A Scam Against Wall Street

Chapter 519 A Scam Against Wall Street

Massim's face was filled with doubt, his gaze fixed on Ernst's calm face. "Still the strategy of encircling three sides and leaving one open? I just don't understand, why don't you just penetrate into the heart of the Amazon?"

In the past month or so, Flash Delivery has successively completed the channel integration of three major offline sectors: pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and e-commerce. Its expansion speed and coverage have attracted widespread attention in the industry.

In fact, the mainstream American media did not show much surprise at the layout of flash delivery in these three areas; they were more concerned about whether its orders could be as successful as before.

This is mainly due to the unique product ecosystem of American supermarkets. The variety of products displayed on their shelves is so diverse that consumers in many countries cannot imagine why these products would appear in supermarkets or convenience stores.

For example, electronic products, or medicines.

It's not unusual for supermarkets to sell beauty products, but many Asians might find it strange to see supermarkets selling mobile phones and medicines.

But that's how it is in America. Medicines are just like ordinary commodities, displayed on shelves for consumers to choose from.

Even more outrageous is the painkiller; in the United States, you can buy it in almost any store.

Americans are so dependent on painkillers that it's almost as much as they are on their three meals a day.

People living in the United States or North America often see Americans in the dead of winter wearing heavy down jackets on their upper bodies, looking like clumsy bears, while only wearing thin shorts or trousers on their lower bodies.

In their unique understanding, the lower body does not have vital internal organs and therefore does not need to be kept warm, which leads to the high incidence of chronic pain diseases such as rheumatism in the population.

In the American healthcare system, however, getting a doctor is like watching the flag-raising ceremony at Tiananmen Square—it can take one or two months to book an appointment.

This leads to most people having no choice but to take painkillers to relieve discomfort during the long waiting period when faced with unbearable pain.

It's only in the United States that painkillers are sold by the bottle, and often in quantities of one or two hundred or even three or five hundred pills.

Consumers are still not satisfied, feeling that pharmaceutical companies should release larger packages containing thousands of pills to further reduce purchasing costs.

When the weather gets cold, taking ibuprofen is like a daily routine for Americans.

Three pills a day is considered normal, and many people take six pills a day. A 500-pill pack of ibuprofen was finished before winter was even over.

In a sense, painkillers are like health supplements in the United States; they are readily available everywhere.

It's not surprising that flash sales include these pharmaceutical products; many of the offline merchants they partner with already have this kind of business.

The reason it's said to have connected the pharmaceutical industry is because Flashbuy has formed a strategic partnership with two pharmaceutical giants: CVS Pharmacy and Walgreens.

The former is the largest chain brand of drugstore retail in the United States, with more than 7,000 stores across the country and an extremely high density of outlets.

The latter is a century-old pharmacy with more than 6,000 stores.

Together, the two companies hold 40% of the pharmaceutical market share, and their influence in terms of distribution channels and industry discourse power is self-evident.

Through in-depth cooperation with these two major brands, Flashbuy has not only further expanded its drug procurement channels and enriched the drug categories on its platform, but more importantly, it has enabled access to prescription drugs.

Although medicines are widely available in the United States, prescription drugs are managed relatively strictly.

The hospital is only responsible for providing medical services and prescribing medications; it is not involved in the sale of drugs. Patients must purchase medications from pharmacies with a valid prescription from a doctor.

Prescription drugs can only be dispensed and sold in the designated prescription drug area of ​​a pharmacy with a certificate from a hospital.

The collaboration between Flash Sale and these two pharmaceutical companies has changed this traditional process, allowing consumers to place orders for various medicines online simply by logging into the platform via computer.

Even prescription drugs don't require you to go to a pharmacy with prescription drug qualifications. Just give the delivery guy your hospital certificate, it's that simple.

Moreover, not only can medicines be purchased through the flash sale platform, but it also offers same-hour delivery.

Regional protection for pharmaceutical products also exists in the United States.

Even if some small pharmaceutical companies partner with these pharmacy giants, it is impossible for them to cover the entire United States with their medicines.

