In recent years, the retail industry has also been highly competitive.

Wal-Mart started with a profit margin of about 7 percent, but now how much is left? It's just over 4 percent, which is about 100 dollars of goods, and the company can make more than 4 dollars, and that's not just the money that shareholders can get, and the net profit will become even less.

In the case of a price-earnings ratio of more than 21, investors are no longer optimistic about Wal-Mart, and the slightest wind and grass will make the company's stock price fall, and it has almost come to an end, and at the peak, Amazon's stock price can be as high as three or four Wal-Mart.

Investors pay more attention to the possible benefits of Internet companies, not only limited to dividends, but also the rise or fall of the stock price itself, speaking of Boeing, a company as bullish, the market value is actually less than 100 billion US dollars.

From this point of view, it is indeed possible that Wal-Mart is seeking to transform, trying to reach out to Amazon, and trying to buy it, which is enough to show the attitude of Wal-Mart's top management, just like the merger of Warner-era and AOL, that the expectations are good, but it is a pity that the wrong company was merged at the wrong time.

The reason why Ye Dongqing asked about packaging is because Amazon's profit margin is not high, so he can only desperately compress costs on the current basis, and if he can save a dollar on the packaging cost of each order, it will be a considerable income in the long run.

"I have taken this into account and am preparing to acquire a carton manufacturing company, and now the user has a single order of 99 US dollars, we not only ship to the home for free, the packaging cost is also borne by us, the profit is not high, and the packaging can be saved, often all the goods are packed in the same box, which can save both transportation space and packaging costs. ”

Mr. Jeff Bezos's tone was a little helpless, at present, e-commerce wants to compete with traditional retail giants, and the strength is more than a little bit worse, and Amazon should now think about how to survive.

Although the market environment has been much better than the first three years of the 21st century, it is still not very friendly to the e-commerce field led by Amazon, mainly because it is not easy to open up the market, and there will be huge losses every day, and there are many places to spend money.

In the second half of 2000 and the whole year of 2001, investors treated Internet stocks as garbage, and very few were willing to pay for them.

"I was busy some time ago, so I didn't look at the data carefully, and when I go back, I will help analyze it to see where else I can reduce the cost. Ye Dongqing continued to drink the smoothie and said.

Mr. Bezos nodded and continued: "Sometimes I really envy you for entering an industry that doesn't require much effort, that Facebook, just make sure that the number of users is large enough to attract people to advertise."

On Amazon, we sell most of the products ourselves, and we can't even sell ads like eBay, charging auction fees, you can't imagine how many nights I was tormented by the high cost and couldn't sleep. ”

"The next should be easier, with the number of transit logistics warehouses increasing, the cost and transportation pressure will definitely be slightly reduced, the number of orders has gone up, and each order earns less, yes, but it is also a lot of money to accumulate.

Why don't you contact the manufacturers directly and squeeze more profits from them? For example, in the case of the same quality, whichever company gives a lower price, it will sell more of its products, which is also a disguised advertising, if the sales volume is large enough, they will be willing to give up part of the profits, and the manufacturing industry also needs to cultivate the market. ”

“...... That's a great idea, but I think we should follow the wishes of consumers, but we do provide more promotional resources for high-margin products, and then sort them by sales volume to make sure that high-margin products stay at the forefront of the page for a long time, so that consumers can see them at a glance. ”

The two chatted and exchanged their thoughts with each other.

Ye Dongqing didn't tell the other party that the online social circle is not easy to do, and recently he is inviting professional lobbyists from K Street to operate in Washington, trying to promote policies such as Internet social information and network security that are beneficial to him, the United States is fine, but foreign countries are in trouble, except for Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other pro-American regions, Facebook has faced many non-public censorship in Europe and the United States, mostly in the name of national security.

It is not easy for Facebook, and it is even more difficult for Skype to be implemented, several major communication operators in the United States have been eyeing it, and foreign telecom operators regard Skype as a flood beast, because network communication technology involves their important interests, and it has been seized in the process, and unfavorable news has reached Ye Dongqing's ears from time to time.

In order to stifle this program, the American Communications Industry Association even sent a representative to try to contact Ye Dongqing, wanting to spend money to buy this program, and the offer given last week has been as high as 1.1 billion US dollars, which is a lot lower than Skype's valuation, the main reason is that they don't think Skype can last until the future, so they are reluctant to spend too much money, in addition to worrying that after acquiring it, other similar products will emerge, and they have spent money in vain.

It's a bit stressful, but it's not too stressful, Skype currently has more than 80 million users worldwide, and the valuation is about $2 billion, which is enough to help him defend against many risks, and if it is blocked, telecom operators are worried about the negative impact of the cascading effect.

Of course, Ye Dongqing is in the center of the storm in this whole thing, but the video call technology in his hand and a series of breakthroughs are estimated to be realized in about half a year from the market.

The larger the scale, the more disputes will be caused, and while grabbing the market with large companies, they will also face countless litigants who want money and go crazy, and Ye Dongqing will occasionally feel annoyed.

After sitting in a Starbucks café for more than two hours, the topic gradually jumped from business to the scenery of Yellowstone to the glamorous restaurants of London, and then parted at about ten o'clock, and agreed to visit Seattle next time.

Before leaving, Mr. Bezos said that Ye Dongqing's ideas were very mature, which made him feel like chatting with his peers, of course, Ye Dongqing's psychological age is not young, and the only thing that seems naïve is probably in terms of personal emotions, he, the prodigal son, doesn't know how to fall in love, and he doesn't want to live a stable life with others for a lifetime......

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