amaotonovel Chapter 1292 Path Dependency
Chapter 1292 Path Dependency
Chapter 1292 Path Dependency
As night fell, the long-distance bus bumped into Guangzhou Bus Station. Yang Xun had been clutching his bulging travel bag tightly the whole way, which contained the hundred electronic watches he had just "imported" from Shantou. At this moment, he felt no fatigue from the journey. His face was flushed with excitement, and his mouth stretched to his ears, revealing a set of white teeth. He looked like a child who had just received lucky money for the New Year.
"Brother Hao! We're rich!" Yang Xun lowered his voice, but couldn't hide the excitement in his tone. "If we sell these hundred digital watches for ten yuan each, that's a thousand yuan! After deducting costs, we'll make a net profit of eight hundred!"
Looking at Yang Xun's naive and clueless expression, Qin Hao couldn't help but shake his head: "Little Yang Xun, look at you! You've been carrying me all the way, aren't your arms sore? Hurry up and find a place to rest, stop grinning like an idiot."
After finding a slightly better guesthouse to stay in, Yang Xun carefully placed his bag under his pillow. Still not entirely at ease, he covered half of it with another pillow before finally lying down, satisfied.
But after closing his eyes for less than three minutes, he suddenly opened them again, jumped up, and couldn't help but unzip his travel bag, take out two digital watches, and, under the streetlight shining in from the window, repeatedly rubbed the cool plastic casing and the small LCD screen, watching the numbers jump, and an uncontrollable silly smile appeared on his face.
"Brother Hao... do you think we can really sell this for ten yuan a piece?" In the darkness, Yang Xun's voice trembled, filled with both nervousness and immense anticipation.
"Let's see what you can do." Qin Hao closed his eyes and said calmly, "If it sells well, people will want it even for fifteen yuan."
"Fifteen...that means one hundred yuan is one thousand five?!" Yang Xun's voice suddenly rose, then he quickly lowered it again, afraid that others would hear: "My God...wouldn't I be rich then?"
He started counting on his fingers how much money his 100 yuan investment would turn into. The more he calculated, the more excited he became. He tossed and turned in bed like a maggot, wide awake.
Once the initial excitement was slightly overshadowed by physical exhaustion, Yang Xun's eyelids began to droop.
Half-asleep, he mumbled with longing, "Brother Hao...we can go back tomorrow, right? These precious gems should be enough for us to sell for a while..."
He was already planning in his mind how much he should buy for his family when he got back from the state-run store: some new clothes, snacks for his younger siblings...
However, Qin Hao replied indifferently, "Why should I go back?"
"Huh?" Yang Xun suddenly opened his eyes, almost thinking he had misheard: "Not going back? Why, Brother Hao?"
Having so many digital watches is a huge fortune. Why not take them back and turn them into money instead of wandering around in Guangzhou, a place I don't know at all?
Qin Hao rolled over, and his voice came through clearly: "Let me do the math for you. Even if you sell each of these hundred digital watches for ten yuan and make eight yuan profit, if you sell them all for a hundred yuan and deduct the cost, you'll only make eight hundred yuan."
"Eight hundred yuan! Brother Hao, that's a lot! Enough for an ordinary worker to work for two years!" Yang Xun felt that Qin Hao's demands were too high.
"Yes, it might be a lot for you." Qin Hao sat up and leaned against the headboard. "But have you considered the time factor? You said before that you would take them back to the county to sell. How long would it take to sell them? A month?"
Yang Xun nodded subconsciously: "Yeah, a month is pretty fast."
“Okay, let’s say it’s a month. Then tell me.” Qin Hao’s voice carried a guiding tone, “Starting from today when we sell the electronic watch in Guangzhou and get this 800 yuan profit, until a month later when you sell this 100 watches in the county and get another 800 yuan profit, what are you doing during this month? Are you just going from street to street in the county, selling watches little by little?”
Yang Xun was stunned; he had never thought of it from this perspective before: "Right, if we don't sell them ourselves, how else can we sell them?"
Qin Hao then asked, "What if we don't go back to sell them, but instead resell these goods to wholesalers here in Guangzhou tomorrow? Our trip to Shantou, including the round trip and the time to purchase the goods, will only take one day, right? We can earn the money back in just one day."
Yang Xun's mind was a little confused. He vaguely understood Qin Hao's meaning, but something felt off: "But... Brother Hao, the price will definitely be lower if we sell wholesale! How can we earn as much as if we sell it retail?"
“That’s right, the wholesale price is definitely lower.” Qin Hao affirmed his statement: “If we wholesale these electronic watches to the vendors here, we’ll only make two to three yuan profit per watch at most. Let’s calculate it at two and a half yuan, and sell them for four yuan each. If we sell them for one hundred yuan, the profit will be around two hundred yuan.”
