"No wonder the people in line today are different from before," Huang He said, scanning the crowd. "Last time, it was mostly old men and women. But this time, there are so many young people. Are they all tourists?"
"No, today's tourists are actually only a small portion. These young people have almost all come specifically for this. The ones at the very front were here before 3:00 AM. The one closest to the entrance came last night."
"When he arrived, I told him not to queue anymore because it had already closed. Even if he queued, he wouldn't be able to get into the shop. I never expected this guy to actually bring a tent. After we closed, he pitched his tent right at our doorstep and slept there. I was speechless!" Liu Xiangjiang said with a wry smile.
"Really? I thought this kind of thing only happened abroad!" Huang He exclaimed in surprise. He had heard about people pitching tents to queue for things, but that was usually for the latest Apple phones or for Japanese otaku lining up for merchandise. This was the first time he'd encountered people queuing for blind boxes.
This indicated that the current product had thoroughly shaken up the entire market.
"They should all be here to buy our Warcraft blind boxes, right?" Huang He asked with a smile.
"Yes, these Warcraft blind boxes are selling like crazy. I never imagined that a simple plastic figurine, the cheapest ordinary model in all our blind boxes, would become the best-selling one ever."
"Since these blind boxes officially went on sale, the performance has been astonishing day by day. Yesterday alone, the store sold nearly 50,000 blind boxes, setting our single-store, single-blind-box sales record!" Liu Xiangjiang exclaimed. "A full fifty thousand boxes, enough to fill a warehouse, and they all sold out in a single day!"
"Is that so?" Huang He chuckled. "But that's not the most incredible part. The most incredible part is actually in Guangzhou. Yesterday, when the Guangzhou City Championship began, I prepared 80,000 blind boxes at the venue, and they all sold out in a day. It felt like every Warcraft player in Guangzhou rushed to grab blind boxes. The counting machines even burned out one, and the bank had to work overtime to count the money for us."
"This is insane, Chairman. You're truly amazing. Who would have thought that these small Warcraft 3 blind boxes would have such a massive market!" Liu Xiangjiang marveled, still somewhat baffled by the market.
"Unfortunately, the frenzy will only last for about two more days!" Mr. Huang sighed.
"Why? I don't think the players' enthusiasm will disappear in just two or three days. We can sell these blind boxes for at least another month, and I guarantee daily queues!" Liu Xiangjiang said excitedly.
"I know the players' enthusiasm is still high, but the problem is, I'm out of stock. Although the factory is working overtime to produce them, it takes time. So, it's likely there won't be any more Warcraft blind boxes sold for the next month. You need to manage player sentiment and tell them sales will resume in a month!" Huang He lamented.
In fact, it wasn't that Huang He intended to play the "hunger marketing" game. It was simply that even Huang He himself hadn't anticipated the terrifying sales of the Warcraft blind boxes.
Before the Warcraft blind boxes were released, Huang He had prepared a massive 20 million boxes in Wenzhou, thinking that would be enough for a month's sales.
However, in just six days, the 20 million boxes were about to be completely depleted.
Guangdong province alone had consumed 2 million boxes in six days.
Shanghai had also consumed 800,000 boxes in six days. One shouldn't underestimate the consumption power of Tier 1 cities in China in 2002. According to reports from his subordinates, a wealthy individual from Beijing had bought all the stock from a shop – a total of 1,000 blind boxes – and opened them on the spot. He managed to collect all the regular models, except for the deluxe editions.
But he wasn't satisfied. He swept through more than ten shops in Beijing in a single day, buying nearly 16,000 boxes himself. Yet, he declared that he wanted the next shipment to be delivered to him immediately. Even though he had pulled out six deluxe editions, he was still missing the Human and Orc deluxe editions and was determined to collect them all.
The situation was almost the same in the provincial capitals of various provinces and cities across the country, except for some extremely remote regions.
This led to all the Warcraft blind boxes being snatched up by eager players in the provincial capitals before they could even be transferred to the counties and cities.
As a result, many county-level companies were furiously complaining to headquarters, accusing the provincial companies of unfair practices and monopolizing all the Warcraft blind boxes. This left many players in their counties waiting endlessly for the blind boxes. Many eventually traveled to the provincial cities to purchase them.
