Crossing the Mountains

Chapter 157 New Tricks Emerge
Since Tan Huaike adjusted his strategy, Wangchenxiangpu's business has reached new heights.

The original seven incense rooms were always full, so she had to expand to the backyard by adding a few more. She also combined her experience from the Basah festival, where she had guests paint Nuo masks by hand, to create a simple workshop where guests could try their hand at blending and making incense. This allowed those who truly understand and love incense to experience more of its charm, and it was well received.

But the most ingenious thing was that, with Su Feng's guidance, she came up with a new way to sell incense.

Because of the vast difference in inventory between common spices and a few rare spices, and the large gap in demand, Tan Huaike changed the rule of simply limiting the quantity of rare spices that could be purchased to a rule of allocating goods for purchase.

In other words, to buy rare spices, one must first purchase a sufficient quantity of common spices. She set a threshold of one hundred taels of silver; only by accumulating one hundred taels of silver in purchases of common spices within a month could one qualify to buy a box of rare spices.

When this rule was first introduced, it sparked much discontent. Other incense shops felt their business threatened, as their regular customers were poached by other shops. Finally, they couldn't sit still any longer and united to accuse Tan Huaike of forcing customers to buy their goods. Customers who clearly wanted to buy specific items were forced to buy so many other incense balls first.

Tan Huaike explained that the ingredients needed for the precious fragrant pills were too rare, and even if her small shop wanted to buy more, it wouldn't have enough stock. If she allowed everyone to buy freely, the result would be that malicious resellers would take advantage of the situation, while her regular customers would be unable to get the goods.

This has happened several times before. Brokers buy expensive spices and then resell them at inflated prices to regular customers who desperately need them, taking advantage of the stock shortage at Wangchen Incense Shop. The regular customers lose money, Tan Huaike's reputation is ruined, and all the profits go to those brokers, which is truly infuriating.

Therefore, raising the bar for purchasing expensive spices is actually protecting the interests of their long-time customers.

Moreover, the price of each box of spices remained unchanged for customers, and ordinary spices were supplied and used as usual. If customers simply wanted to choose sachets that suited their needs, the shop had many other options, all reasonably priced and of guaranteed quality. If customers were only interested in expensive spices, they would certainly prefer to spend their money on genuine spices rather than giving it away to unscrupulous brokers. This would also discourage some of the competitive spending.

Furthermore, Tan Huaike offered even more discounts to his regular customers, allowing them to buy more incense for less money. Whenever new products were released, he would send them to these loyal customers for free to try. With such treatment, why wouldn't the powerful and wealthy, who already enjoyed displaying their status, be happy to accept it?

When Tao Ying arrived at Wangchen Incense Shop, she happened to see a maid from an official family coming to exchange a slip of paper for the right to purchase precious incense. She saw Tan Huaike accept the slip of paper, which emitted a special fragrance, and after verifying it, he took out an exquisitely crafted incense box from the locked cabinet, and the transaction was completed with the maid.

Tan Huai Ke greeted the maid with a smile, then handed her a new scented note to take back to the lady of the house. As he spoke, he produced a small purse from somewhere and teased the maid, "Here, this is for you. It's a new scented powder that will attract romance if you wear it."

The maid was overjoyed and pinned the purse to her lapel.

Tao Ying snorted coldly: "Boss Tan really has good skills, he's good at winning people's hearts."

Upon seeing her arrive, Tan Huaike greeted her with a smile: "What a rare guest! Isn't this the young lady from the family of Grand Herald Tao? What kind of fragrance do you like? I can recommend one to you."

Now that Shen Tu Zhuo is working under that old man, we have to treat him well.

Tao Ying said, "I want your store's most famous one, that... Huan Yi Zhang Zhong Xiang."
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Tan Huaike was taken aback: "Joyful Tent Incense? You use it yourself?"

Tao Ying blushed: "You, you care whether I use it for myself or not? I just want to buy it to use for fun. Just tell me if you're selling it or not."

Tan Huaike said, "Of course I'll sell it, but this incense might not be suitable for you. It might actually prevent you from sleeping. If you want to use it yourself, I think another type of tent incense would be more appropriate..."

"I want the Joyful Tent Incense; let me try it first," Tao Ying said. Tan Huaike then led her to the incense room, lit a stick of Joyful Tent Incense for her, and asked, "How is it?"

Tao Ying sniffed: "I thought it was some kind of magical fragrant pill, but this is all?"

Tan Huaike picked up a long-handled bamboo fan and gently fanned away the smoke: "This incense has the effect of promoting blood circulation and pleasing the mind, and it is not very harmful to the body. However, its sleep-aiding effect is not as good as other incense used in tents. Do you really like it?"

Tao Yingxing's eyes widened, and she said angrily, "That day, when Brother Xiaozhu came to talk to my grandfather, I smelled a very special fragrance. After asking, I found out that it was the Huanyi Tent Incense from your shop. What, you can let him use it, but I can't buy it for him? When he comes to discuss matters with my grandfather again, I will light it in my grandfather's study."

"Pfft, I've never seen anyone use the Joyful Tent Incense like this before. Maybe it will make your grandfather and Brother Xiaozhuo happy when they discuss business." Tan Huaike couldn't help but laugh. "Alright, if you really want to buy it, then you still have to follow the rules of our shop."

"What rules?"

As he spoke, Tan Huaike took out a scented note and explained to her, "Because the fragrance of the Huanyi tent is quite precious and rare, you need to buy a box of other spices worth a hundred taels of silver from our shop."

Tao Ying nodded slightly, took the scented note, examined it, and smelled it: "Hmm, I've heard about your family's rules. I've come here today to see for myself how Boss Tan 'forces a sale'."

Tan Huaike said, "It's really a case of supply falling short of demand. I can't just let those unscrupulous brokers make the money."

Tao Ying stroked the embossed flowers on the scented paper and expressed her confusion: "But those powerful and wealthy people don't need so many ordinary spices. The people of Andu are too concerned about face. If they can use expensive and rare ones, they will never condescend to use cheap ones."

“I know,” Tan Huaike said leisurely. “Even though they don’t need it themselves, they’re still willing to keep buying and distributing it. Can you guess why?”

"Isn't it all just to gather a hundred taels of silver to qualify for purchasing expensive spices?"

“It’s not just that.” Tan Huaike shook his finger and said with a glint in his eyes, “I’m not doing this purely to control the shipment of precious spices and deplete the inventory of ordinary spices, but also to allow ordinary people outside of the powerful and wealthy to access and understand the ordinary spices in my shop.”

"What do you mean?"

Yu Sufeng pointed out to me that the powerful and wealthy disdain using ordinary spices and wouldn't buy them, while commoners consider spices to be expensive and extravagant and wouldn't buy them either...

"Then I'll have the powerful and wealthy act as my promoters, encouraging them to buy those common spices and give them as gifts to relatives and friends, or as rewards to servants, so that these goods will eventually find a suitable place to go. Once these potential customers have seen and used them a lot and know that these spices are not expensive, they will naturally become my new customers. Isn't that killing two birds with one stone?"

"You...you've thought that far ahead?" Tao Ying exclaimed in admiration. "Aren't the other spice shops envious? Aren't you afraid they'll follow suit and steal your business?"

"Well... I have my own way of doing it."
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