Chapter 582: Reverse Operation

The voice coming from the phone made Cao Taizheng's heart race with excitement, yet he also felt nervous. The person calling him was also a scalper from Yangcheng, who could be considered Cao Taizheng's senior.

But this scalper played a much bigger game than Cao Taizheng. He already had his own storefront in the electronics city, and it was rumored that he had rented a booth in Huaqiangbei, Pengcheng, and even had connections with channels in Hong Kong and Japan, occasionally selling various types of "parallel import" machines from overseas.

"Brother Shen, I don't know what you mean by that!" Cao Taizheng played dumb, saying to the scalper on the other end, wanting to probe for some information.

The scalper surnamed Shen had no intention of playing dumb with Cao Taizheng. "Taizai, one price: for every unit you have in your hands, I'll add 50 yuan and take them all!"

Hearing that he would add fifty yuan per unit, Cao Taizheng couldn't help but swallow his saliva. For 100 units, he could earn 5,000 yuan!

Just one day later, he could earn 5,000 yuan. This return rate was already quite high. According to the current average monthly salary in Yangcheng, even for employees of the municipal government and state-owned factories, the salary was around 987 yuan, which was already considered high in the country.

In one day, by scalping Shenzhou electronic dictionaries, Cao Taizheng could earn the equivalent of half a year's salary for a Yangcheng employee. It was truly not low.

But Cao Taizheng, who had been a scalper for so long, knew that anything that could make scalpers fight over stock was definitely a hot commodity!

"Brother Shen, I still don't understand what you mean!"

"Sixty yuan. For every electronic dictionary, I offer 760 yuan!"

"Seventy yuan. Taizai, do me a favor, and we'll all get rich together in the future!"

"Adding another ten yuan—adding eighty yuan per unit. It can't go any higher..."

"Brother Shen, the signal here is bad. I'll call you back later!"

Cao Taizheng hung up the phone, breathing heavily. He was afraid that if the guy surnamed Shen added to the price again, he wouldn't be able to resist selling.

The offer on the other side was already not low, but his intuition told Cao Taizheng that once the electronic dictionaries started going out of stock in Yangcheng, the price might go even higher.

Picking up the rice noodles, Cao Taizheng started stuffing them into his mouth again, trying to calm himself down, but the news coming from the TV made his heart beat even faster.

"Broadcasting local Yangcheng news now. This morning, Yangcheng Department Store suspended business after being open for only one hour and twenty minutes.

Yangcheng Department Store claims that the inventory of Shenzhou electronic dictionaries sold at the electronic counter has been cleared, and there is no new stock arriving for the time being!

Tianhe City, Wangfujing Department Store, Wanjia Appliance City, and other malls selling Shenzhou electronic dictionaries have also successively announced that their inventory is sold out!"

Watching the news on TV, the small scalper couldn't help but angrily curse that the guy surnamed Shen was no good, trying to pit his own peers. That side must have received news ahead of time that the electronic dictionaries were out of stock in Yangcheng, which was why he started grabbing stock.

But before Cao Taizheng could finish cursing, a piece of news from Hong Kong's Phoenix TV station left him stunned while he was holding his rice noodles and cursing in the street.

"According to reports from Hong Kong's Phoenix TV station, the Shenzhou electronic dictionary has landed in Hong Kong, setting a sales volume of 7,840 units in Hong Kong yesterday!

Hong Kong media estimates that the demand for Shenzhou electronic dictionaries in Hong Kong will continue to increase.

Ning's Trading Company, the general agent for Shenzhou electronic dictionaries in Hong Kong, claims that it will promote the Shenzhou electronic dictionary to enter Hong Kong families and schools, becoming an auxiliary teaching device for English subjects in Hong Kong!"

Hong Kong was an international city, and English was almost a mandatory subject for Hong Kong people. Whether for exams or entering the workplace, English was required, which made Hong Kong's emphasis on English much higher than in domestic cities.

Cao Taizheng had only been focusing on the Yangcheng market; he hadn't expected that there would also be a trend of big sales over in Hong Kong.

