Chapter 1 December 31st

Zhang Yuan arrived at Moyu Internet Cafe's Handong University branch early in the morning on December 31st. He ordered a coffee and leisurely browsed the Tieba forums, hoping to find some interesting new posts from the quirky netizens.

Yesterday, he had already instructed his employees to return or repair all the faulty components. He also used all the remaining funds in the accounts to buy more of the components with higher failure rates, especially memory sticks.

Although there was some risk in hoarding these components, Zhang Yuan was more concerned about the reputation of the ROF brand.

When the brand was first launched, Boss Pei invested so much money in the 1024 Digital Festival, and finally built up a good reputation.

If the quality issues of the assembled computers ruined this reputation, wouldn't all of Boss Pei's efforts be in vain?

Therefore, the quality must be guaranteed!

He had to strive to ensure that every assembled computer was free of defects, provide customers with the best after-sales service, and ensure sufficient inventory so that customers in Jingzhou could have their orders delivered to their door on the same day.

After finishing these tasks, Zhang Yuan could finally relax for a while.

Tomorrow was the New Year's Day holiday in 2011, and he would have three days off, so he should be able to rest well.

Zhang Yuan leisurely sipped his coffee and browsed the Tieba forums.

Suddenly, a post on Tieba caught his attention.

"MSC's Factory is on Fire Again???"

"Damn it! Are memory prices going to rise again?"

"Profiteers!"

"Damn it, it seems like they've already gone up!"

"I was planning to wait for New Year's Day to see if the shopping websites would have any promotions, and then build a computer! Now I'm losing out big time!!!"

"It's over, the profiteers have already caught wind of it!"

"What's going on? How can there be a fire every other day? It's like they want to burn from last year's Double Eleven to this year's 618?"

"Whether it's a real fire or not, those in the know know, it's probably started by the manufacturers themselves."

"Indeed, these manufacturers take turns having fires, and not only fires, but also floods, power outages... In short, why don't you just say you want to reduce production and raise prices?!"

"This fire seems to be quite serious, the wafer production capacity has been greatly affected, I'm afraid not only memory, flash memory will also rise..."

Seeing the netizens' discussions, Zhang Yuan was first stunned, and then fell into a kind of unexpected joy.

He quickly opened the shopping website to check the price of the memory sticks he had purchased before, and it had already risen by more than thirty!

Moreover, this was probably just the beginning, and in the coming week, it would probably continue to rise...

After all, Zhang Yuan had been hanging around Tieba for many years, so he was very clear about this kind of routine. Anyway, every time the price of memory sticks was at a low point, these manufacturers would suddenly have a fire or a power outage, and then the news would report that these manufacturers had lost billions, and then all kinds of profiteers would start to take action, and start frantically炒 memory sticks... (speculating on memory sticks).

But having said that, no one knew when this kind of accident would happen.

If he had known, hoarding a batch of memory sticks in advance would definitely have made him a fortune.

This news was originally bad news for Zhang Yuan.

Because ROF's assembly business had a pricing strategy similar to that of those brand-name computers. According to Boss Pei's guidance, the initial pricing had already fully taken into account the brand premium and the value of after-sales service, and the price could not be changed frequently.

If he wanted to raise prices, he had to update the configuration; and there couldn't be too many price reduction promotions.

This strategy was mainly to eliminate customers' worries and give all consumers the impression that "this brand is conscientious, reliable, and holds its value."

Once the price of memory increased, the price of the entire machine would also increase, giving people the feeling that it was a profiteer, which would be somewhat detrimental to the ROF brand.

Therefore, originally, an increase in memory prices would definitely be bad news for Zhang Yuan, as the purchase price would increase while the selling price of the entire machine would remain the same, greatly reducing profits.

But now it was different.

Zhang Yuan had already purchased a batch of components before, especially memory. According to the standard of four sticks per high-end machine costing more than ten thousand, he had hoarded a lot!

In this way, these high-end models were simply a bargain for consumers, much cheaper than building their own!

And for Zhang Yuan, these current stocks could continue to be sold at the original price, and he could still get a very generous profit.

Of course, he could also consider raising prices.

But raising prices obviously didn't conform to the Tendai spirit and wasn't conducive to further market expansion.

Therefore, after considering it, Zhang Yuan decided that this batch of stock would still be sold at the previous price!

Considering factors such as rising memory prices, the next batch of computer configurations could consider making certain adjustments, increasing the configuration, increasing the price, and re-pricing according to the new cost price.

Of course, that was a problem that would need to be considered some time later.

Because this time's hoarding was really a lot...

Thinking of this, Zhang Yuan couldn't sit still.

He immediately called his employees and asked them to customize a new batch of posters to display at the entrances of all Moyu Internet Cafes. At the same time, the promotional pages of the online store were also updated.

The content of the promotion was also very simple, no discounts, but no price increases!

...

January 1, 2011, Saturday.

The three-day New Year's Day holiday was from the 1st to the 3rd, and Pei Qian was happy to give himself a holiday to rest well.

As soon as he thought that Li Yada and Lin Wan and others would be returning from the United States on the 4th, Pei Qian felt a little headache.

How could a week have passed so quickly?

Alas, happy times are always short.

Pei Qian wandered out, preparing to go to the Moyu Internet Cafe's Handong University branch to sit down, drink a cup of coffee, play games, and relax.

