Chapter 13: The First Time Being a Boss

Speaking honestly, Chen Pingsheng himself was also a boss for the first time.

To say he was nervous would definitely be true, but more than that, he was full of anticipation.

This large supermarket had nearly one to two hundred customers flowing in every day before it even opened.

One month after opening, that number dropped to a hundred.

Two months after opening, it successfully dropped to fifty.

By now, those who visit are either those who don't want to go far or those who don't know about this store.

He had basically managed to entirely ruin his reputation within this community.

Although the fruit store was also a traditional retail industry, the biggest difference from ordinary supermarkets was that fruits couldn't be preserved for too long.

If the fresh goods brought in weren't sold within three days, they would become not fresh.

These kinds of fruits not only couldn't be sold at a good price, but they also greatly affected the customer experience.

After all, for such a large store, if word got out that the fruits sold were not fresh, who would want to come?

This brought great operational difficulties to the fruit shop.

It could be said that the biggest operational costs of the fruit store, aside from the store rents, mainly stemmed from the loss of fruits.

Those were the fruits that had to be discarded when their time was up without being sold.

"Old Chen, I've looked around, and if we want to replenish this store with fruits, we need at least fifty thousand yuan,"

Fruits are like merchandise piled into mountains; the fuller the display, the more it ignites the desire to buy.

This simple truth was understood by all of them.

The critical thing was that it was easy to bring in fifty thousand yuan's worth of fruits, but hard to sell them.

Given the current customer flow, one could only sell seven or eight thousand a day at most.

If the turnover was like that, the losses would be extraordinarily high.

So the key was to first solve the traffic problem.

The store covered nearly four hundred square meters, besides a very large cold storage, there was also a sizable office.

Being a boss for the first time, Chen Pingsheng sat on the sofa inside and called everyone together to discuss strategies.

"We must stock up fully; otherwise, even if people come in, it would be tough to retain them,"

Chen Pingsheng tapped his pen and said, "Look, how about this plan, for the next half month we first plan to take out a hundred thousand to cover losses to drive traffic, as for the traffic-generating project, we could set up a promotion outside, three apples for one yuan, free choice."

Apples could be considered the number one fruit category.

Every household would buy them, and using them to drive traffic was undoubtedly the best choice.

"That's no problem. We can get the stock from the wholesale market, smaller apples cost just over two yuan per kilogram."

The purchase price was roughly good, coming down to a loss of just one or two yuan per person.

Totally acceptable.

"Zhang Tao, you and Liu Jing will specifically handle procurement for this half month, also, we all know some people around this area, let's get them to help promote it in the homeowners' groups,"

Chen Pingsheng said, "We won't just use apples for our special sale, other fruits will also be sold at cost price, we first need to build up the customer flow,"

Everyone assigned their tasks, they got on with it immediately.

Zhang Tao and Liu Jing were responsible for procurement, Song Yanxi learned to operate the cash register, as she would be in charge of finances moving forward.

As for the others, they were initially responsible for clearing and displaying the goods, which was not difficult.

Mainly because they were all familiar with it, so they worked quickly and efficiently.

By the afternoon, the first truckload of goods was pulled back from the fruit wholesale market.

Song Yanxi, watching her man busily moving things, even took a little time to snap a few photos.

The first photo was of him on the truck, bending over continually moving goods.

The second photo was of him directing the arrangement of goods in the store.

The third photo was of him at the cashier learning the cash register system.

As for the final photo, it was of the two of them in front of the store making the peace sign with their hands.

They took a couple's photo together, and Song Yanxi even added a caption.

"2013, a new beginning, Tengsheng Fruits."

Just as she had posted the photos, Du Juan was the first to respond to her.

"What's the situation, Chen is opening a supermarket?"

"Yes," Song Yanxi replied with a smile.

Du Juan immediately commented below, "You didn't even tell me about such an event, I am going to stop talking to you."

She said that, but she still immediately ran over.

Then, those who responded to her messages were some classmates. She only had a high school education, mainly because Old Chen had wooed her and married her right after she graduated from high school.

Many of her classmates are now studying for their master's degrees in Capital City.

There wasn't much competition among the classmates; most just exchanged greetings and wished her business prosperity.

The most outrageous had to be Mrs. Song, Liu Fen.

She was at a relative's house, and whenever the roomful of relatives gathered, it was all about comparing one another.

Like how someone's daughter got a manager at a multinational company.

Or someone's daughter married a civil servant or something.

Every time she heard these things, Liu Fen wished she could bury her head in the ground. Her oldest daughter had married the most hopeless guy from another place, a street vendor at that.

There was no hope for her in this lifetime.

However, her younger daughter, Song Wu, had managed to get into an arts school and might become a big star in the future.

That indeed made her quite proud.

"I'm saying, Liu Fen, why didn't Yanxi come?"

Visiting relatives during the New Year was only fun when you were a kid.

As an adult, if you were successful, it was fine; if not, the snide remarks from relatives felt like snow in June.

They hurt so much you couldn't stand it.

"She had something and couldn't make it."

"What could she be up to, just helping Little Chen sell durians, right? Speaking of which, since you sell durians, why didn't you bring a couple with you?"

The speaker was Liu Fen's cousin, perhaps unintentionally, but the words sounded terribly offensive to Liu Fen.

It was like sitting on pins and needles.

She didn't even eat but found an excuse to go home.

Her younger daughter, Song Wu, was already a senior, and she would be graduating in half a year.

She was currently busy networking with classmates to meet various assistant directors and producers.

She was pretty, but the entertainment industry was never short of beautiful girls.

There were so many opportunities, but why they should fall to her was a whole science.

Some of her female classmates, Song Wu knew, had met somewhat famous directors.

And they could always find a way in.

They could still get some opportunities.

For instance, one girl in her class, whom everyone secretly bad-mouthed.

Yet in class, they couldn't help but fawn over her, simply because she really did get some good resources later on.

She started off much higher than the rest of them.

Liu Fen, filled with indignation from the visit, was not in a good mood around Song Wu either.

"Mom, look, Auntie was talking about Chen Ping—you shouldn't be taking it out on me!"

"Hmph, the older one's useless, and the younger one's no less worrisome."

Liu Fen sat down huffily. This was only because Mr. Song wasn't around; otherwise, she would have definitely taken it out on him.

Speaking of the Devil, and he shall appear.

Song Huamin came home with some gifts in his hands.

Liu Fen was about to speak when he interrupted her, "Since you're all here, that's great. Pingsheng has opened a big fruit supermarket, and it's opening tomorrow. Let's all go there and check it out."

"He opened a fruit supermarket?" Liu Fen was stunned, "How come I didn't know about it?"

"With that attitude of yours, what can you know?"

Song Huamin had called them over also brought a couple of bottles of wine.

"I just spoke with Yanxi over the phone. Their supermarket is very big, I wouldn't even know about it if it weren't for the pictures she posted on social media."

Again, she found out through social media. As a mother, she couldn't help but feel she had failed.

Her daughter was undertaking such a big venture and she knew nothing about it, not even discussing the supermarket plan with them beforehand.

It was utterly unilateral; she needed to go there and give some guidance.

Song Wu reacted quickly, immediately opened her older sister's social media profile, and then exclaimed:

"Is this sister's project? This couldn't have been opened without spending tens or hundreds of thousands."

Song Wu was somewhat knowledgeable, hearing about the tens or hundreds of thousands, Liu Fen's ears perked up.