The CEO of Zhongtu Network cried bitterly during live streaming sales, suffering losses of over 300 million yuan due to disasters. Chaoyang Bookstore | Live Room | Zhongtu
4 million books, over 300 million yards, turned into nothing overnight. When it comes to employees who were once besieged by floods and books that turned into waste paper, Huang Ping, the founder and CEO of Zhongtu Network, couldn't help but cry in tears.
On August 4th, in the live broadcast room of Taobao's "Zhongtuwang Bookstore", Huang Ping started his first live broadcast in life. Since starting his business in 1998, he has been accustomed to managing the book business behind the scenes. For the first time, he has faced live streaming footage and so many online netizens who care about the future of Chinese book companies. "For the first time in 25 years, we have encountered this kind of hardship, and things have come very quickly. I apologize to my colleagues."
The hardships he mentioned refer to the recent floods in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region, which soaked the largest book logistics and storage base in China, located in Zhuozhou, Hebei. A large number of books piled up in the warehouse were submerged due to the inability to transfer them in time, and nearly a hundred publishing institutions in China suffered huge losses, including China Library Network.
This flood has almost destroyed the hard work and savings of Zhongtu Network for over 20 years. According to the official statement of Zhongtu Network, "this is the deadliest loss and blow that the enterprise has encountered in its 25 year history.". Huang Ping said that the next step is to find ways to keep the enterprise alive.
Huang Ping, founder and CEO of Zhongtu Network, wept while covering his face during a live broadcast about the disaster situation. Live video recording
Years of hard work have been destroyed in an instant
On August 3rd, in an interview with the media, Huang Ping looked at the camera and calmly and restrained, recounting the damaged books and estimated economic losses suffered by Zhongtu Network. One day later, also in front of the camera, he calmly recounted in the quiet live broadcast room, unable to restrain his emotions and burst into tears.
Huang Ping recalled that in order to prevent disasters, he stayed in Beijing to coordinate, and a deputy general manager responsible for daily operations arrived in Zhuozhou. However, due to road closures, he could only go to the vicinity of the warehouse, and personnel were also arranged on site to be responsible for scheduling. From the feedback from various aspects, they predict that there may be risks, but they may not necessarily be particularly significant. Afterwards, they began organizing manpower to move books from lower levels to higher levels, but due to too many books in stock, the remaining space in the warehouse was limited, coupled with power outages and elevator shutdowns, and temporary inability to hire movers, the efficiency of moving was very low, resulting in the inability to move books in a timely manner. Later, everyone found a way to gather 2000 bags of sandbags. Before that, Huang Ping sought help from the Zhuozhou Municipal Government, but due to floods and insufficient manpower, some sandbags could not be transported. "In the face of such a big disaster, everyone has done their best and we have all done what we can."
Upon learning that the flood was approaching, employees were working hard to stack sandbags and transport books. However, the flood came too quickly, and everyone could only watch as the warehouse flooded and books were soaked. When the water was too high and had to give up rescuing the books and evacuate from the warehouse, the employees retreated to the fourth floor of the office, waiting for rescue, and spent the night in the isolated building surrounded by the flood.
Huang Ping still remembers what a young man among his trapped colleagues said. During the rescue, the young man escorted other colleagues such as pregnant women and children before leaving. Watching the water level continue to rise, he said he was prepared for sacrifice at that time.
Huang Ping was grateful that all the trapped employees had been safely evacuated on August 2nd. "If a colleague lives in the rescue of a book, everyone will bear a psychological burden for a lifetime." Taking advantage of the live broadcast, Huang Ping expressed gratitude to the rescue team and friends who provided a shelter.
On August 2nd, the office building of Zhongtu Network was flooded. Respondents provide
According to Zhongtu Network, there were a total of three rescue teams that rescued trapped individuals that night. The first wave was a rescue team coordinated by the government, who rushed to safely evacuate the children and pregnant women. Later, it was the Shandong Liaocheng Eagle Rescue Team. At that time, the situation at the scene was complex and it was late at night, with a very high risk factor. They repeatedly took the trapped personnel to a safe place. The last wave was also an officially deployed rescue team. "The true grace of meeting by chance to save lives."
Live streaming sales self rescue
On August 4, Huang Ping took advantage of the rainstorm to go back to the warehouse in Zhuozhou to check the situation. The water level in the warehouse has shown a downward trend, dropping from 4 meters to about 2 meters, but it is still difficult to carry out large-scale book rescue operations. Books soaked in floods are no longer usable, and books located at high altitudes also face the risk of being damp and deformed.
The experience of Zhongtu Network has attracted great attention from the internet, and a large number of netizens have left messages expressing their willingness to provide assistance to Zhongtu Network. On August 2nd and August 3rd, online books and cultural and creative refueling kits were used for self rescue. As of the time of publication, according to the official mini program data of China National Library, 126220 sets of book fuel packs and 21781 sets of cultural and creative fuel packs have been sold.
