Peggy Yu facts for kids

Peggy Yu or Yu Yu (Chinese: 俞渝; pinyin: Yú Yú) is a successful Chinese businesswoman. Born in 1965, she is best known as the co-founder and chairwoman of dangdang.com. This company became one of the biggest online bookstores in China.

Early Life and Education

Peggy Yu was born in Chongqing, China, in 1965. She went to Beijing Foreign Studies University for her college education. After graduating, she worked as an interpreter and secretary for a company.

In 1987, Peggy moved to the United States to continue her studies. She earned a special business degree called an MBA from New York University in 1992. An MBA teaches people how to run a business. She even gave a speech at her graduation! After finishing her studies, she worked on Wall Street, which is a famous financial area in New York City. She lived in the United States for ten years. In 1996, she met Li Guoqing, who worked with books. They got married three months later.

Building an Online Business

Starting Dangdang

In 1999, Peggy Yu and her husband started their own online bookstore called Dangdang. Peggy became the chairwoman, which means she was in charge of the company's board of directors.

Peggy got the idea for Dangdang while she was in the United States. She learned about Amazon.com, which was a new online bookstore at the time. She saw how successful Amazon was becoming. When she met her husband, they decided to create a similar online company in China.

Growing the Company

Since it started in 1999, Dangdang grew a lot. It began as a place to buy books online. Soon, it offered more than 6 million books! But Dangdang didn't stop there. It expanded to sell many other things. You could buy home goods, clothes, jewelry, makeup, DVDs, and movies. It became a very popular online shopping site in China.

Company Changes

In 2015, Dangdang had been a public company for almost five years. This means its shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Peggy Yu suggested that she and her husband buy back all the shares from other investors. This would make Dangdang a private company again.

Some of the company's shareholders, who owned parts of Dangdang, were not happy with this offer. They felt the price offered was too low. They even created a website to share their concerns. They believed the offer was unfair to the smaller shareholders.