Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

As usual, Pei Qian took an afternoon nap, caught up on some shows, and looked up to discover that it was already past 3 PM.

Although it was still early, there was nothing much left to do in the office.

All the projects were underway. Now that Chang You had presented the prototype and software to Boss Pei this morning, Boss Pei guessed that nobody would come to demonstrate anything else to him for now. Thus, there was nothing much left for him to do.

“Should I… go back to school to study? The exam week is right around the corner. Revision aside, I haven’t even borrowed others’ notes yet.

“Hmm, I should find some time to ask Ma Yang to photocopy his notes for me.”

Pei Qian switched his computer off. It was time to get off work!

He would go back to school to find a room where he could self-study. Perhaps he would be able to fill up the gap that he had been filling in his life recently.

As he walked out of the office, Pei Qian saw everyone staring at their screens intently as if they had been hard at work.

As for whether they had really been hard at work or not… Pei Qian could not tell.

He could only say that he was not good at being a boss; he had never been able to see his employees for who they truly were.

Tang Yishu had just finished tending to Glabella. At that moment, she was reading and studying quietly at her desk.

Pei Qian could not help but feel guilty.

Look at how hardworking and passionate about learning his own junior was!

I want to learn from her! Determined to do some self-revision, Pei Qian walked out of the office.

All of a sudden, he recalled something. He turned around and addressed everyone in the office, “Thank you for working hard, everyone. If you have nothing else to do, take the rest of the day off!”

Nobody bothered about him. Instead, they continued working hard on their screens.

Pei Qian sighed inwardly. Ai, how I wish a brave warrior would stand up at this moment and leave the office with me!

Feeling slightly regretful, Pei Qian took the elevator to the first floor and walked out of Shenhua View and then towards Handong University.

On the way, he made a detour to Fish-Catching Internet Cafe’s Handong University branch.

He found an empty seat and switched the system on instinctively.

“Eh? What’s going on? How did I end up here? Wasn’t I planning to do some self-revision?!

“Forget it. Since I’m already here, I should check out what new games there are. After all, I’m a games designer. I need to gather materials for work. That’s just as important as my academics.”

There were many games’ icons on the desktop. All of them were games that were popular at that moment.

GOG’s trial version and ‘freeplay version’ (which was the special offering to Boss Ma that incorporated Dream Realization Ventures’ modifications) were both among the bunch of popular games.

Pei Qian scanned the icons on the desktop. Before he could process all the available games, he suddenly realized that something was amiss.

This strange feeling was not coming from the computer’s desktop, but… from the exhibition board at the internet cafe’s entrance!

A strong sense of danger surfaced in Pei Qian’s mind. He quickly stood up and looked at the contents of the exhibition board.

There was a beautifully-printed poster on it with the topic:

‘Come and play computer games with us on Christmas Eve! ROF Computer-Installation is holding a sale!”

The poster mainly depicted an installed computer and system unit. The set looked extremely cool, especially with the flashing ROF logo on top. It was all very tempting indeed.

There were different prices for the system units listed at the bottom: 8,599 yuan, 12,599 yuan, and 16,599 yuan!

There were still three different prices but the actual prices themselves…

Pei Qian rubbed his eyes, realizing that these prices were different from the ones that he had set before!

They were cheaper!

Pei Qian looked closer at the hardware listed below and realized that the list was largely the same. The only difference was that a few pieces of hardware had been upgraded slightly.

Apart from that, ROF Computer-Installation was giving out small gifts. The most valuable among the options was a thumb drive. There were also other gadgets like cable ties, mousepads, keyboard-cleaning gels, and the like.

All of these things were nicely packaged under a beautiful name: ‘Christmas Eve’s Upgraded Package’.

Pei Qian was speechless.

It was so strong!

Look at the language used in the advertisement. ‘Come and play computer games with us on Christmas Eve’?

Single men and women would flock to the event!

