Chapter 163 - Manufacturing (2)
“Just a few random customers. They won’t make a dent.” Lao Zhang felt a bit embarrassed. He had made a popular style before. Unfortunately, it didn’t last too long on the market. He wasn’t able to work on any popular styles in the two years that followed and most of his customers that bought from him had turned to other factories.
“You never know. Resources are resources. Give it a try and contact them anyway.” Shu Yan suddenly realized that Lao Zhang’s factory had no salespersons. “Who used to be in charge of sales?”
“My wife. She was a worker at a factory store before. She knows how to make clothes herself and also knows a lot of people. Many of our original customers were brought over by her.” There was a sense of pride on Lao Zhang when he was talking about his wife.
He was one who loved his wife a lot. Shu Yan’s lips curved upward a bit. “Then can we have your wife continue to do be the salesperson? We will pay her a salary for that.”
“It’s our own factory. There’s no need for a salary,” said Lao Zhang as he waved his hand. “That’s not a problem. My son is in junior high school and my wife has a lot of free time. She can come back to work.”
“Now that we are working together, we should be fair when it comes to money. Better safe than sorry. Let’s not have any conflicts later on over several hundred dollars.” Shu Yan felt that they need to be clear when it came to that. “Why don’t we do this? We will pay your wife $100 / month base salary. 5% commission on first order, 2% on returning customers. Any shops that she was able to sell to, we will adhere to this pay schedule. What do you say?”
Good verse. No wonder she was so successful in business. Lao Zhang felt that working with Shu Yan would be a very pleasant experience.
“In addition, I will talk to a few wholesalers when I went over to City Han next time. If we can sell our undergarments there, we will be able to make more sales.”
Lao Zhang was a bit hesitant. “If we sell to wholesales, will they take our designs and make their own?”
“There’s a good possibility of that. But you know about the garment industry. Any semi-decent design will be copied in a few days. Even if we don’t sell them to the wholesalers, it’s a matter of time before they copy our design. So we might as well sell more while we are the only one making them.” Shu Yan had already thought about it long time ago. China was a copycat country. It didn’t matter what it was, anything that remotely make any money would be copied. Fall clothes didn’t involve a lot of technicality. Anyone would be able to reproduce it from looking at it. They’d be all over the place within a week.
Truth was, if they have enough capital, they could register their brand and advertise on TV and newspaper and immediately became a well-known domestic underwear brand. Unfortunately, that would require a lot of manpower and resources.
Welp, couldn’t worry too much. First and foremost was to make a huge amount during the market blank phase. She’d at least need to recoup some of her money.
That Saturday, Shu Yan planned to go City Han for merchandizing again. Xiuxiu had taken the next day off so Shu Yan would need to rush back in the morning. Then Xiuxiu announced in the afternoon that she wouldn’t be taking the day off after all.
“Chen Fei is an architect so his time is very flexible. My parents don’t have too much work lately either so they are home most of the time. We can switch it to Monday. So take your time coming back,” explained Zhang Huaxiu.
That worked out better for Shu Yan. She had planned to really walk about the wholesale market and also bring some samples with her to promote. It’d be great if she could secure some channels.
The few women from last night had probably really excluded Shu Yan. They hadn’t called her to go merchandizing in a while now. Shu Yan didn’t call them either but just called the driver directly.
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