E-Ladies: Navigating the Wired World
Chapter 227: Episode 227: Self-service is really convenient

Chapter 227: Episode 227: Self-service is really convenient

A major project from Schroeder, which mobilized the entire team, left the company feeling as though it had been drained of its vitality; Zhou Xueyin was truly reluctant to get involved with these kinds of orders anymore—ones that involved a tumultuous mix of online and offline work and were more trouble than they were worth.

But now, relying solely on her abilities, the orders she received were mostly small requests for reposts and account promotions. Even if they came consistently every day, they never felt like enough to support the whole family.

Moreover, as more and more people operated accounts, user homogeneity became a serious issue, and the activity levels among netizens continued to decline, with even some accounts that had millions of followers experiencing a drop in their fan base rather than growth.

Zhou Xueyin, who hadn’t experienced anxiety for a while, had started to feel anxious again recently...

"What should I do? It feels tough to get through the year; it’s already November, and our sales are just on par with last year. If this trend continues next year, the company simply won’t be able to survive..." She couldn’t let the company staff know about her anxiety, so she had no choice but to vent to Wei Jingzhu.

"If you can’t keep going, then just disband the company; don’t torture yourself too much. People used to watch your high-end content, but now everyone prefers gossips and the like... Right now, the only content in the company that people still watch is about Western celebrities’ fashion, the rest isn’t great, right?" Wei Jingzhu hit the nail on the head.

"You could say it’s a complete defeat, It feels like not even a jack-of-all-trades account can keep up. There’s no shortage of submissions, but it’s always stuff like: ’my boyfriend cheated on me with my best friend, what should I do?’ What can you do? Stay together and not break up for the New Year? Sigh..." Zhou Xueyin sighed helplessly, "There’s not a single bit of novelty, the whole internet is devoid of anything fresh... What should I do, you tell me?"

"I’ve seen some Weibo sources are from what groups? Have you clicked in to see?" Wei Jingzhu changed the subject.

"I’ve looked; they’re just ordinary timers, and then there are some platforms that seem to be scam companies’ order-taking platforms. They all just don’t seem very reliable," Zhou Xueyin said, deflating onto the sofa, "But recently there’s this one company that keeps emailing me, asking me if I want to join their order-taking platform..."

"So what are you planning to do? Have you checked it out?" Wei Jingzhu asked with concern.

"I looked, but... their interface is so poorly designed... I have absolutely no desire to use it," Zhou Xueyin smiled bitterly.

"Hey, that’s for you users to see, not for netizens. What do you care if it looks bad or not? Open it up, let me see if it’s trustworthy." Wei Jingzhu pulled Zhou Xueyin up from the sofa.

Zhou Xueyin lazily sat down at the desk, opened her laptop, and slowly loaded the website: Sorry, the server cannot be found...

Hmm? Uh... what’s happening?

"It’s not another scam company, is it?" Wei Jingzhu leaned over, "When did our wifi cut out?"

It turns out they hadn’t used a device that required wifi for a long time; they didn’t even know it was down.

After Wei Jingzhu restarted the router, Zhou Xueyin successfully launched the webpage.

A dull ochre interface appeared before the two of them. While the page content couldn’t get any more basic, the functions were actually quite comprehensive: account ID input area, order price estimation, submission pricing, and so forth...

"Why don’t we register and give it a try?" Wei Jingzhu suggested.

"No need to register separately, they gave me an account with high-level access, and I’ve changed the password... Let me check..." Zhou Xueyin found the memo in her laptop folder and logged into the order system.

"If this system is made by this company, whether you change the password or not, they can still see it in the backend..." Wei Jingzhu dampened Zhou Xueyin’s enthusiasm.

"Of course, I know that; I just did it for the sake of easy memorization..." Zhou Xueyin pouted, unreconciled in her response.

After logging in, the array of content she could view expanded greatly. There were accounts that had published content needing promotion, merchants looking for direct Weibo advertising, and high-end merchants offering hefty rewards for copywriting tasks. There were standard orders, urgent orders, simple tasks, and highly challenging tasks.

Although the interface was indeed rather plain, the core functionality was quite robust.

"Not going to lie, the system is pretty well done; you can tell the developer has played video games because they have really nailed the task system," Wei Jingzhu sincerely praised.

"Should I take an order and try it out?" Zhou Xueyin’s curiosity had been piqued upon hearing this.

"Here’s a trial feature that lets you take orders without paying a deposit..." Wei Jingzhu read the website’s rules intently, "But just one thing..."

"But just what?"

"If you don’t pay the deposit, you get 70% of the order amount; with the deposit, you get the full amount. The deposit is 2000..." Wei Jingzhu hesitated.

While 2000 yuan wasn’t much, if every user trialing the platform deposited 2000 yuan, with 100 users, that’s 200K; with 1000 users, that’s 2 million... Instead of using theirs, why not develop our own?

But then again, even if they developed their own, who would use it?

The platform seemed very mature at the moment, and it already had a significant user base. If they were to develop a similar platform, there was no guarantee that it would be bigger than others’.

Not to mention their timing tool, which initially had some users, but now everyone uses the official Weibo one. Their usage rate is declining; now, not to mention retail users, even their own company staff have stopped using it...

"Hmm? There’s a line here... If you manage more than ten accounts with an average of over 500K followers each, the 2000 yuan deposit is waived..." Zhou Xueyin said somewhat excitedly.

"Don’t we meet that criteria? We have more than ten accounts with over 500K followers; let’s add them all and give it a try?" Wei Jingzhu was also energized.

"Were you just thinking about asking Tenten to develop a similar order-taking system?" Zhou Xueyin asked, tuned into his thoughts.

"It’s no wonder you’re my wife; you really do know everything I’m thinking!" Wei Jingzhu looked at her admiringly.

"Actually, there’s no need for us to develop one ourselves. Since they’ve directly given us a high-access account, it means we don’t need to spend money, right? It seems they have a clear view of what accounts we have..."

To the operators of the internet, everything is completely transparent.

Yet for users, it still remains shrouded in mystery.

Zhou Xueyin promptly entered all the company’s IDs with over 500K followers into the system. The website quickly retrieved the real data from these accounts: number of followers, number of reposts within three minutes, conversion volume, conversion rate, account valuation estimate, and order pricing—all were calculated without exception.

"Awesome! The order pricing is even higher than what I’ve been quoting externally? Damn, it feels like I’ve lost a billion..." Seeing these numbers, Zhou Xueyin felt hopeful about this year’s bonus.