Pei Qian was not interested in such Western festivals, but… he guessed that only single men and women would be interested to come and play computer games on Christmas Eve.

Obviously, this promotion was being run in order to take advantage of the festival.

However… it sounded quite effective!

There was a particularly eye-catching line of words written in a beautiful font on the poster: ‘Stocks are limited at this branch,

1500′. Pei Qian guessed that this meant there were only five hundred system units for sale at this branch.

Now, the number on the black was 428!

That meant that more than four hundred system units had already been sold at the Handong University branch.

Fish-Catching Internet Cafe had more branches, which were probably running the same promotion as well.

Before this, the three prices that Pei Qian had set were either equal to or slightly higher than the sum of the various parts’ market prices. Those prices could only be reduced if they purchased in bulk. That meant ROF Computer-Installation’s profit margin had not been huge.

In addition, they provided free upgrades to a few lucky people. The entire promotional event guaranteed that losses would be incurred.

After 1024 Digital Day, the prices had been increased back to 8,999 yuan, 12,999 yuan, and 16,999 yuan respectively.

Those prices looked way less reasonable to customers.

The prices were worth it, considering that they included doorstep delivery and after-sale repair service. However, the promotional event that they had run had already exhausted customers’ enthusiasm in advance. Thus, for a short period after that, sales remained lukewarm. Nothing huge happened to attract Pei Qian’s attention.

Yet, now, Zhang Yuan had miraculously upgraded some of the hardware, added some small gifts, and reduced the prices slightly.

That created the illusion that the package was now extremely worth its price!

Customers would think that the price-quality ratio was much better than before. In fact, they would think that the system units would be well worth their price. That was because all the gifts would be useful, and each system unit would be even cheaper if they bought in groups compared to if they bought one on their own.

At the same time, this would generate considerable profits for ROF’s computer-installation business.

The full effects of the reputation that they had built up over the last two months would probably kick in with this Christmas Eve event!

Pei Qian began to panic. We’re not going to sell that many units, right?

He was just about to go back into the internet cafe to question one of the waiters when he heard a surprised voice behind him. “Boss Pei?”

Boss Pei turned around. Indeed, it was Zhang Yuan!

Zhang Yuan looked very busy, but there was genuine joy on his face amidst the busyness. “Boss Pei, I wanted to give you a surprise, but you found out about it before I could tell you.

“What do you think about this Christmas Eve promotional event? We’ve been secretly preparing for it for a long time!”

Pei Qian’s heart suddenly felt weary.

Why are all of these people so interested in giving me surprises?

They’re worrying me to death!

Thankfully, I found out about this soon enough. Christmas Eve is tomorrow. I should still have time to think of a way to salvage the situation…

Pei Qian acted nonchalant as he asked, “So… how is this event helping sales? How much stock do we have in our inventory?”

Zhang Yuan grinned. “Stock? We’ve run out! We’ve sold them all!”

As Zhang Yuan spoke he retrieved a ‘sold out’ sign from out of nowhere. Then, he pasted it on top of the poster, covering the number ‘428’.

Pei Qian felt his vision blur.

They had sold all of their stocks?

Didn’t they have many warehouses and a huge storage space in the outskirts of Jingzhou City? If they earned three to four hundred yuan per system unit sold and they sold thousands of system units…

It was not a lot of money, but it was still a huge blow to Boss Pei!

Pei Qian’s expression was one of disbelief. “How… did they sell out so fast?”

They had a lot of stocks in their warehouses; how could they all be gone so quickly?

Zhang Yuan smiled. “Boss Pei, of course, we didn’t sell them all over the past few days. Have you forgotten that Singles Day just passed?

“Thanks to 1024 Digital Day which you organized, ROF became more well-known in the city. If not for that promotional event, ROF would have had a hard time establishing itself in the market.

“After 1024 Digital Day, I started thinking about making ROF an online business. Other cities do not have Upwind Logistics to deliver the computers to their doorsteps and provide a warranty for the entire unit. However, compared to the unscrupulous merchants selling ‘lemon’ products, customers think much better of us because we use solid materials and are honest businessmen.

