Chapter 748

Chen Yang did not immediately let Liu Qingqing reply to her father; instead, he prepared to have Hu Haiquan, the person in charge of the Deep City District of Old Hundreds Financial Investment Company, step forward to negotiate with the other party.

If Liu Clan Group offered enough chips, he would consider giving up his own shares.

As for mobile phone production technology, since his demand only involved the assembly aspect, a price of forty billion was completely unacceptable.

If negotiations really fell through, Chen Yang would abandon talks with Liu Clan Group and directly acquire a phone contract manufacturer to cooperate with Fruit Company.

Because the negotiations required much preparation, Chen Yang stayed in Hong Kong for two days and then returned to Modu with Bai Ruonan and Xia Ye.

Old Hundreds Agricultural Products Trading Company rented a floor of temporary office building in Pudong New Area, not far from where Chen Yang lived at Tangchenyipin. Chen Yang had originally planned to buy it outright as a permanent office, but the other party refused to sell.

The person in charge of Modu District was temporarily held by Qian Duo Duo. Chen Yang originally intended to give this position to Xia Ye, but after the last e-commerce big promotion, the operations of Modu District became unusually busy.

At this time, if Chen Yang were to hand over such an important position to Xia Ye, who has no management experience at all, he would not only face opposition from the board of directors, but also impose great psychological pressure on Xia Ye.

After careful consideration, Chen Yang decided to first let Xia Ye serve as the team leader of Sales Group Two.

Regarding this arrangement, Xia Ye had no objections; on the contrary, he was unusually pleased.

After settling Xia Ye, Chen Yang then had Bai Ruonan send him back to Tangchenyipin.

To his surprise, the house was unusually lively today. Besides Mr. and Mrs. Wang Tianhe, even their future daughter-in-law Jiang Shanshan had come over.

"Honey, you're back just in time; Shanshan has been waiting for you a long time." Chu Min saw Chen Yang return, walked over smiling, and helped him take off his coat. However, when Chen Yang wasn't paying attention, she secretly smelled his clothes.

Chen Yang first greeted Mr. and Mrs. Wang Tianhe, then asked Jiang Shanshan: "Jiang Zong, what do you need from me?"

Jiang Shanshan, seeing Chen Yang address her as "Jiang Zong," said embarrassedly: "Brother-in-law, in front of you I dare not call myself the boss. I came here this time to learn from you, to study the management experience of your fruit chain stores. The fruit chain stores I run with my classmates keep me busy all day to the point of exhaustion, but the money I make is only enough to pay the employees' wages. If this continues, I'm afraid we won't be able to hold on much longer and will have to close down."

In fact, Chen Yang himself has no experience managing chain stores; the specific management work of the Old Hundreds Agricultural Products Chain Store has always been handled by executives such as Shen Anna, Zhao Xiaoxiao, and Ouyang Sheng.

However, after purchasing the land rights of Green Countryside from East Prosperity International last time, Chen Yang had people directly remodel it into the decoration style of the Old Hundreds Agricultural Products Chain Store; it is now open to consumers in Modu.

After a moment's thought, he directly confessed to Jiang Shanshan: "I rarely participate in the company's specific affairs, so I cannot give you experience. However, our company has already opened physical chain stores in Modu. If you are interested, you can arrange some management to go there to study. Or you can also go to the headquarters to learn from them."

Jiang Shanshan is still an undergraduate at Jiaotong University; it is inconvenient for her to leave Modu for too long, so she chose Chen Yang's first suggestion.

However, she still had some doubts: "Brother-in-law, your company's product prices are generally lower than the market prices in Modu; how can you achieve profitability?"

Chen Yang thought for a moment and then earnestly told her: "To make a profit in the low-end market, we must control costs. To ensure employees' work enthusiasm, our labor costs are not low. Usually we focus on raw material imports and logistics. For example, most of the agricultural products we sell in Modu are transported directly from Dongjiangsheng via the company's internal logistics system. Even if we need to rely on other logistics companies, the cost can still be kept very low."

However, your chain store is supplied directly by our company, so you don't need to consider these two costs. If you still can't make money, the reason must be something else.

Jiang Shanshan scratched her head and said with a bitter face: "We initially marked up the purchase price by thirty percent, then later increased it to fifty percent. Yet when we tallied the goods sold, the gross profit margin was still under twenty percent. After deducting various fixed expenses, the remaining profit is only enough to pay the employees' wages. I and my several fellow partners are almost worried to death."

Chen Yang had her show him the chain store's sales records, and he quickly discovered the problem.

"Shanshan, the positioning of your chain store is problematic. Modu is a high-consumption market; how can you sell only ordinary fruits? Our company has already imported large quantities of fruits from Europe and America; you can take them and sell them at double the price to those high-consumption groups."

"Moreover, you should specially produce some exquisite fruit baskets for gifts. The cost is not high, but as long as they sell, the profit will be at least double that of simply selling fruits."

Jiang Shanshan looked at Chen Yang somewhat hesitantly and said: "Brother-in-law, wouldn't doing this be too ruthless?"

Chen Yang turned to Chu Min beside him and asked: "Honey, when visiting very important relatives and friends, would you choose a fruit basket worth several hundred yuan, or fruit worth a few tens of yuan packed in a plastic bag?"

Chu Min replied without hesitation: "That goes without saying; definitely the fruit basket."

Chen Yang then said to Wang Tianhe: "Uncle, if you were to visit your superior, would you choose a fruit basket worth several hundred yuan, or fruit worth a few tens of yuan?"

Wang Tianhe hesitated a moment and said: "If I must give fruit, the probability that I would choose a fruit basket is also quite high."

Chen Yang then looked at Bai Bing, who also gave the same answer as Wang Tianhe.

Seeing this, Jiang Shanshan still hesitated a little: "Brother-in-law, your family are the richest people, so of course you don't care about that little money. But most people in Modu earn only a few thousand yuan a month; how could they bear to spend several hundred yuan on a fruit basket?"

Chen Yang realized she still didn't understand his meaning, and patiently explained: "Modu has nearly twenty million people; you cannot possibly serve everyone. Those low-consumption groups generally would not voluntarily go to a luxuriously decorated fruit chain store to shop. Meanwhile, high-consumption groups first value the consumption experience, and only then the product quality."

"If you merely sell ordinary fruits, people can choose to go to supermarkets, farmers' markets, roadside stalls, or fruit wholesale markets, and even choose the Old Hundreds E-commerce Platform. Your competitors are all the fruit distributors in Modu."

"If you only sell premium and imported fruits, although your customer base is greatly reduced, their purchasing power is greatly increased."

"More importantly, many people in your social circle belong to this group. As long as you maintain these relationships well, your chain store will never lack customers."

Upon hearing this, Jiang Shanshan suddenly came to a realization. Most of her several partners are children of high-ranking officials in Modu. As long as everyone works together to promote, they can definitely develop a stable high-consumption customer base.

In this way, the profitability problem of the chain store was readily solved.