However, flash sales are possible. As long as the medicine is available from these two major pharmacy chains and is in their inventory catalog, even if it is not available locally, it can be shipped from stores in other regions.

These two pharmacy giants recognized this advantage, which is why they signed an exclusive online sales agreement with Flashbuy.

Partnering with Flash Sale means that as long as there are computers and express delivery services available, their drug sales channels can be covered, which is too tempting for small and medium-sized pharmaceutical companies.

The two major pharmacy giants have partnered with Flash Sale through this channel, and in turn, small and medium-sized pharmaceutical companies will sign exclusive agreements with them as a result. Even if they cannot become exclusive distributors, they will have to make concessions in terms of price and other aspects.

So this is a win-win collaboration, and neither the media nor Massim find it surprising that Flashbuy has entered these areas.

What puzzled him was that since they could expand into pharmaceuticals and electronic products, why not sell books and audio-visual products? These products are available in supermarkets.

In his view, including these two categories in the platform would further compress the market space of Amazon and Walmart, the two major competitors. Building a competitive barrier through a comprehensive category layout is the most reasonable approach.

"I can only tell you that the time is not yet ripe," Ernst replied calmly.

"What backup plan do you have?" Massim sensed a conspiracy.

Is it the second move?

Indeed there is.

However, this move is not aimed at Amazon and Walmart; in other words, dealing with them is just killing two birds with one stone.

His real goal was to plunder and destroy Wall Street.

Why does Flash Sale now release user and sales data every week?

Is it to show off the platform's development achievements?

The answer is obviously no.

Ernst's real intention is to demonstrate to Wall Street the enormous potential and strong demand in the e-commerce sector by continuously releasing impressive market data, thereby attracting a large influx of capital into this field.

Amazon has now officially entered the fray.

Institutional shareholders, led by Goldman Sachs, have once again injected a massive $7.8 million into Amazon.

In such a frenzied market atmosphere in the internet industry, Goldman Sachs is going to hype up Amazon, no matter what.

When Amazon has more money, it will follow suit with flash sales, emulating the flash sale hourly delivery model. It will attract new users through various promotional activities, and the new user base will become the material for a new round of capital speculation, further pushing up its market value.

At that time, Amazon will enter a cycle of financing, expansion, market value increase, and refinancing, continuously absorbing capital from Wall Street.

The same logic applies to Walmart. As its flash sale delivery service continues to increase subsidies, its innovative business model has been discovered by the market, and Walmart is now in a dilemma.

He only had two paths before him.

Either surrender completely, shut down the online store business, focus on the offline retail market, and admit defeat in the e-commerce field.

They will either be forced to join price wars and subsidy wars, and directly compete with flash sales and Amazon.

However, the latter was clearly unacceptable to Walmart's shareholders. Large-scale subsidies and price wars would severely erode the company's profits, which ran counter to the profit logic of traditional retail companies and was simply unacceptable to Walmart's board of directors.

Ernst originally believed that Walmart would gradually fall behind in this competition where it was losing money to gain publicity, eventually leading to a battle between flash sales and Amazon in the e-commerce field.

According to his recent information, Walmart actually intends to split up its online division and make it completely independent from the Walmart Group.

This means that Walmart's online business will completely transform into an internet company like Flash Sale and Amazon, and will pursue financing and an IPO.

The outside world is very optimistic about Walmart's decision, and it is said that many investment banks on Wall Street want to participate in Walmart's next round of financing.

The flash sale had a huge impact on Wall Street; the revenue from just one Google sale created endless possibilities.

E-commerce has far more profit models than other internet companies.

If Walmart can carve out a share of this market, given the current popularity of Nasdaq, it will be able to raise money after listing.

Ernst will not let these investors withdraw easily; he wants them to see hope in flash sales and the infinite possibilities of e-commerce in the future.

This will make them afraid to reduce their holdings and will force them to desperately add more funds.

When all this capital has entered the market and the bubble has reached its peak, he will personally detonate the bomb, forcing Wall Street forces to withdraw from Walmart and Amazon.

Not only to unify the e-commerce market, but also to wipe out all the funds invested by these Wall Street institutions in the early stages.