Chapter 5.3 Wednesday, May 30th

Fuhui Capital.

Li Shi was contemplating Xingniao Fitness.

He had already spoken with Chang You of OUtu Technology. They immediately hit it off and felt that they could cooperate deeply on this project.

For Chang You, although Guo Licheng's Managed Gym was his primary cooperation target, its capacity was ultimately limited and couldn't accommodate so many smart fitness drying racks.

Previously, there was no certainty that the smart fitness drying racks could make money, so the OEM factory couldn't invest in too many production lines.

But now that they had made money and were fully investing in production, the monthly output had reached nearly ten thousand units. If they were willing to invest more money to open new production lines, reaching twenty thousand units or even higher wouldn't be difficult.

However, each Managed Gym only needed ten smart fitness drying racks.

After all, the space in the gym was limited, and a large amount of space had to be reserved for the weight area, other professional equipment, and aerobic equipment such as treadmills and elliptical machines, as well as yoga rooms, aerobics rooms, etc., which couldn't be reduced.

The ten devices in each Managed Gym were practically unable to absorb the production capacity of the smart fitness drying racks.

It was impossible for the Managed Gym to open a hundred new stores every month, right?

Therefore, this business would inevitably have to be done with other gyms as well.

Chang You and Guo Licheng weren't worried that this would affect the business of the Managed Gym, because its core competitiveness didn't lie in this.

The entry of smart fitness drying racks into various gyms would not only bring more players and revenue to *Fitness Battle*, but would also be equivalent to a live advertisement for Tenda Group and OUtu Technology. Once rolled out, it would have extremely considerable long-term benefits in the future.

Therefore, Chang You also intended to use Xingniao Fitness to test the waters and see if the smart fitness drying racks would be popular in ordinary gyms, thereby opening up large-scale procurement business for large chain gyms.

Once this path was proven to be viable, those large chain gyms would have at least hundreds of stores nationwide, and the number of smart fitness drying racks they would purchase would be extremely astonishing.

Putting smart fitness drying racks into these chain gym stores would attract members of these gyms to try and experience them, and some of them would choose to buy one to put at home, which would greatly expand the customer base.

In other words, cooperating with chain gyms was actually a process of business expansion and advertising, and the effect would definitely be much better than simply promoting online.

For Li Shi, Xingniao Fitness was obviously another typical case of getting a free ride. If this was successful, he would not only be able to get a free ride from Tenda, but also grab some of the business from those large chain gyms. Once Xingniao Fitness developed, his investment would inevitably receive extremely generous returns!

Chang You decided to directly supply the first batch of more than one hundred smart fitness drying racks with the next batch of existing stock.

He also wanted to see as soon as possible whether the smart fitness drying racks could be successful in traditional gyms.

Recently, Xingniao Fitness had also been making adjustments to the layout of various stores, and widely publicized it to its members through flyers and advertising display boards. The experience could be directly opened up as soon as the first batch of smart fitness drying racks arrived this weekend.

Once this model became very popular, Li Shi would consider joining with other investors to continue investing money, helping Xingniao Fitness open more stores, continue to purchase smart fitness drying racks on a large scale, and expand as much as possible in the short term by virtue of this unique advantage!

At this moment, there was a knock on the office door, and Xue Zhebin pushed the door open and entered.

"President Li, I've found out. Tenda does intend to buy or long-term lease the shops on the street near the *Thrill Hotel*, and it seems that they issued a final ultimatum yesterday, either long-term lease or sell. The food street will choose to bypass shops that don't cooperate!"

"The situation there is quite chaotic now. The shop owners are saying they're united, but in reality, they're all making their own calculations. As far as I know, several shops have already signed contracts with Tenda..."

Xue Zhebin told everything he knew in detail.

Li Shi couldn't help but perk up: "Very good! Completely consistent with my estimate!"

"Previously, it seemed that only long-term leases were discussed. Now there's an additional purchase option. President Pei must have provided a large amount of funds. This is enough to prove that President Pei actually attaches great importance to this place!"

When the snack market had just started construction, Li Shi had already learned of this news, but he never had a very good idea of how to get a piece of the pie.

Because there were many shops in the surrounding area of the snack market, but they were all in a state of half-dead or alive. If the place he bought was in the wrong direction from where Tenda wanted to develop, wouldn't he lose a lot of money?

But now, the goal had become quite clear.

Obviously, Tenda's goal was to connect the snack market and the *Thrill Hotel* through a snack street that was more than a kilometer long to form a linkage!

