Dangdang CEO Li Guoqing wants to build a sheep farm, spending 100 million yuan to become a shepherd

Dangdang is still not giving up on the private-label path. Beijing Business Today learned yesterday that Dangdang plans to spend 100 million yuan to build a sheep farm and may later launch a private label, "Dangdang Cashmere," which would be another private label for Dangdang after "Dangdang Youpin" and "Dangdang Dukan."
 

Obviously, Dangdang CEO Li Guoqing is very optimistic about this sheep-farming strategy and personally campaigned for it on Weibo. According to Li Guoqing, "Dangdang has decided: 1. To cooperate with the Inner Mongolia Cashmere Association and join hands with high-quality cashmere enterprises to build a platform. 2. To enclose land for sheep farming, go deep into the upstream of the industrial chain, and prepare for the launch of the private label 'Dangdang Cashmere.'"

In this regard, Deng Yifei, general manager of Dangdang's apparel business unit, revealed that Dangdang has now reached a strategic cooperation with the Hohhot Cashmere Association in Inner Mongolia and will invest a total of 300 million yuan in the cashmere sector within one year, namely planning to invest 100 million yuan to build a sheep farm in Inner Mongolia, and later invest another 200 million yuan to build an online open platform for cashmere, laying the groundwork for the future private label "Dangdang Cashmere."

"As a key subcategory for expansion within Dangdang's apparel category, Dangdang will introduce a variety of innovative exclusive services in the cashmere category," Deng Yifei said, such as C2B personalized customization, flash sales of seasonal products, lifetime free care, and trade-ins. According to Dangdang, it will ultimately build a closed-loop transaction chain integrating flash sales of new products, a platform mall, clearance sales, fine self-operated goods, and private labels. In fact, Li Guoqing is not the first big name in China's IT industry to be interested in animals. NetEase CEO Ding Lei previously raised pigs, and Qihoo 360 Chairman Zhou Hongyi invested in the goat milk industry. However, in the industry's view, Li Guoqing's move is more closely tied to his website's own business and is linked to the apparel brand strategy Dangdang has emphasized in recent years.

"Dangdang regards apparel as its most important category besides books, so beyond the flash-sale platform, self-operation and OEM labeling are also an inevitable step. Raising sheep and promoting cashmere, making the entire industrial chain vertical, and seeking to boost metrics such as user purchase frequency, order conversion rate, average order value, and gross margin. This logic is correct," said Internet analyst Qian Hao. (Reporter Wei Wei)