"And?" Jin questioned with a stare that only made everyone contemplate the worst case scenario. The store owners, who knew him a few months ago, thought that he changed into someone greedy for more money. They worried that he was no longer the same Jin who wanted to protect the local store businesses anymore.
But the change was natural since maintaining this Tree Mall should not be an easy feat and there was indeed so much space in the mall for more tenants to enter and open their business. This way, the customers in Jin's Dungeons and Pandas could possibly spend more time in the tree mall. In fact, the current Demopolis raid event had seen more tourists, in particular, cultivators from all over China during the weekend to spend time and try out the dungeon raids.
It was no doubt still the main star attraction of the Tree Mall that allowed the rest to prosper and now that Jin appeared to be using his influence to steer the meeting, the business owners decided to change their tune a little.
However, San Sun was a little too dense to notice the changes and demanded more information on the future of the Tree Mall. Jin's stare subsequently got imbued with a bit of Maqi but he had forgotten that most of them were low level cultivators and that bit of Maqi was enough to bring shivers in their pants.
"Scared for a moment?" Jin's stare eventually turns to a slight smile towards Shen Si Fang, the supposed chairman of the Tiangong Shopping District Committee and owner of Lele Tower Café Instance. Because of the possible changes, the store owners once again revived the committee to ensure fairness had been struck among the store keepers. He initially wanted to calm Jin down and tried to mediate between the headstrong San Sun (Although he was shaking a bit from his seat) but the smile gave Si Fang a huge relief.
"Yeah. I thought you would go evil for a moment and cut San Sun where he was standing." Si Fang replied and Jin laughed at that prospect.
"Alright. Here's the rationale from my side. There is no denying that having those major companies would be a big boost to our finances." Jin wanted to communicate with the owners so that there was some form of understanding between the landlord and the store owners. Thus his starting sentence had already sent the rest of the store owners to the edge of their seats.
"With the dimensional technology on my side being stable, the Tree Mall is now capable of holding a seemingly infinite amount of stores if I were to do it. If possible, I would like the Tree Mall to cover the needs of the customers. Anything and everything. From furniture, cars, banking to daily essential needs. Heck, I can even introduce supply warehouse facilities as dimensional instances so that this could be a hub to procure items."
"So, just by renting a space to the major brand companies would drastically increase the popularity of this area and we can have even more sales than usual because dungeon cultivators are statistically mainly males while the females could perform their shopping." Jin continued his rationale. "While this is just a generalisation, there is still some truth to it and you store owners have frontline experience about it."
"Boss Jin. I have a question to ask." Yu Xiang, who was at the conference even though her parents were the ones who opened the Chinese Medicinal store, posed a question for Jin. Despite the conflict of interest of her being Jin's researcher, Yu Xiang's parents rather have their daughter attend the meeting since they were quite content with the current status quo. (But many did not know about it, even the store owners) Still, Jin allowed her to interrupt his talk.
"At this age, there is no denying that the increase in online spending would affect the popularity and presence of this Tree Mall. What are you going to do with that?"
"That is where Pandafull Delivery comes into play. I am sure the store owners have already seen how their orders are slowly increasing with the Pandafull Delivery and how it is very easy to make the transactions because everything has been done in the back end. My elite team of technicians and software programmers had been working hard to create a new version of Pandamonium App that would integrate the shopping app portion the moment we push for more tenants to enter the Tree Mall. When the tenants are confirmed, the new version of Pandamonium will go online as well to include them."
"What do you mean?" Yu Xiang continued to ask for more clarification.
"While it is true that the market is saturated with online delivery apps and such, this app is specifically to cater for the stores in Tree Mall. As I said, we are going to own the entire supply chain of certain products if possible. From the supply logistics to be stationed into the dimensional instances to the frontline sales like merchandises and food. If we are able to do that, we have the supply for any demand and it would allow us to be a possible major contender against the big apps… well at least for the local provincial market. We can go national when we can sort out everything else."
"You do not sound like a Dungeon Supplier at all, more like a business leader. From what we are hearing, you are going to make a Tree Mall into a Business District, capable of rivalling the central business district." Yu Xiang smirked but Jin remained serious.
"As much as this is out of my depth, I need to expand the facilities of the Tree Mall for some personal reasons. Also, let's just say that if I can attract supplies and logistics companies to my mall, it would directly benefit my dungeons too since I do need resources, especially cash… and those workers would also get to have time to play my dungeons too, which is a plus. Just like how you guys do so once in a while."
"Well… I cannot deny that. I might not be a cultivator per se, but being able to increase my cultivation through your dungeons has improved my work life cycle." Yu Xiang responded with a slight blush.
"But you have yet to answer the crux of the subject. What is going to happen to us?" San Sun interrupted, feeling impatient that his -their concerns were not answered. "I guess, it's a yes, we are going to be sidestepped now that you are going to bring those major brands in?"
"Before I say anything that will put that question's answers to confirmation, I am going to clear the air in this room. I am not going to just add major brand companies to the Tree Mall. You guys have shown that there are still entrepreneurs in this time and age. I will continue to help new, aspiring business owners since rent is practically the lowest compared to everywhere else. Also, that includes those in the food pyramid who wished to have a restaurant instance open, be my guest. I am not going to stop you but be forewarned that the rent would be higher since it's an individual instance."
"Then how would that be-" San Sun was subsequently interrupted by Jin.
"The rent price would be the same as Boss Lai Fu and Si Fang's instances and they are already discounted because all of you are the original generation of this Tree Mall and that is the perk that you will receive. Other than that, do remember that this is still a business. Even though I bought this land, I got salaries and bills to pay behind the scenes to keep the dimensional instances running."
"So I am ȧssuming that you are charging more to the new owners?" Lai Fu asked and Jin nodded his head.
"Yeap, and trust me. This is going to be a major big project for the Tree Mall no matter how one looks at it. That is why I allowed you guys to have the head start on this competition. Other than that, it's all based on your skills, creativity to survive. After all, it's just the market forces at play." Jin said as he believed that the revamped Tree Mall would be the next big thing coming for Shenzhen province.