Yang Xun's voice changed, his heart aching as he sobbed, "Only two hundred? Brother Hao! What's the point of us traveling so far and going through all this trouble? We're exhausted!"
"You're all about speed and efficiency! Xiao Yang, you've only calculated the cost of the goods you receive and the final profit, but you've ignored the cost of time! For a businessman, time is the most precious, valuable, and indispensable cost! It's even more important than money!"
Qin Hao sat up and spoke slowly and deliberately in the darkness.
"Think about it, in the same day, we can source the goods in Shantou, wholesale them in Guangzhou, and make a net profit of 250 yuan. Then, for the remaining 29 days, can't we repeat the same thing? Go to Shantou to source the goods again? Can't we make another net profit of 250 yuan a day? In theory, we can make 30 trips a month and earn 30 times that amount of 250 yuan! That's 7,500 yuan!"
"If you choose to take those 100 digital watches back to the county, a month later you'll only have earned 800 yuan!"
"Look at the numbers, which is more? You wasted a whole month's worth of prime time—enough to do the same business thirty times—just to earn a few hundred dollars more. Isn't that picking up a sesame seed and losing a watermelon?"
boom!
Qin Hao's words exploded in Yang Xun's mind like a thunderbolt!
After a long pause, Yang Xun slapped his forehead and started rummaging through his bag. Qin Hao was completely bewildered: "Little Yang Xun, what's wrong with you?"
Yang Xun pulled a small notebook out of his bag: "Brother Hao, what you said makes so much sense. I need to write this down. A bad pen is worse than a good memory, so I don't forget it later."
Qin Hao laughed and scolded, "Stop flattering me."
Yang Xun said seriously, "Brother Hao, I'm not trying to flatter you. Just based on what you said, if I were to figure it out on my own, it would take me at least ten years of trial and error to get the hang of it."
Seeing his serious expression, Qin Hao chuckled and scolded, "Stop flattering me! Just memorizing isn't enough; the key is to use your brain to understand and integrate the knowledge. Turn off the lights and go to sleep! Get some rest; we have important business to attend to tomorrow!"
"Okay! I'm going to sleep now!" Yang Xun carefully closed the notebook, stuffing it back into the inner pocket as if it were a precious treasure. This time, he didn't even use his travel bag as a pillow, but instead put it under his pillow to weigh down the notebook before lying down contentedly.
Although he was still excited, he had a clear direction in his mind. His tense nerves relaxed, and a huge sense of fatigue overwhelmed him instantly. Within seconds, he was snoring evenly and softly.
……
As dawn broke, a commotion arose in the guesthouse corridor—early risers were getting ready for their journeys and washing up.
Despite having dark circles under his eyes, Yang Xun was unusually excited. He asked expectantly, "Brother Hao, where are we going to buy all these digital watches wholesale?"
Qin Hao, who was washing up, teased, "What, not going back?"
Yang Xun chuckled sheepishly and scratched his head: "Brother Hao, don't make fun of me."
Qin Hao patted him on the shoulder: "What's the rush? Wash up and eat breakfast. There's a method to doing business; how can you negotiate prices on an empty stomach?"
The guesthouse's public washroom area was very basic, with several rows of taps and a long queue. Yang Xun was getting impatient. When it was finally his turn, he hastily splashed cold water on his face, brushed his teeth, and did so as quickly as if he were completing an urgent mission.
There was a small market near the guesthouse, and the two of them ordered two bowls of wonton noodles.
Yang Xun wolfed down his food, his eyes constantly glancing towards the nearby market. Before Qin Hao had even finished eating, he eagerly grabbed a few digital watches and ran off to sell them.
Qin Hao shook his head and let him be. Less than ten minutes later, Yang Xun returned dejectedly, having not sold a single watch.
"Brother Hao, those bosses didn't even look at me before kicking me out," Yang Xun said, sounding aggrieved. "One of them even said my watch was a scam."
Qin Hao put down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth: "Little Yang Xun, do you know what your biggest problem is?"
Yang Xun immediately straightened his posture and asked eagerly, "What's the problem?"
"They've adopted too humble a stance!"
Yang Xun scratched his head: "But isn't that how doing business is?"
Qin Hao said seriously, "Little Yang Xun, do you think that if you were a little sweeter with your words when you traded steamed buns for eggs in the Shanbei Brigade, people would give you a few more steamed buns?"
Yang Xun nodded without any hesitation.
