âJust a few random customers. They wonât make a dent.â Lao Zhang felt a bit embarrassed. He had made a popular style before. Unfortunately, it didnât last too long on the market. He wasnât able to work on any popular styles in the two years that followed and most of his customers that bought from him had turned to other factories.
âYou never know. Resources are resources. Give it a try and contact them anyway.â Shu Yan suddenly realized that Lao Zhangâs factory had no salespersons. âWho used to be in charge of sales?â
âMy wife. She was a worker at a factory store before. She knows how to make clothes herself and also knows a lot of people. Many of our original customers were brought over by her.â There was a sense of pride on Lao Zhang when he was talking about his wife.
He was one who loved his wife a lot. Shu Yanâs lips curved upward a bit. âThen can we have your wife continue to do be the salesperson? We will pay her a salary for that.â
âItâs our own factory. Thereâs no need for a salary,â said Lao Zhang as he waved his hand. âThatâs not a problem. My son is in junior high school and my wife has a lot of free time. She can come back to work.â
âNow that we are working together, we should be fair when it comes to money. Better safe than sorry. Letâs not have any conflicts later on over several hundred dollars.â Shu Yan felt that they need to be clear when it came to that. âWhy donât we do this? We will pay your wife $100 / month base salary. 5% commission on first order, 2% on returning customers. Any shops that she was able to sell to, we will adhere to this pay schedule. What do you say?ân/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Good verse. No wonder she was so successful in business. Lao Zhang felt that working with Shu Yan would be a very pleasant experience.
âIn addition, I will talk to a few wholesalers when I went over to City Han next time. If we can sell our undergarments there, we will be able to make more sales.â
Lao Zhang was a bit hesitant. âIf we sell to wholesales, will they take our designs and make their own?â
âThereâs a good possibility of that. But you know about the garment industry. Any semi-decent design will be copied in a few days. Even if we donât sell them to the wholesalers, itâs a matter of time before they copy our design. So we might as well sell more while we are the only one making them.â Shu Yan had already thought about it long time ago. China was a copycat country. It didnât matter what it was, anything that remotely make any money would be copied. Fall clothes didnât involve a lot of technicality. Anyone would be able to reproduce it from looking at it. Theyâd be all over the place within a week.
Truth was, if they have enough capital, they could register their brand and advertise on TV and newspaper and immediately became a well-known domestic underwear brand. Unfortunately, that would require a lot of manpower and resources.
Welp, couldnât worry too much. First and foremost was to make a huge amount during the market blank phase. Sheâd at least need to recoup some of her money.
That Saturday, Shu Yan planned to go City Han for merchandizing again. Xiuxiu had taken the next day off so Shu Yan would need to rush back in the morning. Then Xiuxiu announced in the afternoon that she wouldnât be taking the day off after all.
âChen Fei is an architect so his time is very flexible. My parents donât have too much work lately either so they are home most of the time. We can switch it to Monday. So take your time coming back,â explained Zhang Huaxiu.
That worked out better for Shu Yan. She had planned to really walk about the wholesale market and also bring some samples with her to promote. Itâd be great if she could secure some channels.
The few women from last night had probably really excluded Shu Yan. They hadnât called her to go merchandizing in a while now. Shu Yan didnât call them either but just called the driver directly.