds. I just bought a 2,699 yuan Gree 1.5 HP air conditioner and got 135,000 in Yu’e Bao trial funds. That works out to a discount of 132 yuan, which is about 5% off."
Liu Tianle replied with a grin.
Products in Pinbei’s "Ten Billion Subsidy" program were already sold at a special low price. Getting another 5% off on top of that was an incredible deal.
"Tianle, you dare to buy home appliances on Pinbei? Is it reliable?"
Ye Yi shook his head. He thought that while products on Pinbei might be cheap, there was no guarantee they were authentic, and the after-sales service couldn’t compare to Jingdong’s.
"Brother Yi, you’re so behind the times! The appliance merchants on Pinbei are either direct from the factory or are brand-authorized distributors. Their products come from the same workshops as the ones sold in physical stores, on Jingdong flagship stores, and on Tmall flagship stores. The official brands handle the after-sales service too. You tell me if that’s reliable or not!"
Liu Tianle’s face fell, and he was suddenly displeased.
’Buying home appliances on Pinbei? Isn’t that what an idiot would do?’ The expression on Ye Yi’s face clearly said.
In fact, he used to be a loyal user of Jingdong and Tmall himself, but ever since he started using Pinbei, he could never go back.
"Send me an invitation link," Ye Yi said to Liu Tianle with a dry laugh.
"Alright, I’ll send it to your WeChat!" Liu Tianle smiled lightly. Inviting a new user would get him an 8-yuan no-minimum-spend red packet. It would be a waste not to grab such a freebie.
Ye Yi took out his Mountain Star Galaxy Note, opened WeChat, and then clicked on the link Liu Tianle had sent.
It first opened a micro-page. At the top of the screen was a shortcut button to the app store, and below it was a row of "0-yuan" items exclusive to new users, including eggs, tissues, anti-scald clips, trash bags, and canned fruit.
He ignored them and directly tapped the redirect button, which brought up the app store and went straight to the download page for the Pinbei app.
A minute later, the installation was complete, and he launched the app.
The home page was still the new user benefits section!
’Looks like I have to take this freebie after all!’
Ye Yi smiled, tapped to enter the product details page for the eggs, entered his shipping information, and finally submitted the order.
But although it said 0 yuan, the payment screen prompted him to pay 0.01 yuan. And since he had to pay, he had to link his Orange Pay account.
Pinbei’s new user funnel was a chain of interlocking steps!
From the shipping address to the payment account, it was all designed to increase the user’s sunk cost and prevent them from uninstalling the app right after grabbing the first-order discount.
Once Ye Yi completed the payment, three red packets immediately popped up.
A 3-yuan no-minimum-spend red packet, valid starting the next day;
A 5-yuan-off-50-yuan-purchase red packet, valid starting the seventh day;
A 10-yuan-off-100-yuan-purchase red packet, valid starting the fifteenth day.
These were Pinbei’s effective marketing tools for improving user retention, second-order conversion rates, and repeat purchase frequency.
Ye Yi casually closed the pop-up.
Liu Tianle guided him from the side, "Brother Yi, click here. The items in the ’Ten Billion Subsidy’ channel are the cheapest. I bought my air conditioner there, and it was 100 yuan cheaper than Jingdong’s ’815’ sale price."
"No way! For real? Jingdong’s President Liu said on Weibo that they have a zero-gross-margin policy on major home appliances for three years, and that he’d fire any procurement manager who dared to make even a single cent of profit."
Ye Yi asked in surprise.
"If you don’t believe me, compare them yourself." Liu Tianle couldn’t be bothered with pointless talk and gestured for Ye Yi to find the product section and compare prices.