When it came to scalpers, Huang He had always been extremely disgusted. He had once wanted to attend the S7 Global Finals, as it was the first time the competition was held on home soil.
However, a single ticket was scalped to an astronomical price, making it impossible for Huang He to get one or afford it. Back then, Huang He hated scalpers to the core, wishing he could eliminate every single one of them in the world.
But there's a truth in this world: your stance is determined by where you sit.
Once Huang He became a boss, his perspective on scalpers completely changed. He realized that the name "scalper" was perfectly fitting, as they truly were the businesses' old yellow bulls!
Take Apple, for instance. How did Apple become so popular all over China? While the groundbreaking nature of Apple phones in the smartphone sector was undoubtedly the fundamental reason, the contribution of scalpers was also indispensable.
Every time Apple went on sale, large numbers of scalpers would drive up the price, creating the impression for everyone that Apple products were exceptionally good value for money. This directly led to a significant boost in Apple's prestige.
In the minds of most people, something that is highly sought after by the masses must be good, and they should pursue it too.
However, Apple is not the most fitting example here. A more appropriate example would be shoe reselling. Nowadays, pairs of sneakers are resold at sky-high prices, spawning an entire investment industry. This has more than tripled the sales revenue of brands like Adidas and Nike in China, allowing them to openly use models with slanted eyes and rather unattractive features to promote themselves as representing Chinese youth, without any fear of sales declining. A significant reason for this is that these shoe resellers have inflated the prestige of these sneakers to the heavens.
Don't think that shoe resellers aren't scalpers. In fact, according to the definition of scalpers, anyone who buys an item and then resells it to others at a higher price for profit is considered a scalper.
So, in a sense, Bitcoin was also driven up by a group of scalpers.
In conclusion, businesses welcome scalpers. While scalpers can make some money, the greater benefits accrue to the businesses, yet all the infamy is borne by the scalpers. Are there any older yellow bulls than this?
It's all the scalpers driving up prices, nothing to do with the businesses. The businesses watch their products being resold at several times the original price, yet they still insist on selling at the original price, still earning that meager profit. Are there any more conscientious businesses in the world than this?
None.
This is also why scalpers cannot be eliminated, because businesses profit from them.
Now that Huang He's position is with the businesses, it's only natural for him to turn a blind eye to scalpers.
Fortunately, the current scalpers do not cause substantial harm to players' interests. On the contrary, they cater to the needs of some players who are unwilling to gamble, creating a win-win situation.
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"Why are there so many people queuing here? Is this shop doing such good business?" Wang Gang, looking somewhat dejected, was walking along the Huangpu River when he saw the enormous queue stretching for hundreds of meters.
Then, Wang Gang became depressed.
Wang Gang was from Jiangxi and a professional chef, considered one of the top chefs in the entire province.
Wang Gang had always had a regret: the Eight Great Cuisines did not include Gan Cai (Jiangxi cuisine). Thus, his lifelong dream was to make the Eight Great Cuisines become nine, allowing Gan Cai to be incorporated.
But to make Gan Cai one of the Nine Great Cuisines, the first step was to make the whole of China understand Gan Cai better.
So how could this be achieved? Naturally, by establishing the reputation of Gan Cai in the most commercially dense areas nationwide, making Gan Cai the most popular cuisine there.
Therefore, Wang Gang used his years of savings and enlisted a few friends to invest and open a restaurant called Gan Yue Xuan in Shanghai.
However, after six months of operation, the restaurant was losing nearly 400,000 yuan per month. The friends who had initially invested had all withdrawn their shares, and Wang Gang's own more than 2 million yuan was also gone.
If he continued to struggle like this, Wang Gang would have to pack up and return home next month, taking Gan Cai with him as a laughingstock.
This made Wang Gang extremely upset, so he went to the Huangpu River to clear his head before opening hours. It was then that he saw this shop with such a crazy queue.
"Why is everyone else's business so good?" Wang Gang couldn't help but join the queue out of curiosity and started chatting with a young man in front of him.
Wang Gang then learned that this shop sold a newfangled item called a blind box. The young man claimed to be a very fashionable hacker who enjoyed playing games. This time, he saw a large truck in his opponent's game that he found very cool, so he came to queue up specifically to try and get one himself.
After understanding the situation, Wang Gang felt that although this thing was called a blind box, he thought it was similar to a lottery, a game of chance.
But why were there never any queues outside lottery shops, yet so many people were gathered outside this small shop?
Wang Gang couldn't figure it out and became even more eager to go inside. After queuing for nearly two hours, Wang Gang and the young man finally entered the shop.
The young man headed straight for the game blind box he mentioned, while Wang Gang was more interested in some daily necessities blind boxes, as these were more closely related to his profession.
