Chapter 519

Chapter 519: The Greatest Warmth For the Poor.

Whether it was Fast East Coming or Costco from his past life, their success largely came from the humanity they showed.

In fact, no matter from which country or era, doing business was about people.

This was especially true in the service industry.

Having good service would make them successful in the service industry.

Fat East Coming was like that.

Then people would ask, how would Costco compare to Fat East Coming in terms of humanity?

Costco had also quite some feats.

A very simple condition as an example, their membership card could be withdrawn at the last day of the year and the company would do so unconditionally and refund it.

Even if they had withdrawn and applied for the membership card on the spot, they wouldn’t be refused.

Another very famous tactic was their hot dog.

Costco’s classiest tactic was each of their stores had a big hot dog in addition to an infinitely refillable drink for 1.5 dollar.

From the 1980s to 2020, they hadn’t increased the price and had maintained this price for more than 30 years.

There was inflation even in the US in the past decades it should have risen to around 3.5 dollars.

But Costco maintained the price.

The company even advertised it and invited everyone to come try it.

Although a hotdog and a drink wasn’t enough to fill the stomach for a big eater, it was plenty enough for ordinary people.

For 1.5 dollars, people could only buy an ultra-small burger in MacDonald’s or a pack of gum at a gas station in the United States.

But they could buy a meal with that in Costco.

This touched the Americans’ hearts and made them feel that the company’s humanity.

Except for the small proportion of homeless people, most people that came to buy the hot dog would also come to buy their other necessities.

This was the power of the hotdog combo.

As for the supermarket, the 4.99 for the roasted chicken was also a favorite of the poor.

A big roasted chicken was enough for five people to eat and it was definitely more nutritious and better preserved than the hotdog.

So five out of the ten people who came would buy one chicken before checking out.

This type of chicken would at least be priced at 12 or 15 dollars elsewhere and it was only that cheap in Costco.

At the same time, it was mostly impossible for the people to just buy the chicken before checking and as long as they bought a few more items along the way, the supermarket would turn the loss into profit.

This was where Costco got their good reputation for their humanity.

The reason so much had been said was that there was no such strategy with Fat East Coming.

So when Chen Huan made plans for Yongxing Supermarkets, he pointed out this point specifically and asked them to sell the two things like this.

Zhang Duocai was very trusting of Chen Huan and Chen Huan also explained the strategy behind it so he thought it was very great the more he thought about it. It could be their signature gimmick.

However, Chen Huan had no say for the pricing and that was left to Zhang Duocai to decide.

Zhang Duocai tasked two teams to research this and finally decided on a hotdog that was a bit bigger than an adult’s palm and a medium drink that would be priced at 2 Yuan.

However, there wasn’t the service of refillable drinks because this would lead to a bad end according to the situation on the field.

Even if it was a large purchase and they were ready to sell two or three thousands hotdogs per day, it would still not be profitable.

The cost of raw material exceeded 2 yuan and there was also the labor cost etc…the money Zhang Duocai took out from these stores were also taxed so it couldn’t be used willy-nilly.

They would basically lose the more they sell.

But as the storefront product, the losses were acceptable.

The other team set the 1.5kg roasted chicken at 29.99.

It was 10 yuan half a kilo.

However the price of a freshly processed chicken in Yongxing Supermarket was 12 yuan for half kg.

It would shrink when cooked and there was also production cost, labor cost etc.. so the actual cost would never be less than 20 yuan per half kg.

So selling 1.5kg roasted chicken for 29.99 was the peak of generosity.

But Yongxing Supermarket didn’t lose much from this as they would order a large batch from the farms and with the large order, the price was much lower than 12 yuan per half kg.

Even if every expense was added, the price was around 35 yuan.

“A loss of 5 yuan and if ten thousands were sold per day, it would be a loss of 50k yuan.”

That was said by a senior executive.

Then his words really came true.

Since the opening after the Chinese New Year, almost every group of customers that came to Yongxing Supermarkets would go to buy a roasted chicken.

