Ch 6. Selling Like Hot Cakes
It is now mid-July, the hottest days of the year. At the first rays of sunlight, the streets begins to turn hot and dry.
Stadtspire City is baked to limpidness, the whole city appear lifeless, the streets are empty and quiet.
Yet, Business Street at east of the city depicts an entire different scene.
The street which convenes up to a hunderd shophouses of various sizes, since even before daybreak, is gradually swarmed by hundreds of people. And even more surprising, all of them gather in front of only one store, as if by a secret common agreement.
"Hey Joseph? Why have you come, too?"
"Why can't I? Aren't you here yourself? And you Eicher, have you come to buy a magitech fan too?"
"I have. You said 'too'? You came to buy a magitech fan, too?"
"Of course, I have paid the deposit last week!"
...
Among the crowd, similar dialogues are taking place. Before long, they find out that all hundreds of them has come to "Heinze's Sundries" for the same item: a magitech fan.
Only a small group of them has paid a deposit a week ago, so today they are just picking up their order. But still a few hundreds of them have come after hearing about this wondrous new fan, and came at first notice to get one.
"There are so many of us here, will there be enough magitech fans for all of us?" someone blurted out suddenly.
The crowd turned dead quiet, before exploding into a stampede pushing towards the sundry shop.
"Hey! Let me through! I must get a magitech fan for my wife no matter what, or else she will cook me alive!"
"You son of a b$/*h! My wife said if I don't buy a magitech fan for her, I sleep in the kennel tonight."
"Stop squeezing already, I already paid the deposit!"
"Get lost you #*"&, you chap with a preorder, what do you still squeezing with the rest of us for!"
....
Xuyi had delivered all 487 units of magitech fans to Heinze's shop last night, and is now checking the inventory. Suddenly, he hears a great hubbub coming from outside the shop. He sees the same puzzlement on Heinze's face as his, and goes to the door together.
Once they opened the door, and find that the whole street is packed with hollering people, it gave them a fright.
For a moment, they thought some wacko had organised a street rebellion.
The streets are thronged with a dense crowd, and with the floodgates... I mean front door opened they, they flooded the shop, an in no time there hardly is room left to move about.
"Heinze, where is the magitech fan I ordered?"
"Hey, boss, I didn't order in advance, but I want two no! Three magitech fans!"
"And me, Heinze, I am a regular customer here, you got to give me two magitech fans!"
"Damn, what about being a regular customer, I'm not paying any less, so you better give me one magitech fan!
"You push so hard to buy just one? Go back in line, you /?#$!"
...
In this sweltering weather, and with all these people squeezing to the max, Xuyi being the first time facing this frenzied shoppers, immediately sweat buckets.
Heinze never faced this kind of shopping frenzy too, but being an experienced merchant, he adapts better than Xuyi the full-time researcher. He promptly calms himself and then shouted above the chatters: "Everybody calm down! Calm down! We have a whopping 500 magitech fans stocked up! Enough for E-VERY-ONE!
This calms the frenzy for exactly three counts.
By the end of the three counts, the crowd had finished the math of 500 divided by the hundreds of people present. Even if they buy one each, the 500 stocked up fan will be just enough. But during the frenzied hollering, many of them had divulged their intention buying quite a few. Then many of them will be going home empty handed!
Once they realise this, their frenzy returned with a vengeance!
Seeing that he fails to calm these crazy lot, he takes up command and directs Xuyi and Alex, a temporary help, to get the fans from the backyard storeroom.
A magitech fan weighs less than 3kg, Xuyi and Alex can carry ten in one go. But once they reach the storefront, the fans are immeditely snatched clean. So the two rush back to get more.
After a few trips back and forth, the storehouse fans dwindles rapidly.
After a while, the customers become weary with wait, and follow Xuyi and Alex to the storeroom. Heinze goes with the flow and moves the selling point to the storeroom.
In under an hour, the magitech fans in the storeroom are swept clean.
But hundreds customers have not gotten their magitech fans, and are greatly disappointed when they find out the fans are sold out. Some impatient customers even begin to complain.
"With so little stock, what kind of broken business are you running?"
Xuyi and Heinze can only apologise calmly to the customers, but they feel content and pleased to know their merchandise sell so well. They expect that selling 500 fans will take weeks if not months, but did not anticipate that in only one hour, the stock is gone.
Of these remaining hundred plus customers, Heinze does not easily give up. With Xuyi's consent, he tells them they will replenish the stock in large quantities, and if they are interested, they can totally book in advance.
This time around, no one hesitates to place their orders.
After another hour, the crowd slowly dissipates, and the sundry shop regains its peace.
After sending off their last customer, Heinze takes Xuyi to his private office.
"Jingling...jingling...", Heinze shakes his pouch and pours out a stream of gold coins which forms a quite a pile on his writing desk.
Looking at the pile of shining gold, Heinze gulps hard.
Too many!
Heinze has never seen so many gold coins at one time. He took a few deep breaths to calm his frantically beating heart, and begins counting the gold with Xuyi.
In total, they sold 487 magitech fans; with the selling price per unit of two gold, totals sales is 974 gold. But 137 customers has paid one gold each as a deposit, and paid the remaining one gold upon collection, so when subtracted 137, they should have 857 gold in hand.
When Heinze finishes counting, the amount of gold coins tallies.
"Xu...Xuyi, we have made a fortune today!" even when he had made the same calculations when the stock came in yesterday, but when the gold coins piles up in front of his eyes, Heinze finds his head spins from the sight.
He has been running this sundry shop in Stadtspire City for twenty years, his yearly income never exceeds three hundred gold. But in just one morning, he sells a whopping dangling gerrymandering eight hundred plus gold!
He just cannot believe it!
While outwardly Xuyi looks much calmer, but his heart almost leapt out from his mouth seeing the gold.
He has been in this world for three years, and he has always been living in near poverty. Even when he is usually a frugal person, with this kind of income, it allows him a better living condition.
After a period of silence, Xuyi pulls himself together and begins sorting out 400 gold coins from the pile and pushes it towards Heinze.
"That's not right." said Heinze.
They had agreed upon a ten percent commision, which is 97 gold. In addition to a loan of two hundred gold Xuyi made to fund the material cost for the magitech fan production, the total is 297 gold. But now Xuyi gives him 400 gold, he is extremely puzzled.
Xuyi replied, "The additional 100 gold is for a new workshop. I need your help to rent one in the city so that I can increase production capacity. The scale of production has outgrown my humble cottage.
Heinze nods his agreement. The cottage Xuyi is renting is less that ten squaremetres wide, it will be inconvenient to manufacture his fans there.
When Xuyi is just about to go into the particulars, Alexs, who is manning the shop barges into the room.
"Uncle Heinze, Mr Xuyi. A rich customer".
"A rich customer?" Both Xuyi and Heinze are baffled, "What do you mean a rich customer?"
When two goes out to have a look, only do they understand what Alex meant by a "rich customer".
In the shop, stands a middle aged man in his forties, of average build, his looks very plain, but he has an aura of sagacity, and when he squints his slit-eyes to size someone up, it gives the impression of a merchant sizing up his merchandise.
"One thousand units." After briefly introducing himself as Louise, he goes straight to the point, "I would like to place an order of 1000 magitech fans."