As a result, as soon as he walked to the entrance of the Internet cafe, he suddenly realized that something was wrong.

Why were there so many people?!

A long queue had formed at the entrance of the Internet cafe, stretching all the way to the side of the road!

Of course, there was a clear difference between this queue and the long queues at sales offices and train stations. It looked like there were only a dozen people in line.

But this phenomenon was very rare in Moyu Internet Cafe!

Because the space of Moyu Internet Cafe itself was very large. Although there were not many seats in Moyu Internet Cafe 1.0, everyone could rest in the coffee area, viewing area, or book area while waiting, so they wouldn't have to line up on the street.

Moreover, in theory, the flow of customers who regularly came to surf the Internet should have been fixed. Even if today was the New Year's Day holiday, there shouldn't be so many people running over to surf the Internet, right?

Pei Qian looked inside again and keenly realized that the problem seemed to be even more serious than he had imagined!

The coffee area in Moyu Internet Cafe was not full, and there were empty seats in the Internet area.

And this long queue was just from the counter to the outside, and it had deliberately left a certain amount of space so that other customers could enter and exit freely.

The first few people in line just filled out a form and paid at the counter, then turned around and left, without even going online!

The more Pei Qian looked at it, the more puzzled he became. What was going on?

At this time, a waiter was maintaining order while shouting loudly: "Don't worry, everyone, line up in an orderly manner. It's just as effective to place an order on our online store! The address of the online store is on the poster outside the door!"

Pei Qian glanced at the poster outside and was a little confused.

There was indeed the address of the ROF assembly online store, as well as assembly configuration sheets for various price ranges.

But the problem was, these were the regular prices, right?

The configuration hadn't changed, and the price hadn't changed either.

So why were these people running over to line up and fill out forms to buy ROF hosts early in the morning?

Pei Qian vaguely felt that something was wrong with this matter, and there were probably some hidden facts that he didn't know!

The waiter shouted loudly again: "I would like to remind everyone again that ROF hosts provide on-site warranty service, and also provide on-site configuration update service. The charging standards are written on the leaflets."

"But please pay special attention to the special terms on the leaflets. If you want to change the configuration of the host, be sure to keep the original accessories. Do not resell these accessories, otherwise you will no longer be able to enjoy the after-sales service we provide..."

Pei Qian felt even more confused. Why did he have to remind everyone of this?

He came to the Moyu Internet Cafe full of suspicion, and happened to see Zhang Yuan, who was drinking coffee and had pride written all over his face.

"What's going on?" Pei Qian was at a loss.

Zhang Yuan smiled and said, "Boss Pei, the MSC factory is on fire, and memory prices have risen!"

"Huh?" Pei Qian was instantly dumbfounded and couldn't understand the meaning behind this matter for a while.

Zhang Yuan said: "Memory sticks that originally cost more than two hundred are now more than three hundred!"

"In the future, I'm afraid they will continue to rise!"

"Our high-end hosts originally had four memory sticks installed. Now that each memory stick has risen by more than one hundred yuan, plus the price of the hard drive has also fluctuated, the price of pure accessories for each host has increased by at least five hundred!"

"Now, not only are our complete machines particularly cost-effective for those who don't know how to assemble computers, but even those who know how to assemble computers themselves think they are particularly cost-effective!"

"Plus the ROF brand advantage that you have been working so hard to create, our computers are selling like crazy!"

"Boss Pei, don't worry, I always keep your requirements in mind, and I will never raise prices like those profiteers!"

"After I released the news that the price of ROF complete machines would not change yesterday, many people from all over Jingzhou have come to order computers today, and dozens of units have already been sold online!"

"Conservatively estimated, there will be no problem selling thousands of units during the New Year's Day holiday!"

Pei Qian's face turned pale instantly. He was subconsciously thinking about countermeasures, but he couldn't think of anything.

Raise prices?

No, he had said before that he would maintain price stability. Wouldn't raising prices be slapping himself in the face? Moreover, even if the price of the entire machine is raised now, people will still buy it, and the profit per computer will be even higher after the price is raised!

Lower prices?

That's even worse. Everyone is already buying like crazy now. If the price is lowered again, even if the profit is reduced, the reputation of ROF will be even greater. What will happen in the future?

Pei Qian was dizzy. He found that he was at a loss at this time, and this problem was simply unsolvable!

Zhang Yuan looked relieved: "This matter is, in the final analysis, a blessing in disguise!"

"Boss Pei, you told us to rent warehouses and stock up on a large amount of goods before, and now it's coming in handy!"

"If we hadn't stocked up enough, we might have sold out today. If we had to purchase accessories again at that time, the price would have skyrocketed, and the profit would have been greatly reduced!"

"Moreover, a batch of problematic hardware happened to appear the day before yesterday, and it has all been returned or repaired. I was worried that there would be problems with the remaining accessories, so I purchased a batch in advance, especially memory sticks. I bought a lot."

"According to the current situation, our stock of memory sticks can last for a long time. The next goal is to completely seize the desktop computer market in Jingzhou with the ROF host brand!"

"We can now start抢 (competing for) the customers of those DIY hosts and brand-name hosts!"

Pei Qian sat on a chair in the coffee area and felt a little short of breath.

"That's not right, is there something wrong somewhere..."

Pei Qian began to doubt his life.

Today is January 1st, and 2011 has just begun!

He never expected that the first heavy blow of the new year would come so quickly!