"According to statistics from Hong Kong media, besides the mainland market, the market with the highest sales volume for the Shenzhou electronic dictionary in the Southeast Asian region is the Korean market, setting a single-day sales volume of 17,000 units. The selling price of the Shenzhou electronic dictionary in Korea is 95,124 won, equivalent to about 120 USD per unit!"

Seeing the selling price in Korea, Cao Taizheng couldn't help but curse that their hearts were black. This pricing was clearly set by the Korean agent for the Shenzhou electronic dictionary.

But the news on TV hadn't ended yet. "Besides the Hong Kong and Korean markets, the Shenzhou electronic dictionary, represented by Japan's Bandai, Japan's Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, and Japan's SoftBank in the Japanese market, also broke 10,000 in first-day sales in Japan!

The Shenzhou electronic dictionary had a single-day sales volume of over 1,024 units in Singapore, an estimated sales volume of 3,580 units in Malaysia, and 1,958 units in Siam. The first-day sales volume of the Shenzhou electronic dictionary in the Southeast Asian region exceeded 50,000 units, and the future demand may continue to increase.

According to Ning's Trading Company, they are seeking to bring the Shenzhou electronic dictionary into markets like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Russia, but they are still negotiating the payment methods for these markets.

Dongling Gao Ke requires agents in the Indian and Russian markets to complete transactions by paying first and then delivering the goods!

If the transactions are completed and the Shenzhou electronic dictionary enters markets like India and Russia, the overseas sales volume of the Shenzhou electronic dictionary will see explosive growth!"

The news on TV finally ended with a scene of crowds queuing up to buy electronic dictionaries in front of an electronic counter in a Hong Kong mall.

But it took a long time for Cao Taizheng to come back to his senses, and then he couldn't help but curse that the guy surnamed Shen was no good. He now understood why the guy surnamed Shen wanted to grab the units in his hands.

The guy surnamed Shen probably wasn't doing this to hoard stock to sell in Yangcheng at all; he was probably planning to go in reverse, treating the domestic Shenzhou electronic dictionaries as "parallel imports" and selling them to Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and even India!

In these regions, there were also habits and demands for learning English in society. The Shenzhou electronic dictionary could definitely be sold there.

What, the language version of the domestic Shenzhou electronic dictionary was different from the one abroad?

But was that a problem?

In universities in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia, there were domestic international students, as well as those working there, local overseas Chinese families, etc. The total number of these people was estimated to be in the tens of millions, or even more. They were all potential users of electronic dictionaries.

That is to say, once the Shenzhou electronic dictionary went out of stock in Southeast Asia, the scalper surnamed Shen would export parallel imports to Japan, Korea, Malaysia, etc., in reverse. That would definitely be a huge profit, and it was estimated to be much more profitable than in the country!

After figuring out what the scalper surnamed Shen was planning to do, Cao Taizheng couldn't help but curse that the other party was truly black-hearted, even harvesting his own peers.

Yet in his heart, he couldn't help but think that if he sold them overseas, could he earn more? And it would be foreign currency, too.

But that was just a thought. Cao Taizheng knew clearly that he didn't have the overseas channels and connections of the guy surnamed Shen, and he didn't have the capital to collect a large amount of stock.

Cao Taizheng could only shake his head. He could only be a small scalper for now, earning some price difference. He would have to wait until Yangcheng was completely out of stock before he could make a big profit!

"This little slippery guy dares to play tricks on me!"

Listening to the busy signal on the phone, Shen Anming angrily threw down the phone in his hand. "Bad signal" was nonsense; he was using a landline to call Cao Taizheng!

There were several people sitting across from Shen Anming, all making their own phone calls, occasionally writing down a string of numbers on paper. In the middle of them was a blackboard, and the numbers on it added up to over 8,000!

Shen Anming knew what this number of over 7,000 meant—it meant they already had over 8,000 Shenzhou electronic dictionaries in their hands, with a total value approaching 5 or 6 million!

"With so many units, can they really be sold overseas?!"

Looking at those strings of numbers, Shen Anming couldn't help but ask the leader among the few people. Even for a big scalper like him, this wasn't a small number.

