Chapter 312 - 206: Accompanying President Chen on an Inspection Tour

Chapter 312: Chapter 206: Accompanying President Chen on an Inspection Tour

Give her a push? A push for what?

Just to push her to speed up progress on the smart cockpit.

Xiangzi thought for a moment. He felt President Chen’s point of view had some merit.

’I can’t believe the guy Jin Wuxian recommended seems to know even more about new energy vehicles than Jin Wuxian himself.’

’How could he have known? Chen Xiao is the real boss behind Junxing Auto; of course he would have done his homework on new energy vehicles.’

From that one livestream, Xiangzi’s channel gained a massive amount of traffic, and Chen Xiao’s We-Circle account also picked up a lot of followers.

Only Shanyun Auto’s official social media account was flooded with insults. And the worst part was, if you’re going to criticize, at least give a reason. Questioning the brand’s moral compass? What the hell was that about!

「Wednesday, 9:30 AM」

Miao Lei, the General Manager of Wanhong Square, convened a management meeting.

"I want the operations supervisor to explain why, in just two days this week, foot traffic is down 35% week-over-week, revenue is down 50% week-over-week, and down 37% year-over-year. Did a natural disaster strike or something?"

"President Miao! Starting last weekend, both Junxiao Square locations launched massive traffic-driving campaigns simultaneously. On top of that, each store released two million in subsidy coupons all at once!"

"And at Junxiao’s request, all participating tenants inside the malls dropped their prices to the lowest in the entire city!"

You have to understand, the two Junxiao Square stores were already the two busiest malls in Jiangzhou. They have a huge number of followers on their platforms, and they’ve been promoting this for days!

Since the event started a few days ago, their malls have been absolutely packed. They’ve siphoned off a huge portion of the entire city’s foot traffic!

"Two million in one go? And that’s just the two million they spent on sales promotions, not even counting the massive PR campaigns to drive traffic!"

"Are they insane? Don’t you open a mall to make money? Are they just burning cash for fun?"

They were a business management company, an asset-light operator. After paying rent to the property owner, their total annual profit was less than ten million. And here’s Junxiao Square, with each of their malls spending over two million a month on a single campaign!

This was just bullying! Last time, when the Junxiao Square Store ran its promotion, it affected them, but it was still within a manageable range.

But the Junxiao Square Second Store—the former Tianlong Square—was even closer to them. Now that both stores were running promotions at the same time, it was a pincer attack!

Wanhong Square’s foot traffic dropped by a third, just like that!

’When Miao Lei came to work this morning and saw the numbers, he was stunned. If they keep playing like this, aren’t we going to get crushed?’

But Junxiao Square’s cash-burning strategy was the most brutish and devastating kind!

’We can’t follow their lead, and we can’t afford to, either. But if we don’t, we’ll be dead in the water this month. And with the Spring Festival just around the corner, this is the worst possible time for them to stir up trouble!’

’It means we’d be facing our own Waterloo in the very first month of the new year. How am I supposed to explain that to the chairman at the annual meeting?’

’And that’s not even the scariest part. The scariest part is, what if both Junxiao Square stores keep this up next month? And the month after that? What if they do it for several months in a row?’

Miao Lei had been in the business world for twenty years, riding its ups and downs, but he’d never seen tactics like these. No one burned money this way!

But this was Junxiao Square. He knew the Junxiao Square Store had already pulled this stunt once last month, and now they were at it again!

It was one thing for the Junxiao Square Second Store to burn cash for its grand opening, but for the Junxiao Square Store to join in just meant their competitor was ridiculously wealthy!

Miao Lei immediately assigned tasks:

[1. Launch a promotion with the same format as Junxiao Square’s, but cap the funding at 50,000.]

[2. Require that participating tenants in our mall match their prices with Junxiao Square’s at the very least!]

"Get on these two points immediately. I want this launched by this Friday at the latest!"

’He was trying to use the promotional gimmick to win back foot traffic. In reality, he knew it was almost pointless. Fifty thousand in subsidy coupons would be gone in a flash.’

’Once consumers realized there were no more real deals, they would just go back to Junxiao Square.’

’His other goal was to use this campaign to pressure tenants into lowering their prices. He didn’t know if it would work, but given Wanhong Square’s influence, he figured many of them would have to compromise.’

Peng Yu was just as worried as Miao Lei.

Miao Lei was only just beginning to feel the overwhelming pressure from Junxiao Business Management. He considered his own management skills to be on par with Lin Ya and Xu Jun, but it was useless when his opponent refused to play fair and just bludgeoned him with money!

Peng Yu, on the other hand, had been suffering for a while now. He’d been hit even harder by Junxiao Business Management’s money.

Last month, Junxiao Square’s two-million-yuan coupon drop had already crippled the Jiangzhou Economic Development Zone Wansheng Square, where business was mediocre to begin with.

’Peng Yu had been thinking, ’They have to calm down a bit this month. I’ll just throw one or two hundred thousand into marketing and hype, and I’ll definitely be able to pull back some of our foot traffic!’’

But who could have known? Before his own campaign could even begin, both Junxiao Square locations launched massive campaigns simultaneously, each dumping two million into sales promotion costs!

As the saying goes: "When number one and number two go to war, it’s number three that ends up dead."

The Jiangzhou Economic Development Zone Wansheng Square was in that exact tragic position. Wanhong Square could still put up a fight; after all, its original customer base was large. Even with the decline, the mall still had some foot traffic.

The Jiangzhou Economic Development Zone Wansheng Square was a different story. For the past few days, the place looked like it had been washed clean—by evening, you could barely see anyone on the first floor!

’If this keeps up, we’re going to be driven out of business!’

Peng Yu’s heart ached every time he looked at the daily operations reports. Being beaten down by money like this was both painful and maddeningly helpless.

But this wasn’t even what upset him the most. The worst part was that during this time, Junxiao Business Management had gone and bought up the five best Wansheng Square locations in the Hanjiang Region!