Chapter 3509: Cherishing One's Reputation

The US government completely abandoned Blackwater, letting the whole world know that Bernard Arnault had the last laugh.

At this moment, his reputation was at its peak.

Among the public, many were his fervent fans, even some billionaires, who regarded him as an idol.

Thus, an unexpected situation arose: online, a call to support Bernard Arnault suddenly appeared.

The uninformed masses naively believed that Bernard Arnault, in order to uphold justice, was about to suffer a major loss from the US market collapsing to zero.

People did not want to let down a hero, so someone rushed first to Bernard Arnault's stores in the US, bought several items, then took photos and posted them on social media, captioning that they too wanted to contribute to justice, could not directly confront the US government, and at least could provide Bernard Arnault with whatever support they could.

Unexpectedly, this post received a large number of likes and comments from netizens.

For a time, netizens suddenly started a trend: consuming at Bernard Arnault's brands became the most praised and most face-saving thing to do.

This feeling was just like the worldwide frenzy of promoting labubu, even surpassing it.

labubu, a low-cost little doll, could be hyped to hundreds or even thousands of yuan, precisely because netizens worldwide regarded it as the current most fashionable symbol—having it made you the trendiest person in the world, so even if this item had a high markup, people would still pay for it for face and that trendy label.

And Bernard Arnault's luxury brands had long been famous worldwide; moreover, all items in his stores were sold at regular price with no markup, so compared to chasing after some product with astronomical markup, this was definitely much better.

Thus, all stores under his global group brands welcomed an unprecedented consumption frenzy.

The earliest batch of customers rushing into stores bought the best-selling hot items; even if they needed to wait for allocation, they were happy to accept, since although the allocation system was a trap, allocated items were at original price, with no case of a 100-yuan item being hyped to 1,000 yuan.

After the hot items were sold out, those styles that did not require allocation but were not easy to sell were also snapped up.

Next, items that had been ignored for years were also bought one after another.

Even those products so expensive they were infuriating, so abstract they were infuriating—let alone buying, just the slightest thought of purchasing made one feel their intelligence insulted—were also bought one after another.

Inventories at major US stores began to run out one after another.

Some stores were completely sold out within an hour, with everything sellable in the store bought.

Before midnight, all stores in the North American market were completely sold out.

Each store had only empty shelves left, and a group of employees who had regained joy.

For these employees, today truly felt like riding a roller coaster.

Although they had no chance to get three years' salary for free, and would later lose sales commissions, tonight they had achieved what used to take several months of performance, making this commission income quite considerable for them.

And at the entrance of each store, many people gathered who wanted to buy things or come to take photos and check in; these people blocked the doors and windows tightly, each in their own way, hitching a ride on the heat from Bernard Arnault's lone sortie.

Bernard Arnault received sales reports from regional directors, and the whole person was shocked into speechlessness.

Although he was the pioneer of hype marketing and had already anticipated a surge in retail store performance, he did not expect it to surge to this extent.

When inventory shortages and sellouts erupted globally, he immediately called his assistant, ordering: "Immediately demand all factories work overtime, pay them the highest overtime allowed by local laws and regulations, the faster the better, so the entire supply chain and production side can complete restocking for the global market within five days!"

The assistant quickly said: "Chairman, the supply chain side is not a big problem; the main issue is that our production capacity is now severely limited—many of our popular items are handmade by artisans, speed cannot be increased, and now intention orders from all stores are surging, so for a long time to come, our capacity cannot possibly meet demand."

Bernard Arnault said: "This is simple—immediately send the raw materials for popular items to China, let Chinese contractors handle at least 90% of production, then take back the labeling and tagging steps to Paris, so we can reasonably and legally add the MadeInFrance label—this is allowed by law."

Speaking, he couldn't help muttering: "But the bags made by Chinese workers are of much higher quality than those by Parisian workers, with at least double the lifespan—I need to remind the production side in China to lower quality standards as much as possible, otherwise if each bag bought back lasts ten or eight years without breaking, how are we supposed to sell?"

The assistant nervously asked him: "Chairman, is this really appropriate?"

Bernard Arnault angrily questioned: "Nonsense—do you need to judge whether this is appropriate? I am the chairman! Do as I say! We have used this method before!"

The assistant embarrassedly said: "Chairman, you are now a different person—your reputation is at its peak worldwide; if we now stir up news of our group being solely profit-driven, it might greatly affect your reputation—you need to cherish your feathers!"

Bernard Arnault suddenly woke up.

"Yes!"

"I am now a great hero of the world!"

"If I now engage in private-label trading, and if someone exposes it, then the super-high reputation I built thanks to Ye Chen—wouldn't it all be ruined?"

Thinking this, he truly realized he was no longer his former self.

Now he, renowned abroad, cannot act as before, pursuing profit by any means.

Thus, he turned his mind and immediately said: "Your reminder is excellent—this matter was indeed my oversight; let's do this: during this period of insufficient goods, we will first cooperate with other enterprises, do some co-branding—for example, co-brand with other apparel brands—this way, they will handle the co-brand design and production, we only need to grant trademark and logo usage rights, then handle sales—this way we don't need to produce ourselves, yet can quickly obtain many co-branded items, profit is certain, and we won't be condemned, as long as we cooperate with enough co-brand enterprises, we can soon fill stores with co-branded goods!"

The assistant exclaimed in surprise: "Chairman, you……you are truly a business genius! Then I will immediately contact all European luxury brands and daily-use brands, seize the time to push this forward!"