Chapter 285 – “I have never seen someone as stupid as you.” (1)
Many came with Shu Yan on this trip. Everybody grouped together to meet everybody else then, the ones that came with Shu Yan went over to their respective department to learn more about the situations in City Yang and Shu Yan, on the other hand, went over to Boss Yu’s office and listened to him bringing her up to date on this year’s progress.
“We have 36 franchises in City Yang so far, distributing in both Tier I and Tier II cities. Businesses are well overall and our direct-sale shop was located at the first floor of Guoguang Department Store. You have mentioned in the past that the direct-sale shop must be in the business distract with the most foot traffic and that is how we ended up in Guoguang Department Store.”
“That’s the right idea. The location of the department store speaks to the market setting of our products. The more high-end the location is, the more high-end impression our brand will give others. Boss Hu and I have high hopes for Xianxue. In addition to its sales, our brand impression is very important too.” Shu Yan worried that some people would allow just anyone to open up franchise shops in order to boost their quota. “We need to keep a close eye on the price. We cannot allow the franchise shops to set their own prices or have sales on their own. We can even hire some secret shoppers. If we catch any activities like that, we will cancel their franchise license immediately.”
One of the worst things that could happen to franchises were a lack of standard on pricing. There was no internet back then and words didn’t spread as fast. But once words had gone out, it was already too late. They must be pro-active when it came to this.
“Don’t worry, Boss Shu. I have someone keeping a lookout on this from the very beginning. That being said, there was a brand that has popped up in City Yang recently that is very similar to ours. I had someone looked into it and it was a local factory owner in City Yang. They have a very large factory and the underwear that they produce are sold both locally and to overseas. Their background is very strong and had opened up six shops in just a few times. Right across from our franchise shops, even. Our franchise shop was only aware that they were remodeling and had no idea that it is an underwear shop. They were stunned after the remodeling was completed.”
Shu Yan had expected copycats. There had been quite a few of those since they had successfully launched their first batch of franchise shops. Nevertheless, all of them were small-time players. This particular one seemed to be a stronger competitor?
“Ignore them for now. Let’s just focus on doing a good job ourselves for the time being.” Xianxue was not a mom-and-pop shop either. They didn’t need to worry about competitors. They have had nationwide advertisement, especially on CCTV. They had long since been a household brand.
As the very first underwear brand that has advertisement, especially in a bombardment and brain-washing style. It would be very difficult for others to surpass them.
Granted, it didn’t mean they can not worry about it at all. They must continue to improve and make their brand better and also continue to improve on their design in order to keep their number one spot.
Boss Yu nodded. He wasn’t too worried about it either but just wanted to point that out to Shu Yan.
“The other issue has to do with our additional factories. When I attended the meeting at the headquarter last time, it was mentioned that we will be opening up factories in City Yang and the capital. Is that still the plan?” Boss Yu had been keeping that in mind all along but he had never heard another word from the headquarter with regards to this.
“Yes, that is still the plan but we have just purchased two properties in City Yan. After talking to Boss Hu about it, we have decided to open up our main factory first and the branch ones will have to wait.” They were under a lot of duress as far as production went. Problem was most of their capitals were sunk into the construction of the main factory for the time being.
“There are a lot of garment factory in City Yang and many new ones open up every day. Similarly, many go out of business everyday as well. What I am trying to get at is that we can acquire one of these. It will be cheaper than building our own from scratch and it will also come with machineries and skilled laborers. We can pretty much start immediately once a price was agreed upon.” He had been thinking about this for a while now and didn’t think it would cost too much money.
