1994: Vegetable farmers strike back

Chapter 380 Price Increase
Li Cai immediately stood up, picked up the landline, and was about to dial a number.

Wen Rong blinked, but finally advised, "President Cai, I don't think it's necessary to call the boss about this. Calling now might not be effective."

Li Cai stood there, "You also think the stall isn't important?"

“Um…it’s not that it’s not important, on the contrary, it’s very important, extremely important.” Wen Rong thought for a moment and said, “The stalls are the foundation that supports all the bases. Think about it, without the stalls you’re in charge of, many vegetables in the market might not be able to be sold.”

These words of praise made Li Cai feel good, and he was no longer in such a hurry.

"But you can't just ignore my feelings at all. When there's an excess of vegetables, you just dump them on me to sell, and then I have to build good relationships with the customers."

When the market is booming, customers have already placed orders, but I have to go and cut their orders.

How can this make sense?
Isn't this bullying honest people?

"That's why you seem so capable!" Wen Rong's eyes seemed to sparkle. "That's the value of a stall!"

Li Cai sensed something was wrong and wanted to argue, but he couldn't help but look away when he saw Wen Rong's gaze.

What is wrong?

Just then, the phone rang abruptly.

Li Cai, who was nearby, picked up the phone casually, "Hello, this is Kaopu Fresh, who are you looking for?"

"Mr. Cai, this is Zhou Xiaoxiong. A major client has placed an additional order today. I need to speak with Wen Rong."

Zhou Xiaoxiong is in Shenzhen, and currently the only business he conducts there is Shui Dong Jie. Li Cai frowned.

"Add watercress? How much?"

“Add another 900 jin.” Zhou Xiaoxiong smiled, in a good mood, unaware of Li Cai’s unusual behavior, and added, “That brings today’s sales in Shenzhen to 10,000 jin.”

Wen Rong noticed the mention of Shui Dongjie in Li Cai's words and realized that he was looking for her. She quickly took the phone and chatted with Zhou Xiaoxiong in detail.

It is indeed an increase in stock.
A moment later, Wen Rong looked at Li Cai with bright, sparkling eyes, "President Cai~"

Li Cai suddenly realized what was going on and became wary. "Are they trying to steal my food again?"

Wen Rong: "..."

She was a little embarrassed, but the farm refused to cut more vegetables, while they wanted to increase their supply. If they didn't reduce the supply from the stalls, where would they find the goods?

Upon seeing Wen Rong's appearance, Li suddenly realized what was happening and understood everything.

Zhang Wuji's mother was right; the more beautiful a woman is, the more likely she is to deceive people. He almost fell for her trick.

Thinking of this, he picked up the phone without hesitation and dialed.

When Chen Jiazhi received Li Cai's call, he and Li Xiu were hiding in the office, gnawing on spicy rabbit heads, which smelled delicious.

While enjoying his meal, he listened to Li Cai's complaints.

The water mustard allocated to the stalls was partially taken away by delivery personnel every day, making the already insufficient supply of water mustard even worse.

After rattling off a string of words, Li Cai asked in confusion, "Brother Zhi, are you eating something?"

"Yeah, eating rabbit heads with your sister~"

"What about what I just said?"

“I heard everything.” Chen Jiazhi wiped his hands. “I know you’re upset, but don’t make it sound like you’re upset. The stall has been selling forty or fifty tons of goods a day lately, which is quite a lot.”

"Most of the goods were sent from the market because Tongxingtai didn't want them."

Feeling a bit awkward, Chen Jiazhi said, "There's quite a lot of mustard greens too. I checked, and they're still giving the stalls about 10,000 jin every day."

Li Cai: "I cut hundreds of kilograms today and a thousand kilograms tomorrow. How can I keep up? My customers were getting their goods just fine, but suddenly someone else snatched them away. People are blocking my way every day. Don't be surprised if you see me in the hospital one day."

Chen Jiazhi: “…”

After a short silence, Chen Jiazhi asked again, "Isn't the price of water mustard 3 mao per jin higher than the market price?"