In this way, tourists could completely walk along the snack street to the snack market in the evening after visiting the *Thrill Hotel* and enjoy all kinds of delicacies.

It was said that there was also a new large-scale project under construction inside the *Thrill Hotel*, so the economy of the entire surrounding area would inevitably be further revitalized.

Obviously, Tenda had also thought of a solution for those shops that were asking for exorbitant prices.

People's greed was endless. The demands of these shops definitely couldn't be met in one go. Otherwise, if the first one succeeded in raising the price, the others would follow suit, and it would be endless haggling with each shop. This matter would never end.

Tenda offered a uniform price for all the shops, providing two options: long-term lease and purchase. The price was already generous enough.

If this wasn't a Tenda project, then Li Shi would definitely think that leasing was much more cost-effective.

Because money had a time value, as long as the shop owners didn't purely squander the money they got, but instead chose to use the money to make some more promising investments, the income generated after ten years would definitely be far greater than 50%.

But this was a Tenda project, so it was different.

The rate of return of a Tenda project couldn't be measured by a simple number.

However, the shop owners might not understand this principle, because they didn't have Li Shi's unwavering belief in Tenda's business myth.

Strictly speaking, the shop owners' joint price increase was more like a short-sighted behavior.

Tenda also gave a solution to the joint price increase by the shop owners, which was to divide them.

The original plan was that there would be a direct route from the snack market to the *Thrill Hotel*. The owners of many shops on this road felt that Tenda would take down their shops at any cost, so they naturally had nothing to fear.

But now Tenda had changed its thinking and would choose multiple routes, and finally finalize one based on the actual situation.

The snack street might turn, bypassing some shops.

In this way, shops that originally had no chance to enter the snack street were also within the scope of consideration.

In order to obtain this opportunity, these shops would definitely scramble to sign contracts with Tenda.

Shops that were originally on a straight line might end up with nothing.

Under these circumstances, it was impossible for the shop owners to unite closely. After all, one mistake would mean hundreds of thousands were gone. Most small business owners didn't have the courage.

Moreover, it was said that Tenda had added a plan to directly buy shops on the basis of the original long-term lease, which was enough to show that this matter had alarmed President Pei, and President Pei had allocated a large sum of money.

Li Shi felt that the opportunity had come!

He immediately said, "Let's go buy shops in that area too! However, we're different from Tenda. We only buy, we don't lease."

"Moreover, we won't compete with Tenda. After Tenda's route is determined, we'll find those shops that weren't selected and buy them at a relatively favorable price."

"I think... a premium of 40% should be no problem."

Tenda's plan was a premium of 50%, but there would definitely be only one final route for the snack street, and many nearby shops would not be selected.

Most of the owners of these shops would regret it.

Of course, there were also those owners who were particularly confident in themselves and felt that they could make a career on the side of the food street, but there were definitely also owners who missed the opportunity due to hesitation and failed to sell their shops.

Li Shi and other investors would find these people and buy them at a high price.

For a shop that had been determined not to be on the food street, this premium was actually very considerable, and someone would definitely sell it.

After buying them, Li Shi would transfer professional talents from his other invested industries, such as chain internet cafes, bars, and coffee shops, to be responsible for these stores.

Moreover, Li Shi could also choose to lease some of the shops to Tenda at a low price and sign a long-term contract.

Although the food street could only cover one street at the beginning, what if the flow of people continued to increase in the future and the food street needed to expand?

Moreover, Li Shi's face was completely different from those shop owners.

Most of those shop owners had no resources or abilities, and they had rejected Tenda's kindness, so Tenda would definitely not cooperate with them.

However, Li Shi had resources and a good relationship with President Pei. The two sides cooperated very happily. Even if he couldn't become a "shop inside the food street", it wouldn't be a problem to become a "cooperative shop of the food street".

As long as he had Tenda's recognition, it wouldn't be a problem to get a piece of the pie from the food street.

There was no reason for Tenda to reject this proposal, because Li Shi and other investors were buying shops around the food street, and Tenda couldn't eat all of these shops.

Why not cooperate with Li Shi, an old acquaintance, instead of cooperating with shop owners they didn't know and who had no resources or abilities?

What Li Shi cared about most was actually the appreciation potential of these shops many years later.

Those shop owners might have doubts about this and couldn't wait that long, but Li Shi would never doubt it.

Xue Zhebin nodded: "Okay, then I'll go inform the other investors!"