1994: Vegetable farmers strike back

Chapter 276 A good start
After seeing off another customer, Chen Jiazhi stood by the stall, feeling the gazes of his fellow vendors on both sides.

Everyone was curious about what vegetables he was selling today.

Just a few days ago there was hardly any business, only a few thousand kilograms of snow peas, but today several truckloads of goods have arrived, and it seems to be selling very well. It can't all be snow peas, can it?!
Where did all these goods come from?
If it were all snow peas, then its popularity would be understandable.

At the beginning of the year, snow peas were a type that sold out quickly.

Soon, people came over to investigate, or perhaps to look at the delivery vehicles coming and going.

No one said a word.

There are still plenty of snow peas available, and the price hasn't changed; they're selling very well.

But, green peppers are 800 yuan per ton?
Merchants who didn't have green peppers fell into deep thought.

Merchants who sold green peppers were completely dumbfounded.
"Liangping, are the wholesale prices for green peppers very cheap lately?"

Liang Ping was already itching to curse!

"Cheap my foot! I have no idea how they listed these prices!"

"Green peppers haven't been so easy to buy lately."

"Is this guy an idiot?!"

No one will reveal the source of their goods, nor will they usually disclose the purchase price.

However, judging from Liangping's performance, many merchants could guess that a price of 800 yuan/ton was very, very low.

You might not lose money, but you definitely won't make any.

However, the prices are clearly displayed, and those who come to buy goods cannot fake them.

This new tailgating unit is quite interesting!

Li Cai and Xue Jun arrived at the market a little after eight o'clock, Chen Jiazhi arrived at nine o'clock, and Xue Jun brought over some vegetables from the Dongxiang vegetable market around eleven o'clock.
As midnight approached, the number of people at stall number 63 fluctuated, but it was never idle.

The stock in the stalls is also decreasing rapidly.

He Qiang and his team finally unloaded the goods. Except for the first truck which wasn't theirs, they unloaded three truckloads of goods, totaling nearly 16 tons.

When I came to settle the moving fee, it was past 12 o'clock, and the stall was unusually quiet for a moment.

"Scholar Chen... Mr. Chen, your vegetables are selling really fast! Almost half of them are gone, right?"

After turning two corners, He Qiang finally called out "Boss Chen," as it wouldn't be appropriate to call him "Scholar" again while waiting for the bill.

Chen Jiazhi laughed and said, "Sales are not bad. You've all worked hard. Have a smoke, have a smoke~"

After carrying goods for three hours straight, these people were all exhausted, their faces and arms covered in sweat and dirt.

After the women stopped, they found a corner to sit and catch their breath and drink water, looking exhausted.

"This is the hard-earned money I make." He Qiang took the cigarette.

Chen Jiazhi readily paid the group, giving them 320 yuan for 16 tons of goods.

"Your income is not bad. Eight people share it, that's 40 yuan each. Your monthly income must be over a thousand, right?"

He Qiang said, "There aren't that many. You have to take a cut from the customers to move goods in the market. It's barely enough to make a living."

Actually, he was quite proud before today. After all, although they worked hard, they were able to find a job in the market and earn more than most migrant workers.

However, there's really no time to be smug now.

"By the way, is there any work to do tomorrow?"

"Yes." Chen Jiazhi pondered for a moment and said, "I might come a little earlier tomorrow, around seven o'clock."

He Qiang said, "Then I'll come earlier and wait."

Chen Jiazhi asked curiously, "After paying their commission, is no one going to take charge?"

He Qiang said, "The commission is paid to the market. Before, there were few porters coming to the market, so we didn't have to worry about work. But recently, things have started to get hectic. We've already had a fight with someone."

“I’ve been getting a lot of vegetables lately, about 20 tons in four truckloads a day. You can stay here with me for a long time.”

Since no one is in charge, Chen Jiazhi will definitely be inclined to give the work to He Qiang and others.