Many primary agricultural wholesalers typically only make a few cents per kilogram, so a price difference of 3 cents is already quite significant.

Li Cai thought for a moment, "It's all thanks to the competition. The market's good right now, so many merchants are messing around, and there's a lot of substandard stuff being sold as high-quality goods."

Upon hearing this, Chen Jiazhi understood.

Vegetable prices are already high, and with so many inferior products being sold, the spoilage rate is high, which also affects mood and experience.

Stall number 63 is always very clean, and the mustard greens have a superior texture.

The 3-cent price difference was thus offset.

After explaining the situation, Li Cai pressed, "Brother Zhi, what do you suggest we do?"

Chen Jiazhi glanced at Li Xiu, who was listening intently to the side, and asked, "Who wants to order more goods again?"

Li Cai replied, "It was Zhou Xiaoxiong who made the call from Shenzhen."

That's probably a wholesaler in Phuket.

Chen Jiazhi pondered for a moment, wanting to reply directly to Zhou Xiaoxiong to wait one more day, but being able to propose adding more goods at the last minute might be quite important.

We need to get to the bottom of this.

After he hung up the phone, he called the Shenzhen distribution center, and Zhou Xiaoxiong answered the phone.

"Boss, I know it's not good to add more stock at the last minute, but Boss Ye raised the price on his own initiative!"

"He pays 2.8 yuan per jin!"

"They even said they were going to sell it in Hong Kong."

"If I don't agree to this, not only will you be punished, but President Xu will beat me up first."

Chen Jiazhi is now filled with regret, regretting that he wasn't bolder back then.

Why bother with 300 mu? Just go for 1000 mu, and you'll be making a killing.

But it was too late for regrets.

He stood there pondering for a moment, and after making a decision, he called Li Cai again.

“Li Cai, if you’re going to have to put up with this, give these 900 jin of water mustard greens to Xiao Xiong first.” After a pause, Chen Jiazhi added, “They’ve already offered 2.8 yuan per jin over there.”

"The stall owners should raise their prices too. Since there's not enough stock, then raise prices, raise them sharply. If a 3-cent difference isn't enough, then raise it to 5 cents, keep raising it until the market cools down."

The price of 2.5 yuan per jin at the Shui Dong mustard stall is already crazy enough, and in order to promote it more quickly, the price has not been raised.

But who could have predicted the market would go even crazier? In that case, let's return to the laws of the market: the highest bidder wins.

It can also achieve relative fairness.

This incident also made Chen Jiazhi suddenly realize that fairness is also very important in company management.

The positive market response to the water mustard seed is great, and it's highly sought after. However, unfair handling of the situation could lead to internal conflicts.

Li Cai remained relatively calm and readily agreed.

Chen Jiazhi added, "I'm going to Yuanmou with you. I'll stay in the city for half a day. I'll call Zhengxu back then so we can chat together."

"Okay." Li Cai pondered for a moment and said, "I don't really have anything to say, I just want to get things done."

Chen Jiazhi: "Yes, I've also sold vegetables before, so I know that the most important thing to maintain good customer relationships is integrity."

The cause of this is very simple: when additional stock is needed, the only option is to make up for it with existing stock, and the stalls are the ones who have to make sacrifices.

The stalls are also short of stock, and many items have been pre-ordered, resulting in the stalls breaking their promises to customers.

Once might be fine, but if it happens too often, it's no wonder Li gets anxious.

It's only because the stalls have a lot of cash on them that Chen Jiazhi dared to continue making sacrifices for them this time.

Even if subsequent price increases alleviate the supply shortage, it is still unfair from Li Cai's perspective.

Then we need to find a way to make up for it.

Li Xiu also witnessed the entire process of how Chen Jiazhi handled the matter in the office, and even poured him several cups of tea.

"Jiazhi, why don't the others improve the quality of their dishes?"

"If it were easy to make money, how many people would be willing to put in so much effort? Besides, reputation and trust are not built overnight."

