New Year's Day was originally a very important festival of the year, but because it was too close to the most grand and traditional Spring Festival in China, it was often ignored. For students, the sword of the final exam was still hanging over their heads, so they had even less leisure time. Jiang Zhihan had been desperately flipping through Ni Shang's notes for the past two weeks and felt that he had basically caught up with the progress.
Jiang Zhihan actually did not have a strong desire to get first or second place in the class. After all, for all middle school students, the only thing that was really useful was the final deal at the end of the college entrance examination. The results of the usual exams were basically a summary of the studies at a stage. It might be useful for raising confidence. Other than that, it didn't have much of an impact. Jiang Zhihan assessed himself. It shouldn't be a big problem for him to get into an ordinary key university. However, his current worry was that Ni Shang had to fight for the top universities in the country. If he wanted to be in the same university as her, the difficulty of the exam would be much higher. On second thought, maybe it was a good choice to go to a school not far away from the same city. After all, university was different from middle school. They had more freedom of movement.
He would leave tomorrow's troubles for tomorrow. Jiang Zhihan still had many things to deal with. In the past two days, her mother had talked to Jiang Zhihan about her future plans for the bookstore. Ever since the bookstore started advertising, its business had increased exponentially. When she rented the shop, Li Rongrong was not confident. She wanted to open a small shop and try it out. The shop was small, and the main consideration was that the rent was cheaper. In the past two weeks, the disadvantages of the small shop had been revealed. During the peak of business, the store was packed with people, and it was difficult for customers to move around. Sometimes, some customers could only wait outside the shop. In the long run, they would definitely lose a lot of business.
Before she started the bookstore, Li Rongrong had no idea about the future of the business. Under Jiang Zhihan's encouragement, she finally decided to do this. However, she was playing it safe and thinking of the worst-case scenario. Jiang Zhihan's grandfather, who had passed away last year, had left behind a small inheritance. It had been painstakingly saved up every month for decades. The inheritance was divided into two parts by his grandfather. Two-thirds of it was supposed to be for Jiang Zhihan's university allowance, while the remaining one-third was left for Li Rongrong to use. Li Rongrong did some calculations. This amount of money was just enough for the initial renovation of the shop, the first batch of inventory, and about two years of rent. Since it was a small business, the other expenses were limited. Li Rongrong thought that even in the worst case scenario, the bookstore would not be able to make a profit and eventually close down. She basically did not use her usual living expenses and only lost the property that her father left her. For her dream for many years, it was worth it to gamble this inheritance. She believed that her father would understand her in heaven.
The business situation after opening was completely beyond her expectations, especially in the recent month. The net profit was almost equivalent to her salary in the factory for two to three years. Since all transactions were settled in cash, every evening, Li Rongrong would go to the neighboring bank branch to deposit most of the cash collected that day. Then, from half an hour before closing until she returned home, she would do a simple inventory management and revenue statistics for the day. For the past two weeks, Li Rongrong was the happiest when she was doing the accounts every night. She looked at the numbers that she had earned and often felt that it was unreal. Although this might not seem like a big deal to some people, compared to his past, this kind of income was like heaven and earth.
It was not that Li Rongrong had never looked forward to such a situation, but it came so quickly that she sometimes felt a little breathless. Li Rongrong was moved by the idea and decided to resign and go to work. At that time, other than her son's firm support, her husband and many colleagues and friends advised her not to do so. However, when the window opened and she went to a place she had never set foot in before and had a start of success, Li Rongrong's competitive and ambitious side was completely aroused. She was full of fighting spirit and wanted to achieve greater results.
Business had been booming recently, which contrasted with the bleak business of the grocery store next door. The grocery store was a mom-and-pop shop. Due to the busy business and the need to build a good relationship with her neighbors, Li Rongrong had been buying soy sauce, salt, vinegar, alcohol, and beverages that her family needed over the past few months. Therefore, although the couple in the grocery store were jealous of the bookstore next door, they did not dislike Li Rongrong. They thought that she was a good person. The lady boss of the grocery store would drop by from time to time to chat. She was envious of Li Rongrong's booming business, but she often complained about the lack of customers and the low profit margin of selling groceries. It was difficult to make money. Li Rongrong always said that selling books and cultural goods seemed to be a good business, but the profit margin was very small. Even if she sold a lot of things, she wouldn't make much money. Of course, only ghosts would believe this. But slowly, Li Rongrong had the idea of merging the stores next door to increase the business area. The size of the grocery store was about one and a half times that of the bookstore. There was also a small storage room at the back that could be used as a warehouse. If they bought it over, the business area would probably be increased to about three times the current size.