These were originally business opportunities belonging to the county-level branches. Now, the provincial companies had taken them all.
Finally, Leng Zhiruo severely deducted the salaries and bonuses of several unscrupulous provincial company leaders and issued a strict order that the next batch of Warcraft blind boxes must be fully distributed to all branch companies before sales could resume. She also guaranteed that the shortfall from the previous batch would be replenished to the lower-level branches, thus appeasing their grievances.
However, there were indeed no more goods in Wenzhou. The manufacturer responsible for production this time was a toy manufacturer named Da Ban, a member of the Jiangnan Council.
This factory had already switched to a three-shift system for production. It was estimated that by next month, they would have accumulated a production capacity of about 35 million boxes, which was their production limit.
However, it was quite poignant that despite this production volume, the profit for these manufacturers per box averaged only around 30 cents. And Huang He, as the controlling shareholder, also took two cents. Even so, the actual operators of these manufacturers, earning just one cent per box, made a net profit of 3.5 million yuan in a month.
Before Huang He acquired them, earning 50,000 yuan in net profit per month was considered a blessing.
This was the advantage of having a strong backing. If it weren't for joining Huang He's Jiangnan Council, these orders would never have come to this not-so-large factory.
It's worth noting, however, that this small factory only produced the smallest, most crudely made models. The four rare models and four deluxe figure sets were produced by a Japanese figure manufacturer commissioned by Huang He.
This order was placed half a year ago and only arrived now. If Huang He wanted to increase supply, he would have to wait another six months. After all, Japanese companies wouldn't bend the rules for a Chinese person, even if that Chinese person's orders equaled their previous year's orders.
But Huang He couldn't do anything about it, as there were no domestic manufacturers capable of producing models or figures of that caliber at the time. At best, they could produce the crudely made "evil god" figures like the classic Saber that came with Popular Software back then. This was a regrettable situation.
They couldn't even produce a decent toy.
However, Huang He had already ordered the company, Da Ban Model, to use all the profits earned this time to purchase the latest injection molding equipment and invest in research and development. Within a year, he wanted all models to be fully domestically produced.
After all, in Mr. Huang's grand plan, he intended to sell Chinese models to Japan in the future.
Of course, since Da Ban's operators were making so much money, Mr. Huang was naturally earning even more.
Selling all 20 million Warcraft blind boxes would bring in 200 million yuan in sales.
As for the costs, while the total of 600,000 rare versions and 8,888 deluxe versions were very expensive – the rare versions costing 50 yuan each and the deluxe versions an astonishing 400 yuan each – the overall cost structure was calculated.
Thinking about this, Huang He felt even more resentful towards the Japanese model enterprises. These costs were almost entirely incurred from purchasing exquisite models from them, amounting to nearly 70 million yuan. The cost for the remaining 19.4 million regular boxes was only 9.7 million yuan.
In other words, the Japanese made approximately seven times more profit than the hardworking Chinese enterprises. This disparity made Huang He feel helpless and annoyed.
After all, the actual production cost for these Japanese companies was estimated to be only about one-fifth of the selling price. This was the sorrow of lacking technology. As these shameless companies began to charge Mr. Huang such exorbitant prices, the entire Japanese model industry was about to enter an abyss.
They would soon experience the power of the Chinese people who could buy things at bargain-basement prices.
"But I still can't understand why these Warcraft 3 blind boxes are selling so well. It's unbelievable!" Liu Xiangjiang still couldn't comprehend it.
"Old Liu, do you not play games much?" Huang He asked with a smile.
"Yes!" Liu Xiangjiang nodded.
"Then go play Warcraft 3, specifically the multiplayer online battle arena version!" Huang He said.
"Chairman, please spare me. When would I have the time to play this kind of thing? I have too many other things going on!" Liu Xiangjiang quickly replied.
"No, this is the Chairman's order!" Huang He declared, clapping his hands. "How about this: I'll check your progress in a week. If your account doesn't show at least 30 games played, I'll deduct three months' salary and all your commissions!"
"No way… Boss… Chairman… How can you do this…"
"Just tell me, are you going to play or not!"
"I'll play… I'll play. I've seen all sorts of forced situations in this world, but I've never seen anyone being forced to play games. What kind of nonsense is this!" Liu Xiangjiang sighed with resignation.