Chapter 554: Chapter 58: Freak Camp
Zhuo Feng and Feng Xing decided to temporarily use Mao Dazhu’s mat shop to open the Agricultural Specialty Store, and they hurriedly traveled between Yanqing and the store location, busying themselves with the final decoration.
Luckily, an original agricultural specialty store didn’t need much decoration, just a few shelves with the right products arranged on them were sufficient, then they added the purple bamboo potted plants that Mao Dazhu brought back from Baoshan Temple, which gave the place a simple yet elegant atmosphere.
During the trial business period of the Agricultural Specialty Store, the products sold were quite simple too: three new varieties of sweet potatoes, premium sweet potato flour after processing, and bottled pickled sweet potato leaves.
They didn’t need many staff, just borrowed an old clerk from Mao Dazhu’s mat shop to test the waters in sales for a while.
Last time, Yu Gang promised Xiao Xian that he would have the products tested. Whether it was because Yu Gang had recommended them or the farm’s products were indeed excellent, once they were sent for testing and confirmed to be green and uncontaminated products, they were given an official certificate from the Agricultural Science Academy.
Zhuo Feng hung the certificate on the wall, which really added a bit of impressive flair. The night before the official opening, Zhuo Feng and Xiao Xian were checking the prices of the goods in the store, with Mao Dazhu watching beside them.
"Niece-in-law, your pricing isn’t right," Mao Dazhu had a nephew who passed away early, who was about the same age as Feng Xing. He got along well with Feng Xing, so he treated him like a nephew and thus Zhuo Feng was his niece-in-law.
"Yeah, we calculated the costs for water and labor according to what your mat shop spends," said Zhuo Feng. The water needed in the agricultural product store was a bit more than in the mat shop, but according to the current market prices of corresponding agricultural products, the calculated price was not the most reasonable but was quite close.
"I’ve lived long enough, eaten more rice than you’ve eaten salt, trust me, this is how the pricing should be," Mao Dazhu immediately helped Zhuo Feng change the prices, which shocked Zhuo Feng on the spot.
Sweet potatoes were two yuan per half kilogram outside, but three yuan in the store. Sweet potato flour was eight yuan per half kilogram on the market, but ten yuan in the store. Pickled items like sweet potato leaves went from five yuan per bottle to ten yuan per bottle. With such pricing, who would still buy them?
With such doubts, the Agricultural Specialty Store began its first day of trial operation.
On the opening day, Mrs. Zeng brought a majestic golden fortune cat statue. She originally wanted to buy a pair of flower baskets too, as it was popular to give flower baskets for openings, but Xiao Xian said that the flower baskets would wilt in a few days and get torn apart by passersby, and would need to be dealt with if placed at the front door.
Mao Dazhu sponsored about a hundred bamboo baskets, giving one to each of the first hundred customers visiting the store.
The opening day was quite quiet, and the owner of the water buffalo hide mat shop across the street watched and snickered.
Hearing the sneers, Mao Dazhu didn’t mind, and even proudly said, "Five Gentlemen doesn’t need to open, but once it does, it’ll earn for three years, now taking the high-end route."
When Boss Qiu came to give a red envelope last time, he heard Mao Dazhu was worried about finding materials and assuredly promised that he would provide all the bamboo material needed.
The products could also be diversified, not only for summer mats, pillow mats, placemats, cushions, and even door curtains. As long as he got a set of materials once a week, Mao Dazhu could cover the daily expenses of Five Gentlemen, thinking of this, his heart warmed.
Residents of nearby communities and office workers hadn’t realized that there was a new Agricultural Specialty Store downstairs. The earliest ones who discovered the store were a few old men and old women attracted by the advertisement providing sweet potatoes with basket giveaways.
The old men and women of nearby courtyard communities were people who paid much attention to prices, considering a handmade basket to be worth twenty yuan.
The baskets in the Agricultural Specialty Store, being robustly made, were counted as thirty yuan each. Even though the items in the Agricultural Specialty Store were a few cents more expensive, buying them once or twice would still be a clear profit.
With such thoughts, on the first day, two old women and a senior man took away four baskets and several kilograms of sweet potatoes. The flour, being two yuan more expensive, temporarily attracted no interest.
One of the old women in the courtyard made sweet potato rice that evening. Around five to six o’clock, as usual, the old woman had her husband set up a table in the courtyard, cooked a few dishes, and they began to eat dinner.
Around that time, other residents of the courtyard, whether returning with children from kindergartens or coming back from work, occasionally passed by a few neighbors. One of the little boys, hungry from kindergarten, saw the steaming sweet-smelling sweet potatoes in the old woman’s pot and clamored to eat them.