“Of course, our sales cannot compare to those unscrupulous merchants. A few computer-installation businesses sold more than ten million units in forty minutes on Singles Day. On the other hand, we sold less than ten times that number.

“Don’t worry, Boss Pei. I do not admire them at all. I’ll remember your teachings well and ensure that ROF maintains its reputation-to be absolutely honest.

“All in all, our reputation has been improving during this period, and so have our sales. This Christmas Eve promotional event provided the perfect opportunity for us to clear our warehouses.

“We sold a batch of our stocks on Singles Day, another batch on December 12th, and another batch during this event.

“Now all of our warehouses have reported emergencies. I’m trying to get more stocks in as quickly as I can!

“Speaking of which, I was too conservative back then and prepared too few stocks. If only I had prepared more…”

Pei Qian’s expression darkened, and he immediately felt unwell. So that was what happened. The side effects of 1024 Digital Day were kicking in!

The repercussions were huge!

Pei Qian had been more cautious after that promotional event, but he had not noticed anything significant happening with ROF. After that, he became so busy with work that he had forgotten about it altogether.

He had only turned his back for a while; he had not expected such a huge mess!

Pei Qian asked, “Well… what plans do you have for now…?”

After some consideration, Zhang Yuan answered, “I’ll set aside some funds to order more stocks and use the remaining funds to ramp up publicity! I’m planning to buy good reviews and credibility ratings for our online shop and try my best to steal customers of unscrupulous merchants! “Of course, I’m also prepared to submit a portion of the profits to Tengda. After all, ROF has been getting funding from headquarters ever since it started. Now that losses have turned into profits, we have to submit a portion of those profits to headquarters to show our gratitude…”

Pei Qian quickly raised his hand. “You must not!”

Zhang Yuan, “?”

Pei Qian cleared his throat and said, “Tengda does not lack money. Don’t worry about that. You also shouldn’t buy good reviews and credibility ratings!

“Although these are unspoken rules for online businesses, it is nothing but a sham. We mustn’t do this sort of thing!

“Instead, we should spend all our money on getting new stocks. We didn’t fill our huge warehouses up back then, right?

“Use whatever funds we earned to buy more stocks. Spend every last cent; don’t be stingy!

“Also, promotional events like these are akin to making an overdraft on our potential to generate sales. Don’t run them so often, understand?

“You should only run such events on 1024 Digital Day from now on. Don’t adjust the prices otherwise!”

Pei Qian was at a loss. ROF was beginning to generate profits. What could he do? Pei Qian could not allow them to ramp up publicity efforts or submit a portion of their profits to Tengda.

Thus, he had no choice but to ask Zhang Yuan to spend the money on getting more stocks! He guessed that everyone who wanted to purchase ROF’s system unit probably already had done so during the event. Now, they could stop running advertisements or lowering their prices and focus on accumulating stocks by spending all the money they had earned on various hardware. Then, the hardware could be stored in the warehouses, where they would slowly depreciate in value. At the same time, the system units would no longer be sold at such low prices. Fewer customers would be willing to purchase them at their original price.

Every time they sold a unit, they would replenish stocks. As long as they kept their inventories full, Pei Qian could guarantee that he would have no spare cash!

Pei Qian could no longer count on ROF to incur losses. As long as they spent all of the money that they earned, Pei Qian would let them off.

Confused, Zhang Yuan said, “Boss Pei, if we have too much inventory, we might face greater pressure to make sales. Now that we can’t run promotional events anymore, what if we fail to sell the system units…?”

Pei Qian raised his hand. “Don’t worry about that. That’s what we’ll do! If there are not enough warehouses, we can always rent more. The secret to expanding your business is to make sure that you have no spare cash on hand at all times, understand?”

Zhang Yuan opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. After a while, he nodded and said, “I-I understand.”