The leader, Xue Jingwu, was a fat man who smiled like a Maitreya Buddha. Behind his glasses, flashes of sharp light would occasionally pass.

Hearing Shen Anming's words, Xue Jingwu laughed. "Old Shen, you've been in this business for so many years; don't you know the rules? Once you start, there's no turning back. Either you make a big profit, or you lose money and admit defeat. There's no third way!"

"From electronic pet machines to Little Smart phones and Shenzhou U-disks, we haven't missed a beat with Dongling Gao Ke's products!

However, it's only when scalping Dongling Gao Ke's goods that we export domestic goods; the rest of the time, we're always importing overseas brand goods into the country!"

Mentioning this, Xue Jingwu couldn't help but sigh. Even for scalpers, there were upstream and downstream. The upstream naturally earned more, and the downstream had to look at the upstream's face.

In the past, when Xue Jingwu and the others were scalpers, they also had to look at the faces of scalpers supplying from abroad. Whatever price they set, they had to accept it. If they were unhappy, they wouldn't get the goods. Who told them the products were foreign? They had no first-hand source of goods at all.

And it was only when they encountered Dongling Gao Ke's products that Xue Jingwu and his group of scalpers could stand tall. It was the scalpers abroad who begged them to supply the goods; the pricing power for parallel imports was in their hands!

"When they get overseas, how much of a markup will these units be sold for?" This was Shen Anming's first time exporting domestic goods overseas, and he lacked experience.

Hearing his words, Xue Jingwu and the other few people looked at each other and then laughed out loud, laughing at Shen Anming as if he were a new recruit.

"How much of a markup?"

Xue Jingwu stood up and patted Shen Anming. "These goods of ours, once they get to Korea, Japan, and those places, if they aren't sold for double the price, we're losing money! If it's not double, we won't sell them, no matter how high or low the price is!"

Shen Anming opened his mouth wide. He felt his heart was black enough as a scalper, but facing Xue Jingwu's "double the price" strategy, he felt he was still kind-hearted. But could this electronic dictionary really be sold for double the price in those places? He was a bit unsure in his heart.

"News from Guangdong Province says they are basically out of stock!"

The next day, as soon as Li Dongling entered the Dongling Gao Ke headquarters office building, he heard the news that the Shenzhou electronic dictionary was out of stock in Guangdong Province.

Whether they were truly sold out or if someone was hoarding stock, no one could say for sure. But it was true that the Shenzhou electronic dictionary could no longer be bought in stores in Guangdong Province. Even for Focus Media TV shopping, in places like Yangcheng, the delivery time had been extended to a week later!

The Shenzhou electronic dictionary going out of stock in Guangdong Province was like a signal. Subsequently, Yanjing and Shanghai also successively called to report stock shortages.

The news that the Shenzhou electronic dictionary was starting to go out of stock domestically spread like wildfire for a time.

"Currently, the Shenzhou electronic dictionary is out of stock in cities like Yangcheng, Yanjing, and Shanghai!

According to Dongling Gao Ke marketing department personnel, the popularity of the Shenzhou electronic dictionary has exceeded expectations. The marketing department originally expected to sell the 500,000 units placed domestically within two weeks or 25 days.

But currently, it's possible that before this Friday—that is, in less than five days—the electronic dictionaries placed domestically will be completely sold out. Currently, the second-hand transaction price of electronic dictionaries in Yangcheng has already exceeded the launch price!"

A report in the *Yangcheng Evening News* basically announced the rumors of the Shenzhou electronic dictionary going out of stock domestically.

And subsequently, news coming back from Japan, Korea, Singapore, and other places made the rumors of the electronic dictionary being out of stock domestically even more intense.

"The Shenzhou electronic dictionary has caused a hot sale in Korea, with single-day sales hitting a new high again, reaching 31,000 units, being snapped up by Korean families, trading companies, and customs practitioners. Currently, the selling price of the Shenzhou electronic dictionary in Korea has reached 150 USD per unit!" ===== CHAPTER 583 =====