On August 4th, Taobao launched the Zhuozhou Book Special Session to help disaster affected businesses in the Zhuozhou area reduce their operating costs and support them in resuming operations as soon as possible. The products in the venue were all books and peripheral products that were urgently stocked by disaster affected businesses in Zhuozhou and could be sold normally. In addition, Taobao Live has established a public welfare special session for disaster stricken merchants in Zhuozhou, in collaboration with top live streaming rooms, celebrity influencers, and others, to provide free commission sales for disaster stricken booksellers and provide special traffic support for public welfare live streaming, solving the urgent needs of merchants.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, from 16:00 to 18:00 on the 4th, Huang Ping launched his first live broadcast in the Taobao "Zhongtu Network Bookstore" live broadcast room. The live broadcast room is not large and is located in front of a huge bookshelf. Under the bright light, Huang Ping appeared somewhat tired.
Founded by Huang Ping in 1998, Zhongtu Net is one of the earliest online book sales platforms in China. At the beginning of its establishment, Zhongtu Network was just an individual book sales website. Later, as the team grew larger, more and more people joined.
"All book lovers actually have a dream of opening their own bookstore. I think I have the Internet, so I opened an online bookstore." Huang Ping said.
After being marginalized in the competition with the mainstream Internet platforms, China Library Network started to sell books in time from 2002, gradually stabilized, and had its own sales channels and readership.
It is precisely because of the positioning of a seller of leftover books that the warehouse center of Zhongtu Net stores a large number of books purchased by the team from various sources over the years, many of which are still rare, out of print, and old editions that cannot be replicated or reprinted.
"All the setbacks in the development of enterprises in the past cannot compare to the fatal blow of this flood." Huang Ping explained the books and cultural and creative products at hand time and time again in a low voice and gentle tone in the live broadcast room.
Data shows that nearly 100000 netizens watched this live broadcast. At the end of the live broadcast, Huang Ping expressed gratitude to the netizens who have provided support and assistance to China Image Network these days.
Huang Ping interacts with netizens in the live broadcast room. Video screenshot
Luo Xiang, a professor of the China University of Political Science and Law, also forwarded a help seeking message on his WeChat official account "Luo Xiang Talks about Criminal Law" for China Library Network, saying in the article that he hoped that the affected warehouses, including China Library Network, as well as more affected enterprises could safely tide over the difficulties.
Collaborate and help each other overcome difficulties together
Late at night on August 4, the official WeChat official account of China Library Network released a tweet entitled "peers affected by the flood", which said that 10% of the sales of cultural and creative fuel packs would be used to help peers resume production.
The tweet listed a specific list and situation of disaster stricken peers who are also facing difficulties today, calling on everyone to provide help: "Mutual assistance at this time is also in a sense of self rescue. When a flood comes, we unite to stay warm, just like in the tide of the times when we work together, watch and help each other, we can definitely find an exit and overcome difficulties together!"
According to information provided by Zhongtu Network, the warehouse of Beijing Rentian Bookstore, located in the dock village of Zhuozhou dock town and in the central area of Zhuozhou flood disaster, had a maximum water depth of over 2 meters at the time of the disaster. All journals and books were still submerged in the ocean as of 3:00 pm on August 3, and have been completely damaged. It is expected that the warehouse will not be able to ship normally within 20 days, and orders that have already been generated cannot be processed. The company saved itself by intensifying contact with printing factories to reprint books with high demand from customers.
The 6000 square meter library of Jiayouyuan Cultural Development Co., Ltd. was flooded, resulting in losses of over 20 million real books and the complete destruction of millions of books. The warehouse of over 8000 square meters of Little Red Sail Children's Books was affected by the disaster, and over 3 million sets of books were damaged. Guangchen Culture has suffered damage to over 500000 books, worth over 30 million yuan.
The 3000 square meter warehouse of the Paper Voice Bookstore was affected by the disaster, 4/5 of the books were scrapped, the 300 square meter Xizhimen store urgently needed to be opened but was put on hold, trucks were soaked, the store was unable to supply, online orders could not be shipped, and an estimated loss of 50 million yuan was incurred. The company plans to launch a low-priced storage activity and a free gift activity for soaking books through online stores to help.
All inventory of "unread" publishers is under the custody of Southwest Logistics, with an overall inventory value of approximately 124 million yuan in cryptocurrency and nearly 1.5 million books. Conservatively estimated losses are at least tens of millions of cryptocurrency and millions of real books. The company has urgently arranged for the estimated damaged books to be reprinted and produced, and will also urgently open "on-demand printing pre-sale zones" in various platform stores.
Beijing Times Huayu International Media Co., Ltd. estimates a loss of over 200 million yuan, with a warehouse size of nearly 8000 square meters and a stock of over 3.6 million books, almost completely wiped out. The company has established an emergency team to urgently print and sell some of its products. In addition, it plans to raise over 10 million yuan to invest in production, find new warehouses, and ship to customers.
The Buyin Culture Warehouse is also located in Zhuozhou and was one of the first warehouses affected by floods. The self owned book warehouse of Buyin Culture is divided into two warehouses, with a total area of approximately 3400 square meters and a storage capacity of 2.8 million books. It is estimated that a loss of 70 million yuan will be incurred this time. Buyin Culture stated that for key products, they urgently need to find cloud warehouses to connect with emergency shipments, and are also preparing to search for new warehouses as backup for subsequent shipments.
"If everyone is here, everything will be fine," said Zhongtu Net in a tweet. "Not only are people willing to help us, but also people who love paper books. The tomorrow we can share will still be there."
The disaster situation of book enterprises. The official WeChat official account of China Library Network
