Chapter 30: The Curated Store

In the original drama, Qiu Yingying worked as a clerk in a coffee shop, later opened an online store, achieved good results, and earned her boss's appreciation.

Opening an online store was indeed a good choice, but Qin Hao certainly wouldn't let Qiu Yingying go back to selling coffee.

"The company is preparing a curated online store. I'll arrange for you to follow along and learn how to develop private domain traffic."

So-called private domain traffic actually involves pulling customers into established groups and then periodically pushing product information to them, while also releasing coupons that can only be redeemed within the group.

The benefits of doing this were obvious. Live commerce requires purchasing traffic from short-video platforms. Although platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou were just starting out and traffic prices weren't too expensive, once the platforms matured, this advantage would disappear. A single livestream could easily cost millions in traffic purchases; not only was the cost too high, but to earn that money back from the audience, one would have to squeeze it out of the product margins, which would eventually ruin one's reputation.

However, if there was a private domain traffic pool as a foundation, even without buying public domain traffic, a livestream could achieve decent popularity relying solely on its own followers. The platform would then grant a certain level of recommendation ranking based on the popularity of the livestream room, which could save a lot of money.

When Qin Hao was running "Discount Cat," he had accumulated a massive following and built hundreds of large groups with two thousand members each. This portion of private domain traffic was always maintained by dedicated staff. The private domain traffic development Qiu Yingying was to learn—the work of pulling people into groups—was essentially similar to sales.

Given Qiu Yingying's boisterous personality, she was even capable of handing out coffee shop flyers on the streets, let alone pulling people in through a screen. Qin Hao believed she was fully capable of handling this job.

"Wait, Brother, aren't you guys always selling other people's products during livestreams? Why do you need to open your own online store?" Qiu Yingying suddenly asked.

Qin Hao explained, "The reason is simple. The trend of live commerce has only just begun to blow up. Doing it now is indeed very profitable, but nothing stays perfect forever. We have to plan ahead. When competition gets fierce in the future, how will we survive?"

"Why do customers choose us? It's nothing more than our products being high quality and low cost. Therefore, during the first stage of product selection, we must maintain strict control. There are many issues we cannot control when cooperating with third-party vendors: product quality, after-sales service, customer service attitude, and so on. Thus, running our own curated store is an inevitable outcome."

Although Qiu Yingying didn't understand much, she still felt deeply impressed. "Brother, you're amazing. You're completely different from before."

"People always change; they grow. You can too," Qin Hao said, smiling as he rubbed Qiu Yingying's head.

Qiu Yingying felt encouraged. "Yeah, that's right. I can do it."

Fan Shengmei's livestream lasted until the early hours of the morning. The moment the stream ended, Fan Shengmei took the mineral water handed to her by a staff member and gulped it down. She was incredibly thirsty; after streaming for several consecutive hours, it felt like her throat was on fire.

At that moment, the staff members present suddenly burst into applause for her.

Fan Shengmei looked around in surprise before realizing the applause was for her.

Sitting next to her, the host who had mentored her explained with a smile, "This is our tradition. You performed very well; you deserve this."

In a live commerce session, the audience only sees the host, but in reality, there is a complete team supporting them behind the scenes: technical staff responsible for product links, lighting technicians, makeup artists, assistants, and operations staff—about ten people in total. The base salaries for these people are not high; to make money, they must drive up performance to earn bonuses.

As the link directly facing the audience, the host is the most critical part. Whether everyone makes money depends on whether the host can stimulate the audience's desire to purchase.

"Thank you, thank you everyone." Fan Shengmei's eyes reddened. Since graduating from university, she had been constantly hitting walls in society; she had never received such treatment. That sincere appreciation moved her and gave her a glimmer of confidence—that she, too, could earn respect through her own strength.

After the excitement subsided, Fan Shengmei suppressed her agitation and asked her mentor, "Sister Liu, what was our sales volume for this stream?"

"It broke thirty million. It's better than expected. Xiao Fan, you really have potential," Sister Liu praised with a smile.

"Thirty million! That much?" Fan Shengmei cried out. Although it was just sales volume and not profit, it was still shocking enough.

"Then... how much commission can we get?" Fan Shengmei asked in a low voice after a long hesitation.

Seeing her cautious manner, Sister Liu couldn't help but laugh. "There's no need to be shy. This is the fruit of your labor. Since you are still in your probation period, it will be a bit lower. The bonus you receive is half that of a formal host, so you should be able to get about 1,500 in bonuses."

"Wow, that much?" Fan Shengmei was thrilled. Although she was exhausted, earning 1,500 in a single night—and being able to double it after her probation ended—meant that if she did several more livestreams a month, wouldn't her income be even higher than her previous salary?

Fan Shengmei finally felt that there was hope for her to buy a house in Shanghai.

Just as Fan Shengmei was dreaming of her house-buying plans, Qin Hao and Qiu Yingying entered. Qiu Yingying immediately threw her arms around Fan Shengmei.

"Sister Fan, you are so amazing! I admire you so much!"

Qin Hao, meanwhile, offered praise to the livestream team: "Well done. To be able to sell this well while training a new host... it looks like your team has a great chance of breaking into the top three this month."

To motivate employees to drive performance, Qin Hao had created a team ranking. The top three livestream teams each month could share a total bonus pool worth one million yuan. The first-place team would receive 500,000 directly, which averaged out to about 40,000 to 50,000 per person. Combined with regular commission splits, this level of pay was definitely considered high income.

This was also the main reason why the company's live commerce business was growing better and better; otherwise, those excellent livestream teams would easily be poached by others.

Sister Liu smiled and said, "That's thanks to the boss's keen eye. Xiao Fan is excellent. This is the first time I've seen someone perform so well on their very first livestream."

As expected of livestream hosts—they were sharp. With one sentence, she praised both Fan Shengmei and the boss.

Only then did Fan Shengmei have the chance to break free from Qiu Yingying's bear hug. She walked up to Qin Hao and thanked him sincerely, "Qin Hao, thank you..."

Qin Hao waved it off. "It's what I should do. You helped look after Yingying before; I just gave you an opportunity. Whether you can seize it depends on yourself."

Fan Shengmei did not speak again. She knew that no matter what she said, it would be insignificant compared to the help Qin Hao had given her. Since her current abilities were not enough to help him, she could only hope for an opportunity to repay him in the future.

(End of Chapter)