The taste had been adjusted and much better tasting than that of Costco from his past life, which was very suitable to the Lin’an people taste buds.

So the roasted chicken became a prized item and greedier people would buy a few more to put it in the freezer back home and cook it when they wanted to eat.

This chapter is scrapped from readlightnovel.org

Even if there were five ovens and 12 people in each shift making, they couldn’t keep up with the purchasing demands.

People would often yell, saying that a single person bought too much, which made them wait an extra ten minutes.

The employees from Yongxing Supermarkets could only rush over and apologize with small gifts as apologies.

They could only appease their grievance that way.

Of course, their anger wasn’t toward Yongxing Supermarkets.

People weren’t stupid and they knew that the products in Yongxing Supermarkets were as cheap as possible and their customers’ service was good so very few people were really angry.

They would sell on average 15k chickens at the end of the day and in the few days after the Chinese New Year, it went up to 30k on average.

Roasted chicken was the most sold item.

The most was the 2 yuan hotdog at the entrance.

Because they didn’t have to go into the supermarket to buy the roasted chicken and could just buy the hotdog for the meal, so many people including office workers would come to buy the hotdog.

The five Yongxing Supermarkets were all located in the downtown area, near main streets and surrounded by residential areas, office areas and shopping malls.

So there were always a lot of people there and there was always a 20 meters queue from the opening to the closing of the supermarkets.

Even though there were five windows to serve customers and the bills were paid via Habao Pay and Wechat or they could get a ticket on the vending machine to reduce the time paying, it still wasn’t enough to serve the crowd.

They sold at least 35k hotdogs per day.

Their largest sales were on the first day and also the Chinese New Year, which was 71k sold!

Only god knew why there were so many people who came to buy cold drinks when the weather was so cold.

But because of those two products, Yongxing Supermarkets had a very good image among the young people.

For the roasted chicken, a young man bought it and had no problem eating it for two days.

It was even simpler for the hotdog.

Except that it couldn’t be bought for breakfast, they could buy it for lunch and dinner so they could go back to their office or home.

4 yuan was enough for two meals, could you believe it?

Even if they had a bigger appetite, they could buy two of it, which was only 4 yuan for a meal.

In this time and days, where could they find a full meal and drink for only 4 yuan?

So people could afford a meal no matter how low their salary was.

So this hotdog combo gained a nickname on the internet.

‘The Greatest Warmth for the Poor’.

These were the comments from the internet.

“I feel deeply moved by Yongxing Supermarkets’ kindness in this era where profit is paramount and it our luck to still have noble businessmen like them! I only hope that this hotdog combo can still exist forever or at least a while more. After all, there are many people that are reliant on it to fill their stomach.”

“Everyone says what can you buy with 2 Yuan now? You can’t buy a soda in a supermarket since a bottle of mineral water is that price but at our Yongxing Supermarkets in Lin’an, you can buy breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s our hotdog combo.”

“I’m the kind of girl that feels very full after a meal like that and there’s no need to add anything else. If I had to do errands outside of the company, I can buy the combo and eat it when I’m hungry, it is also very resistant toward hunger! The only thing that I think it’s a shame, it’s you usually need to wait in the queue for ten minutes before you can buy it.”

“Do you know why it is called ‘The Greatest Warmth For The Poor’? Because the food can get you satisfaction for just 2 Yuan. The weakness of high calories and a lot of starch is nothing in front of starvation! It’s a great act of kindness to fill one’s stomach when one has the least money!”

“We have not only seen sanitation workers, scavengers and homeless people going to buy the hotdog combo but also seen the shop’s employees would bag them some bread and ham sausage and gently tell them those were items that couldn’t be sold anymore so asked them to take it. This makes me want to cry~~~”

“Right! I’ve seen it too! Their attitude is so good and I feel warm just looking at their smiles! No matter how bad I am, it will be cured instantly! They not only give the poor the greatest warmth but also give warmth to us who work a lot~~~”