Qin Hao tapped the table with his finger: "This is the bad habit you've developed due to path dependence. You need to understand, in Shanbei Brigade, it's a close-knit community where you can smile and lower your stance, and people will buy from you. But in Guangzhou, you're a newcomer, and you're not selling cheap steamed buns, but multi-dollar electronic watches. Do you think those bosses will buy from you just because you smile and say a few nice words?"
Yang Xun froze on the spot, then started rummaging through his bag again, pulling out his notebook: "Brother Hao, what was that word you just said called again?"
"Path dependency."
“Yes, path dependence.” Yang Xun carefully wrote it down: “Following Brother Hao, I learn something new every day.”
After finishing his notes, Yang Xun asked, "Brother Hao, how can we get those bosses to buy goods from us?"
Qin Hao waved, signaling Yang Xun to follow him. They then went to the market and bought a pair of sunglasses and a leather bag.
Upon seeing this, Yang Xun immediately gave a thumbs up: "Brother Hao, your whole aura has changed after dressing up like this!"
Qin Hao laughed and scolded, "Stop flattering me. Didn't you want to know how to get those bosses to buy the goods? Keep an eye on things."
As he spoke, Qin Hao led Yang Xun to a stall he had just visited and greeted the owner in Cantonese: "Boss, business is pretty good."
The boss sized Qin Hao up and down a few times, then laughed and said, "It's nothing, you can't compare to a boss from Hong Kong like you."
Qin Hao took off his sunglasses and smiled: "Business isn't about size, it's about making money. Your stall seems to be doing pretty well; you must be making quite a bit each day, right?"
The shop owner shook his head with a wry smile: "It's a small business, I don't make much, just hard-earned money."
Qin Hao seized the opportunity: "In that case, I do have a business opportunity; see if you can do it."
He then took out a sample of a digital watch from his bag: "I have a factory in Hong Kong that specializes in electronic products. This digital watch is very popular in Hong Kong, but I don't see many people selling it in mainland China. It's a huge market."
The shop owner examined the sample, then frowned slightly: "But mechanical watches are fashionable in mainland China, I'm worried."
"Mechanical watches are too expensive, and you need all that kind of receipt. Think about it, the average worker here only makes thirty-odd yuan a month, while a mechanical watch costs over a hundred. My digital watch only costs ten, and the functions are the same. It's sure to sell well."
The shop owner thought for a moment: "That makes some sense. But how much did you pay for this electronic watch? What if it breaks?"
Qin Hao waved his hand dismissively: "Don't worry, my products are of the highest quality. If they're damaged, you can return or exchange them within three months. As for the cost price, I think we're quite destined to meet, so I'll give it to you for six yuan."
The shopkeeper immediately shook his head: "Six yuan is too expensive. I can't even sell it for that price."
Qin Hao frowned, as if making a huge decision: "How about this, you give me a hundred yuan upfront, and I'll give you five yuan back. Don't sell my goods too cheaply, otherwise I won't be able to supply other companies."
The shopkeeper shook his head again: "Four yuan, four yuan at most. If it's okay, I'll take one hundred yuan."
Ten minutes later, under Yang Xun's admiring gaze, Qin Hao left the stall with a stack of 100-yuan bills.
"Brother Hao, you're amazing!" Yang Xun exclaimed excitedly, almost incoherently. "I just spent ages trying to please this boss, and he didn't even give me a second glance."
Qin Hao laughed and scolded, "Don't give me that. Let's go, next place."
Next, Qin Hao took Yang Xun to several markets, and finally sold all the electronic watches. Yang Xun watched Qin Hao's smooth and skillful sales techniques and was filled with admiration.
He then realized that doing business is not about groveling and begging, but about making the other party feel that they can make money by cooperating with you.
For the next month, Qin Hao and Yang Xun shuttled back and forth. Yang Xun was responsible for sourcing goods in Shantou, while Qin Hao was responsible for sales in Guangzhou. Yang Xun learned quickly and gradually became capable of handling things independently. He was no longer as timid as he had been at the beginning, but instead, like Qin Hao, he stood up straight and negotiated business with the bosses.
In just one month, the number of stalls selling electronic watches has increased from a few scattered ones to more than one-fifth of the stalls.
Once a certain scale was achieved, sales of electronic watches also continued to increase. After all, mechanical watches were simply too expensive, and tickets were hard to come by, so electronic watches became a good alternative.
Qin Hao's initial investment grew from two thousand yuan to fifty thousand yuan. Yang Xun's initial investment also grew from two hundred yuan to five thousand yuan.
That evening, Yang Xun was excitedly preparing to go to Shantou to buy goods again the next day, but Qin Hao stopped him.
"Now that we have enough capital, there's no need to continue making electronic watches; these things generate too much money too slowly."
Yang Xun's eyes widened: "This is slow?"