(Minghui.org) I have been living by the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance since I started to practice Falun Dafa in 1997. I have worked at e-commerce companies, where fake sales reporting is a common practice, but I was able to grow the business for companies through only honest sales.
In China's e-commerce industry, an online store's sales volume and customer rating are critical for buyers to decide whether to place an order at the store. Some people have thus created a bogus online purchase business. They made fake purchases to boost the store's sales and post phony positive feedback for the store. The store pays those people commissions.
I was told that over 95 percent of online stores in China adopt this fake sales strategy.
Refusing to Outsource Fake Online Purchases
I joined an e-commerce company in 2013. My uncle had a connection with the owner, so the company gave me special treatment.
I started in customer service, the lowest level of work at the company. Shortly after, my manager assigned me to be an assistant to a sales specialist.
The specialist told me to join many QQ groups. QQ is a social media platform in China which allows people to form groups and share information.
Then he told me to post tasks to the QQ groups. Task materials included links to our products, unit price, commission, and special notes. Many people pick up the tasks. They send screen shots later to show that they completed the tasks. I then send them payments.
After a few tasks, I realized this was the infamous online purchase outsourcing at work. It cheats real consumers. Many bad or fake products create an illusion of a “hot sell” and lure consumers to buy them.
Falun Dafa taught me to be truthful, compassionate, and forbearing. I was trapped in this business. The company assigned only me to work with the “sales specialist,” giving me the opportunity to be promoted later. If I didn't do this, I would lose the company's trust and the opportunity for promotion.
I thought about it for a week. Finally I decided to follow Dafa's teaching and not do it any more. Dafa is much more precious in my life. I cannot do anything against it.
I explained to my manager why I didn't want to do this. He didn't understand my decision, but let me return to customer service. The owner also complained to my uncle that I didn't take the opportunity they gave me.
Learn a New Sales Method
I didn't regret my decision, and I did my best at customer service. In the meantime, I told many colleagues about Falun Dafa and the Communist Party's persecution of it. One colleague quit the Communist Party because of it.
During the 2015 New Year, that colleague told me that he was about to leave the company. He transferred a big client to me because he trusted me.
That client was a sales agent to promote sales over a microblog (a popular social media tool in China). It was a brand new sales channel for our area.
I learned from him and it worked. I made 80,000 yuan in sales on my first try. My business continued to grow. On my best days I could sell 300,000 yuan worth of products.
The new media channel not only sold our products, but also offered a new way to promote them, saving my company a lot of advertisement expense.
I was promoted to become an online store manager.
Two Million Yuan Profit by Honest Sales
I often thought about whether a company can survive without doing the online purchase outsourcing. On the surface, without the fake sales, the company's sales volume was much lower, and could hardly compete.
But truly international brands don't engage in fake sales. Customers just want to buy them at a premium.
Fake sales cannot make your product better, and it's just a way to cheat.
I decided to learn marketing. Practicing Dafa allowed me to understand and remember what I learned and learn it fast. I felt that through cultivation I improved and could look at things at a higher level.
I started doing things differently, starting from opportunity management, sales organization management, and marketing. A company soon hired me as the Director of Operations.
It was a tough call again for me to decide whether to continue the fake sales practice at this new company. People were used to doing it. We once refused an offer of online purchase outsourcing and lost 100,000 yuan in sales.
Over time, I shared my understanding of marketing with others in my company. I pointed out to them that long-term sales is based on the value created for the customers, not deception.
They also learned from their own experiences that fake sales do not increase sales in the long run. There is always the risk that our store could be banned if we were found out. Gradually we stopped the practice of fake sales.
Amazingly, our business kept growing without the fake sales. We had over 2 million yuan net profit in 2016, and I became a partner in the company.
Category: Improving Oneself