Chen Jiazhi smiled at Li Xiu and said, "Do you think all my peers have such a long-term vision? People like me are rarer than pandas."

"Yes, yes, then why aren't you a national treasure?"

...

White clouds, night began to fall, and the lights of the Jiangnan Market began to flicker again.

Li Cai walked through the market aisle, occasionally glancing at the stalls of his fellow vendors.

The boom lasted for more than half a month, and all the bosses were doing very well, beaming with satisfaction and constantly smiling.

"God of Wealth, off to work?"

As I passed stall number 53, they were unloading goods, and the owner, Zhong Chao, came out of the passage to greet me.

Li Cai nodded slightly. This person was a fellow vendor selling leafy greens, but his business style was different from stall number 63, and his goods were rather rough.

He didn't seem inclined to pay much attention.

Zhong Chao, however, was not about to let him go so easily, and said again, "God of Wealth, how much money have you made with all those fancy dishes?"

Li Cai stopped and said, "It's alright."

Zhong Chao added, “The market is good lately, and vegetables are selling well. I’m telling you, you don’t need to prepare the vegetables so meticulously anymore. It increases costs, and you’ll lose a lot of profit. It’s obvious you don’t know how to sell vegetables.”

Li Cai chuckled, didn't reply, and left.

When the market was bad in the early stages, the quality of Zhong Chao's No. 53 stall was much worse, and it was always overshadowed by the No. 63 stall.

With the market booming, even oddly shaped and cracked fruits are starting to stand out.

"What's with the attitude? Do you really think you're the God of Wealth?"

After Li Cai left, Zhong Chao kept grumbling in front of the unloading truck.

"Just by looking at him, you can't tell which rich kid he is. He's never grown vegetables or managed a household. If we harvest vegetables according to their standards, how much can we get from an acre?"

Someone chimed in, "Old Zhong, why are you bothered with how they sell it? Are you trying to get rid of them?"

"What a joke! He's just a lowly laborer. Why would I care about him?" Zhong Chao scoffed. "Besides, who knows which stall will make more money!"

The man then said, "Hahaha, alright, we all know you're ruthless, Old Zhong. You'll pick up even a fallen leaf to make up the numbers, of course you'll make money!"

Another merchant chimed in, "But stall number 63 is indeed flashy and all that looks good but isn't actually useful, which just increases costs for no reason."

...

Li Cai was unaware of the others' discussions. When he arrived at the stall, two truckloads of goods from the market had already been unloaded.

Not long after, the water mustard also arrived at the stall.

Almost as soon as the truck stopped, the buyers who had placed orders swarmed over and voluntarily climbed onto the truck to unload the goods.

While they were unloading, someone was yelling about how much they wanted tomorrow.

Li Cai cleared his throat and announced, "The price of chicken heart mustard will go up starting tomorrow, to 2.8 yuan per jin. Those who want to pre-order can place their orders now."

The air seemed to freeze for two seconds, then burst into howls and screams. Now, chicken heart mustard is 6 cents more expensive per kilogram than regular mustard!

A heated argument broke out at the stall.

No matter how much the customers complained, Li Cai insisted on the price of 2.8 yuan per jin, so many people took the vegetables for the day and left in a huff.

However, after the noise subsided, a few people quietly placed orders, and some latecomers cheered loudly.

"God of Wealth, the price should have gone up a long time ago! Now I'm sure I won't be unable to buy anything!"

However, the support of a minority cannot mask the overall deterioration of the situation, and many customers left complaining that it was too expensive.

This information also spread rapidly throughout the market.

The same mustard greens can be 6 mao per jin (500g) more expensive, which is beyond many people's imagination.

When Zhong Chao, who runs stall number 53, found out, he chuckled and chatted with the surrounding merchants, saying, "There's going to be a good show tomorrow!"

He plans to stock up on more mustard greens tomorrow in preparation for the arrival of new customers.

at the same time.

Ye Xingwen from Buji, Shenzhen, has just received chicken heart mustard.

(End of this chapter)