Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

At the Shentong headquarters in Hu City, Chen Dejun and Yu Weijiao of Yuantong Express were sitting in an office, drinking tea.

”Zheng Shengyu at the Postal Association doesn’t do a damn thing, just letting Cloud Speed Express run wild. If you ask me, we should just drop the price to 0.5 yuan per order. If Liao Wei doesn’t want us to survive, we shouldn’t let him have an easy time either.”

Yu Weijiao took a sip from his teacup, then slammed it down on the tea tray, his eyes burning with anger as he made the vicious suggestion.

”0.5 yuan is too absurd. Dropping it to 1 yuan is something we can consider, though.”

Chen Dejun was also anxious, but in front of Yu Weijiao, he maintained an air of calm indifference.

”Wait, President Chen, are you serious?”

Yu Weijiao was taken aback. He didn’t expect the other man to actually be considering another price cut.

What he’d said about 0.5 yuan was just him venting his anger.

”Zheng Shengyu wants to watch the tigers fight from a mountaintop? It won’t be that easy. If he won’t get off the sidelines, we’ll force him to.”

Chen Dejun snorted coldly and said meaningfully.

Yu Weijiao’s brow was tightly furrowed. He couldn’t figure it out right away. All he could think was that at a price of 1 yuan, they wouldn’t even be able to pay the couriers’ wages. The franchise owners would be cursing their mothers.

「That afternoon.」

The headquarters of Shentong and Yuantong announced to their franchisees nationwide that for bulk-shipping clients with packages under 1 kilogram, the price per order would be reduced from 1.5 yuan to 1 yuan.

”How much? 1 yuan? How the fuck are we supposed to work like this?”

The owner of a terminal station was not happy. When the price had previously dropped to 1.5 yuan, the delivery fee for these small e-commerce packages was changed to 0.8 yuan, and he paid his couriers 0.6 yuan per delivery.

The cost of a single phone call was 0.1 yuan. At this price, forget door-to-door delivery; just tossing the package at the entrance of the residential complex was already considered five-star service.

Now the headquarters had cut the delivery fee to 0.6 yuan per order. The owner had to make a profit too, so naturally, he could only give his couriers a commission of 0.4 to 0.5 yuan per delivery.

After a full day of running around, not even counting pickups, a courier could only make 50-60 yuan from deliveries.

For that little money, you might as well go begging.

They held onto their market share, but the quality of service was also shrinking drastically. Incidents of lost or damaged packages became more and more frequent.

As Chen Yansen was on his way to Luzhou.

Liao Wei, who had just been discharged from the hospital, called and said, ”Boss, Shentong and Yuantong have dropped their price to one yuan per order. Should we follow suit?”

”What about Yunda and Zhongtong?” Chen Yansen asked.

”Still one-point-five,” Liao Wei replied.

”Don’t lower the price for now. As long as the decline in business volume doesn’t exceed 10%, maintain the 1.5 yuan price.”

Chen Yansen instructed.

1.5 yuan was practically the cost price. If they dropped it to 1 yuan, not only would it fail to cover equipment and transportation costs, but it would also be impossible to guarantee stable income for the couriers.

The essence of express delivery is the fast and accurate transfer of items from sender to recipient, not a race to the bottom on price.

If they couldn’t even guarantee service, then no matter how cheap the price was, merchants and customers wouldn’t dare to use them.

”Okay, boss, I understand. I’ll report back to you if there are any new developments.”

Liao Wei nodded in acknowledgment.

Chen Yansen gave a faint smile, not taking the Tongda companies’ price adjustment to heart, and then hung up the phone.

Express delivery wasn’t his main business anyway. He could still handle a loss of 100 million a month.

Whether the Three Passes and One Reach could handle it, however, was another question.