He wasn't aware of He Qiang's later development, but based on his interactions with him at the Dongxiang vegetable market, he seemed like a decent person; he had even helped him buy vegetables twice.
"So many? Okay, we'll stay here then." He Qiang was both shocked and delighted. He left when he saw that more guests had arrived, and offered cigarettes to Xue Jun, Li Cai, and Chen Zhengxu as he went.

Finally, he took the money back to his group and said, "Have you rested enough? If you have, go find some more work."

"You've rested enough."

"Let's go, let's not rest anymore. There are plenty of people and lots of food right now. Let's save up as much as we can while we can still make money."

"Brother Qiang, what are you looking at?"

"Make a note of the stall location," He Qiang said with a smile. "From now on, come here before seven o'clock every day for the next few days, and we should have four truckloads of goods every day."

"Holy crap, four truckloads a day?"

"real or fake?"

"It's probably a done deal."

He Qiang looked back at stall number 63, which was bustling under the lights. "Four carts today too. It looks like they'll probably be sold out before dawn."

Everyone turned to look, and among the last row of shops, stall number 63 was the most dazzling one tonight.

After midnight, business became intermittent.

"My hand is sore from writing so many orders, business is so good today." After finishing another order, Li stood up and stretched.

Chen Jiazhi was taking stock of the inventory when he heard this and replied, "There are so many vegetables today, and so many kinds. If business is bad, then we're doomed."

Li Cai asked, "How much is left? There shouldn't be much, right?"

Chen Jiazhi said, "There are not many of the 5 tons of snow peas left, maybe a little over 1,000 jin. There are more than 3 tons of green peppers left, and a little more bok choy, kale and mustard greens left."

Li Cai also came over, looking at the vegetables. "These vegetables are all pretty good, so why aren't many people buying them?"

Chen Jiazhi pondered for a moment and said, "We don't have any regular customers. There are plenty of green vegetables in the market, and this place is located in the back, so the price isn't very competitive. We've only managed to sell this much thanks to the snow peas and green peppers."

Li Cai asked, "Then what should we do? We can't possibly lower the price of vegetables, can we? They're already not expensive, and if we lower the price again, we really won't be able to make any money."

Chen Jiazhi thought for a moment and said, "Let's wait and see. There will be more people around in the early morning."

Leaving Xue Jun and Li Cai behind, Chen Jiazhi took Li Xiu to the distribution center for a look.

The distribution center currently only has three people. Chen Zhengxu and a couple who came from the Dongxiang vegetable market are mainly responsible for sorting.

The distribution center is also gradually improving.

This is thanks to Xu Wenxiang, who not only handed over the vegetable delivery for Yunshan, but also introduced some industry resources.

In addition to handling procurement and delivery in the early morning, Chen Zhengxu also visits and develops clients during the day.

However, the efficiency is not high.

However, the profits from just a few current customer deliveries are enough to support the operation of the distribution center.

After walking for a while, Chen Jiazhi and Li Xiu arrived at the distribution center.

The gate was still locked, and the two workers responsible for sorting had not yet arrived for work. Only Chen Zhengxu was shopping at the market.

Chen Jiazhi took the key and opened the door.

There's nothing much to see; it's still quite empty, except for an extra desk, a scale, and a few vegetable baskets.

Chen Jiazhi gave Li Xiu a brief overview of the delivery business.

"By the way, Li Xiu, I've been thinking about what to name the distribution center. Do you have any ideas?"

"No, I don't." Li Xiu shook her head. "What about you? What name do you want?"

"I don't know if it's reliable or not."

"Tell me about it, Hasa."

"Reliable."

What's reliable?

"Reliable vegetable delivery, or reliable fresh produce delivery."

"...Pfft~" Li Xiu was stunned for a moment, then laughed and asked, "How did you come up with this name?"

Chen Jiazhi said, "I had this idea in a meeting a while ago. The name is alright, easy to understand, and sounds reliable to others."