Li Rongrong was used to listening to Jiang Zhihan's opinions and even relying on his judgment when it came to major business matters and key decisions. Perhaps she did not realize that Jiang Zhihan had gradually become the pillar of support for her family. Li Rongrong knew that the final exams were coming and she didn't want her son to be distracted by her business, so she decided to bring it up after the end of the term.
By a freak combination of factors, this actually helped her out. This week, the couple next door had already revealed their intention to close the shop and start another business after the Spring Festival. If Li Rongrong appeared to be in a hurry, they would ask for a sky-high price. However, Li Rongrong had to listen to her son's opinion first, so she agreed to it calmly, leaving the couple confused. The couple had decided to go somewhere else to change their business luck and had also made early preparations. They were eager to sell the shop and met a few interesting buyers introduced by their acquaintances, but the price was much lower than they had expected. The couple slowly became anxious and kept urging Li Rongrong to say that business was so good that it was a great opportunity to expand the business area.
Li Rongrong had been doing business for some time, so she was more experienced in bargaining. She wanted to give them a cold shoulder again to gain more leverage for herself, but she was also a little worried that they would give the shop to others too early.
A few days ago, when she was chatting with Jiang Zhihan on the road, Jiang Zhihan mentioned the upcoming New Year's Day and Spring Festival. Jiang Zhihan said that in the United States, from the month of the holiday to Christmas, the turnover was about 30% of a year. That meant that one month was equivalent to four to five months of normal revenue. Retailers called the first Friday after Thanksgivings Black Friday because profits were written in black and losses were written in red on traditional booklets. The arrival of the holiday was the golden season of the year for many retail businesses to turn from losses to profits. Jiang Zhihan said that although there were no detailed statistics in China, he guessed that the retail sales in the month before and after the Spring Festival would account for at least 20% or even 30% of a year, so this month was also crucial.
Li Rongrong listened to his words and took it to heart. She thought that if she mentioned this to Jiang Zhihan after the final exams, it would be too late and she would miss the golden sales season this year. Li Rongrong decided to ask Jiang Zhihan for his opinion on the expansion. She had made up her mind to only ask Jiang Zhihan to give some general suggestions and not let him interfere with the affairs of the small department. This way, it would not affect his studies too much.
When Li Rongrong officially mentioned this matter, Jiang Zhihan was still a little surprised. From the moment the bookstore opened, Jiang Zhihan had always been in control of the direction of the bookstore's business. From the location selection, to the customer positioning, from the overall planning of the bookstore's renovation, to advertising marketing, to how to establish the most basic customer feedback system, and to track the changes in inventory every week to adjust the direction of purchase, he was the person behind the scenes who made the big decisions. However, Jiang Zhihan did not participate in the specific business operations, including purchasing, sales, and accounting. In the past month, he only knew that business was getting better, but Jiang Zhihan did not ask about the specific income and profits.
At the end of the day, in Jiang Zhihan's subconscious mind, the bookstore business could bring him a good income, but he didn't even think about what amazing development it would have. A few months after the opening, his mother had already thought of expanding for the first time. This was beyond Jiang Zhihan's expectations. He asked about the current business situation in detail. The high profits surprised Jiang Zhihan a little.
Jiang Zhihan told his mother that he needed a day or two to think about it. In the next two days, Jiang Zhihan reflected on his thoughts. Although he strongly encouraged his mother to open this bookstore and gave many useful suggestions in key areas, he never seemed to think about how big a small bookstore could be. Looking back, whether it was a retail giant like Wormat or a furniture chain overlord like Yifan, which one didn't start from a store? Of course, their founders had outstanding qualities. They had revolutionary innovation in service concepts, cost control, and supply chain management, creating miracles that were one in a million. However, that was not the main point. Jiang Zhihan reflected on his mistake of thinking that a small bookstore would always be a small bookstore. In the bookstore industry, China had its own characteristics. Xinhua Bookstore was a behemoth that had long established distribution outlets and supply channels all over the country. With the support of the country and an unshakable resource advantage, no private bookstore could compete with it in a short period of time. Even so, the current market still left a lot of space for private bookstores. From the perspective of possibilities, it was definitely a mistake to limit one's thinking to a small, mom-and-pop shop.
Jiang Zhihan thought about it seriously. Some of his ideas and visions were still very vague, some had not appeared in the country at all, some he did not know when he would be qualified to set foot in, and some were just empty talk. Perhaps most of the ideas were much more magnificent than a bookstore, but this bookstore was the only real thing in his hands that could put many business and marketing concepts into practice. As for this precious experimental entity, he had never paid enough attention to it.
Happy National Day, everyone. Add another chapter to express my gratitude to the H2T-2:))
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