On December 3rd, 2001, Huang He and Leng Zhimeng flew back to Shanghai. This time, they would stay in Shanghai for 12 hours before taking another flight to Korea to participate in the first World E-Sports Games, which were set to open on December 5th.
Since there were 12 hours in between, Huang He didn't wait foolishly at the airport. Instead, he drove directly to his flagship store in Shanghai to check on its operational status after more than a week.
To Huang He's satisfaction, the foot traffic in the store remained strong. More than a week after its opening, people were still queuing outside. In fact, there were even more people queuing now. Even with 50 people shopping inside, there were still over a hundred people waiting in line outside. This scene completely overshadowed all other shops along the Bund.
"My strategy is indeed correct. Zhimeng, just watch. In half a year at most, our Jiangnan Group will have opened a hundred large-scale official direct-sale flagship stores nationwide. As for mobile blind box stalls, we aim to exceed ten thousand!" Huang He said smilingly to Leng Zhimeng, describing the beautiful future.
Leng Zhiruo's work was impressive. About 60% of the nationwide branches had been established. Moreover, driven by the authorized franchise system, the company didn't even need to exert much effort for expansion. Those who felt the astonishing consumption potential of blind boxes came to them themselves, requesting cooperation.
Some of these were Jiangnan's own employees, or people introduced by employees. However, more were those who approached them directly seeking cooperation. Regardless, Jiangnan Group's blind box sales points were spreading like ripples on the water, their momentum reaching an unstoppable level.
This was precisely why Huang He was so eager to spend all 800 million yuan to build his Jiangnan Council in Wenzhou. The truth was, their own leather blind boxes were becoming insufficient, and they needed more products to join the blind box family.
The business of the Shanghai flagship store, in a way, reflected the sales situation of blind boxes nationwide. Seeing so many people queuing, Boss Huang He felt a little more at ease.
After observing from outside the store for a while, Huang He took Leng Zhimeng inside.
However, upon entering, his expression fell by half. Because one area in the store was completely empty, with a "Temporarily Out of Stock" sign. This vacant area was none other than the grain and oil blind boxes, the area that had previously sold the best and was most popular among the masses.
Seeing this area out of stock, Huang He couldn't help but get angry. He immediately had the front desk call Liu Xiangjiang and proceeded to give him a stern dressing-down.
"Liu Xiangjiang, I thought you were the smartest among the five of us. How come now, you've become the slowest in handling matters? I asked you to prepare at least 100,000 consumer coupons over a week ago, but now, you've directly stopped the grain and oil blind boxes. Is this your attitude towards work?"
"It's just a coupon, all you have to do is stuff it into the box. This is the simplest among all the blind boxes, yet you can't even manage it. What exactly have you been doing!" Boss Huang cursed incessantly, almost to the point of swearing.
"Chairman, I am very sorry. I've been running around to supermarkets these past few days, but I really can't find any supermarkets willing to sell consumer coupons to us!" Liu Xiangjiang said with great helplessness, sporting two large dark circles under his eyes.
"No supermarkets are willing to sell to us?" Huang He was momentarily stunned. "What about the previous cooperative RT-Mart supermarket? Didn't we cooperate successfully before? What happened now?"
"It's this RT-Mart, they were the first to back out!" Liu Xiangjiang said, gritting his teeth in anger.
It turned out that the thousands of RT-Mart coupons they had obtained that day were sold out again the next day. Liu Xiangjiang had to go to RT-Mart's marketing department again to buy coupons, but he was met with a closed door. He couldn't see their responsible person, and the staff only claimed they had no coupons to sell, sending Liu Xiangjiang back empty-handed.
Liu Xiangjiang immediately felt something was wrong. He took some people to observe near the RT-Mart supermarket and was instantly furious. It turned out that RT-Mart, imitating their example, was directly holding promotional activities at the supermarket entrance. They were selling coupons for 10 pounds of rice for 10 yuan each. Under these circumstances, it was highly unlikely they would be willing to sell their consumer coupons to Liu Xiangjiang for six yuan each. They preferred to make the profit themselves.
Helplessly, Liu Xiangjiang continued to negotiate with other large supermarkets, but he failed in every attempt. Previously, Liu Xiangjiang had requested too few coupons, so they were unwilling to cooperate.
This time, the demand reached 100,000 coupons, totaling 1 million yuan. However, the problem was that other large supermarkets couldn't match RT-Mart's price of six yuan per coupon. The cheapest offer started at eight yuan each.
But if that were the case, the grain and oil blind boxes would no longer be profitable.
As a result, Liu Xiangjiang had spent a week on the consumer coupon issue but still had no progress. When Huang He called him, Liu Xiangjiang was actually on his way to negotiate with a large supermarket.
Liu Xiangjiang was almost in tears.
"Boss, why don't we just open our own supermarket? It doesn't need to be too big, just a few stores. I checked, and the cost of procuring 10 pounds of rice is less than four yuan. We can procure and sell it ourselves, not letting those supermarkets earn a cent!" Liu Xiangjiang said through gritted teeth, clearly having grown to hate those damned supermarkets over the past few days.
"I will revolutionize these supermarkets sooner or later, but not now..." Huang He shook his head. "We must get a large chain supermarket on board, otherwise, we can't proceed with our national strategy!"
"National strategy?" Liu Xiangjiang was taken aback.
"That's right. Grain and oil blind boxes will also be sold nationwide in the future. All our future tens of thousands of blind box sales points will sell the same grain and oil blind boxes. Do we then need to open a small supermarket in every city across the country to meet the demand for these grain and oil blind boxes?" Huang He shook his head. "Grain and oil blind boxes are products with very thin profit margins. If we were to build such a vast supermarket network again, the money we earn might not even cover one-tenth of the expenses."
"Don't we have our own stores nationwide? Can't we store more grain and oil in them?"
"Grain and oil are not like other goods; they are too heavy and bulky for our stores to hold. And do you expect customers who have purchased grain and oil blind boxes from other stalls in the city to all come to your flagship store in Shanghai to pick them up? Setting aside whether these customers are willing to come, can your store accommodate so many customers?" Huang He's series of questions left Liu Xiangjiang speechless.
Although this fellow was intelligent, he still had a bit of a bookish nature and didn't look at problems from a comprehensive perspective.
"Then, Boss, what should we do now?" Liu Xiangjiang asked weakly.
"Well, since supermarkets won't sell, we won't play with them anymore. Xiangjiang, do you know what kind of stores are most distributed nationwide?" Huang He asked, and before Liu Xiangjiang could answer, he muttered to himself, "Actually, the most numerous things in this world are small convenience stores!"