However, Wang Gang could only buy so much. He first bought only one daily necessities blind box. Upon opening it, he received 10 jin of Wuchang rice. This touched Wang Gang's heart slightly.
As the owner of a restaurant, Wang Gang was very familiar with the prices of daily necessities. He knew the cost for ordinary people to buy rice and the cost for businesses to buy daily necessities in bulk.
Therefore, he knew very well that the cost of this 10 jin rice coupon was at most around 6 yuan. However, for ordinary people to purchase it, it would cost around 11-12 yuan.
So, ordinary people would be very happy to see this 10 jin rice, feeling like they had made a huge profit. But they had no idea that this blind box seller was actually making a profit of 4 yuan from it.
"This is truly a win-win business. The blind box seller is happy, and ordinary people are happy... No, it's a triple win! The farmers in Wuchang City are probably laughing their heads off too. Their rice has always been difficult to sell, but now, they probably don't have enough to sell!" Wang Gang realized all this and couldn't help but sigh.
He marveled at the owner of this blind box shop as a business genius, capable of devising such a brilliant business model, and one that achieved a triple win. Not one of the three parties was losing; this was simply the most brilliant business model in the world.
In contrast, his own restaurant's business was probably the worst business in the world!
Wang Gang became even more dejected. Then he saw the young man, who claimed to be a hacker, holding ten opened boxes with a crestfallen expression.
"What? Didn't you get what you wanted?" Wang Gang asked curiously.
"Yes, they were all small figurines. I lost all 100 yuan. That's my living expenses for a week, and I don't know how to explain it to my mom!" the young man said painfully. He was a student, and his only income was the living expenses from his family.
This time, he impulsively came with 100 yuan to buy blind boxes, but now he had nothing. He could only think of what excuse to use to ask his family for money.
"Oh, right, I see a recycling area over there. It seems these small figurines can be recycled. Why don't you sell them? At least you can get some of your money back?" Wang Gang suggested.
"Really? Then I'll go take a look!" The young man didn't care for the skins of these small figurines, so he went to the redemption counter.
"Hello, you can exchange the items in your blind boxes for our Jiangnan Coins here, or you can choose to consign your items upstairs. After successful consignment, we will charge a 10% transaction service fee!" the staff member introduced.
The young man first inquired about the consignment situation. He found that there were thousands of each type of consigned small figurine, with an average price of about 5 yuan each. He immediately gave up the idea of consigning, not knowing when or if these items would ever sell.
Therefore, exchanging them directly for Jiangnan Coins was naturally the best option. After confirming that these redemption codes had not been used and re-locking the redemption codes on the spot, the staff member first gave the young man a magnetic card and then used a card reader to load 50 Jiangnan Coins into it.
"Hmm... it was directly swiped in?" Unexpectedly, the young man's eyes flickered strangely at this moment, and then he took his card and left directly.
When he reached the entrance and saw the scalpers, he finally realized that he could sell them to the scalpers instead of exchanging them for Jiangnan Coins, which he didn't know when he could save enough to exchange for a phone. His eyes were filled with resentment.
Meanwhile, Wang Gang was still staring blankly at the daily necessities blind box in his hand. A shocking idea popped into his head, and it grew more mature. He then rushed to the redemption counter, but he wasn't there to exchange for Jiangnan Coins. Instead, he directly said to the staff member, "Where is your manager? I want to see him. I have a business to discuss with him!"
Naturally, the staff member could not let Wang Gang see the manager. In fact, the staff member only knew Liu Xiangjiang, the person in charge of the shop. Huang He was in the shop, but they had no idea that he was their boss.
Wang Gang spoke for a long time, but it was all to no avail. He was even called over by security to be "friendly persuaded" to leave.
"Forget it, don't you know that customers are God? Doing this in front of so many customers, do you want to get fired by your boss?" a young man shouted, questioning them. Then Liu Xiangjiang quickly came out, apologized to the young man and Wang Gang, and told the staff to go back, no longer making things difficult for Wang Gang.
"Thank you!" Wang Gang said gratefully to the young man who had just stood up for him.
"It's nothing, I just can't stand their attitude! Their boss must be a profiteer!" The young man waved his hand. "By the way, you said you had business to discuss with them just now, what business is it? Can you tell me? I'm quite curious!"
"It's not a big business!" Wang Gang sighed. "Actually, I own a restaurant. I want to cooperate with this blind box shop by using our restaurant's vouchers. We'll provide 12 yuan vouchers, but sell them to the boss of this blind box shop for five yuan. This way, although our restaurant won't earn much, at least we'll have business to survive! And this shop's boss doesn't have to pay anything and will net a profit of 5 yuan. Isn't this a tremendous business opportunity?"