"You're just teasing me on purpose." Li Xiu laughed non-stop for a while before saying, "You can choose this name if you want, I'll listen to you."

"It's settled then, this is the one, it's reliable!"

After his negotiations with Tong Hsing Tai and Heng Yang broke down, Chen Jiazhi decided to expand into the mainland market.

If you want to run a vegetable business long-term, you need to be reliable, so why not just choose this name?

It also serves as a constant reminder to myself.

After spending some time at the distribution center, Chen Zhengxu still hadn't returned, so Chen Jiazhi took Li Xiu to the market to investigate the market situation.

The fresh vegetable section is mostly filled with various green vegetables, with bok choy and baby bok choy being the absolute mainstream, but there are also quite a few other leafy vegetables, root vegetables, and fruit vegetables.

Chen Jiazhi and Li Xiu mainly focused their attention on green peppers.

Green peppers are the main attraction at Jiangxin Vegetable Market going forward. Once the price of green peppers picks up, the combined appeal of snow peas and green peppers will make the current sluggish sales of leafy greens no longer a problem.

Stall number 63 will also mainly sell leafy greens such as bok choy, but the current location of the stall is not good, so we need to put some effort into attracting customers and take advantage of this period to build a good reputation for leafy greens.

"Jiazhi, look! There seems to be another place selling green peppers over there."

Just as they were about to return to stall number 63, Li Xiu suddenly tugged at Chen Jiazhi's sleeve and gestured for him to look at the stall next to them.

Chen Jiazhi took a look and saw that it was indeed green peppers; there were quite a lot of green peppers on the stall.

Along the way, we encountered many stalls selling green peppers, but this one had the most left, probably because it was closer to stall number 63.

I went over to take a look at the goods and heard the owner's price: 5 cents per pound.

Chen Jiazhi couldn't help but smile.

The stalls in better locations were priced at 55 cents or even 60 cents, attracting the first wave of customers eager to buy goods by virtue of their advantageous locations.

Buyers who make it to the back usually don't mind walking a few more steps, as they'll eventually see number 63.

With the high quality and low price of No. 63 green peppers and the scarcity of snow peas, customer retention is excellent.

However, when Chen Jiazhi and Li Xiu returned to No. 63, they were surprised again.

"Old Wu!"

"Mr. Mao!"

"Old Liu!"

He was pleasantly surprised to see several regular customers and went up to greet them.

Old customers like Lao Wu, Juanmao, and Fatty Liu also showed their support and placed orders one after another.

"Mr. Chen, if you had told me earlier that in addition to bok choy and snow peas, you also had mustard greens and Chinese kale in season, I would have agreed to come and buy vegetables from you without hesitation yesterday."

"And the green peppers too, they're really beautiful and very fresh!"

"The market here is also bigger, and the variety of vegetables is more abundant..."

"I'll be buying groceries here from now on!"

A group of people were talking loudly, which made stall number 63 popular again late at night. In this slightly remote stall, the worst thing is to have no customers.

Obviously, this problem does not exist in file number 63.

time flies,
With the arrival of Lao Wu and others, it was as if the curtain had been raised, and Chen Jiazhi's accumulation of experience in the No. 56 film studio over the past six months began to show.

A group of customers who love his vegetables flocked to the Jiangnan Market, specifically looking for stall number 63.

The previously slightly stockpiled vegetables suddenly burst open.

Choy sum, sold out!
Kale, sold out!
Mustard greens, sold out!
Ultimately, leafy greens came out on top and sold out before green peppers.

But green peppers are selling quite fast.

The nearly 10.9 tons of goods were successfully moved out by 4 a.m.

Only two empty cars, a wooden table, and a few figures laughing and chatting remained in the stall.

After lying low for a few days, the previously overlooked No. 63 slot became impossible to ignore in just one night!
(End of this chapter)