How can you become a star without money?

Chapter 23 Can Keep Warm

Wang Yao drove Lao Zheng, chatting all the way.

The discussion mainly touched on the development of the e-commerce industry. Although Lao Zheng's discussions were purely theoretical, he still demonstrated some understanding.

After Wang Yao took Lao Zheng on a tour of Tianhuo Media Company, Lao Zheng finally felt relieved.

Thankfully, it's a legitimate company, not a shell company.

This kid has really made it big.

I didn't do anything illegal or disorderly.

Otherwise, I'd be driven crazy with worry.

"Well done, Mr. Wang. You've really surprised me. I never noticed how sociable you were back in school," Old Zheng joked with a chuckle.

"I learned all of that on the job," Wang Yao said with a smile.

"Seeing students get on the right path and improve is a teacher's greatest sense of accomplishment," Old Zheng said with a smile, patting the seat of his BMW.

"However, I still want to remind you that Principal Hu is willing to help you out of a sense of duty, but you must not have too much contact with her or other school leaders in the future."

Wang Yao could naturally understand Lao Zheng's warning, and he also knew very well that Hu Mei was not helping him for no reason.

"Teachers must have a very relaxed job," Wang Yao chuckled.

"What do you mean? I've taught you all with all my heart, it's just that you don't like to learn," Old Zheng said angrily.

"I have a regular job, could the teachers at the online store school spare some time to help me manage it?" Wang Yao offered.

Wang Yao didn't actually need to go through the trouble of using the school to get entrepreneurial loans, but his main purpose was to use the school as a base for talent resources to screen suitable employees and talents.

Old Zheng has been a teacher his whole life, so he's absolutely adept at managing students.

Moreover, Wang Yao was familiar with Lao Zheng's character, and this job was very suitable for him.

The e-commerce industry has a very long period of high profitability. Wang Yao mainly focuses on seizing the early advantages and then leveraging his cash flow from his previous life to attract capital, which is enough to secure a place for him in the market.

However, this requires a stable channel for supplying talent.

The Open University is not a great school, but it has the advantage of a large student body, with hundreds of thousands of students enrolled each year, so it is bound to discover some talented individuals.

Wang Yao knew he wasn't good at such trivial details, so after careful consideration, he decided to bring Lao Zheng along—that was the ultimate goal for the day.

I'd also like to repay his kindness in recognizing my talent.

"What do you mean? You want to hire your teacher as an employee? Are you trying to rebel against the Heavenly Gang?!" Old Zheng was stunned for a moment, then shouted angrily.

Normally, public officials like teachers are not allowed to engage in business, but abnormality is the norm.

"It's not an employment, it's a partnership. 5% of the shares in the new store, teacher. Men need their own little savings. Money gives men courage, you know," Wang Yao said with a smile.

Old Zheng is a typical Shanghai man, who is very unambitious and is kept under strict control by his wife.

His wife was also in business, and Wang Yao had met her a few times in his previous life; she was a strong woman.

It's no secret that Lao Zheng is afraid of his wife; almost everyone in the class knows, and it's even been discussed on the school's online forum.

Teasing by Wang Yao, Old Zheng complained a few times in Shanghainese, then lit a cigarette, pondered for a moment, and...
"I'll manage it for you for now, but I have conditions: I'll prioritize hiring students from our class and major for part-time jobs. The internships they're assigned by the school aren't related to their majors, and they might hinder their future development."

In life, the worst thing isn't making mistakes, but choosing the wrong career. E-commerce is a blue ocean market, an opportunity for ordinary people to turn their lives around. If you have a well-planned online store, and possess the ability and resources, you might be able to help others expand their reach.

Old Zheng spoke leisurely, with an undisguised sense of compassion for humanity.

Perhaps it's some kind of quality inherent in teachers.

"Then you'll have to put in more effort, teacher. I'm really not good at dealing with people at school." Wang Yao added a tearful sigh.

"Hmph, at least you're clear-headed and haven't become arrogant just because of a little achievement. This society is complicated."
"Hehe, it's funny, you were the student I thought was least likely to enter this industry, but I didn't expect you to be the first to make it out." Old Zheng chuckled.

Wang Yao narrowed his eyes and chuckled softly.

I invited Zhou Cong to join me, treated Lao Zheng to dinner, welcomed the teacher for his guidance, and then discussed the follow-up arrangements and plans.

Old Zheng didn't object at all, just nodded in agreement, without expressing any opinion or opposition. After taking him home...

Zhou Cong was shocked that Wang Yao had managed to recruit the homeroom teacher as an accomplice during his trip.

We also need to set up a base at the school, and we need to take out a loan.

"Brother, you can do business at a school?" Zhou Cong was shocked.

"Schools are one of the biggest businesses in the world," Wang Yao smiled. "Have all the goods been shipped out today?"

"We can't finish sending them all, we simply can't finish." Zhou Cong's face lit up with excitement as he spoke of this.

"Our sales so far have reached 43,000! More than 900 orders, I really can't handle it all by myself!"

"Don't worry if you can't ship them all. There's no logistics rating or assessment anyway. The school's part-time job department should have news in the next day or two. I'll organize the shipping process. You can go to the school more often in the future, and you won't have to ship the goods yourself anymore." Wang Yao waved his hand.

Shipping small boxes is very simple. You just need to pack them according to the SKU, attach the tracking number, and then upload them. Since they are all blind boxes and random, one person can pack about 50 pieces per hour at the beginning, and maybe 100 pieces after becoming proficient.

Without adding any new product categories, Xiao Ka's order volume should be able to stabilize at 500 orders, which should be enough for two people.

However, more people are needed to package women's clothing, because Wang Yao is not making regular clothing, but rather overstock clothing.

With more styles available, there are two more steps involved: picking and checking.

These two steps greatly reduce the workload. A skilled garment packer, even with careful attention and a bit of slacking off, can only pack about 20 orders per hour.

Overstock clothing refers to clothing that has been produced in excess, returned for export, or even has minor defects. The advantage of this type of product is its low price; summer short-sleeved T-shirts are even sold by weight.

The Jiangsu and Zhejiang region is one of the largest distribution centers for overstocked clothing in China, with the Jiuxing and Shenda large commercial cities in Lin'an accounting for about 30% of the overstocked clothing market. In 2009, Sanjiao Village, where Shenda Clothing City is located, began to try to introduce an online retail model combined with an offline wholesale model, providing a "one-stop" service for overstocked goods, from product selection to drop shipping. The village's collective income exceeded ten million yuan.

It can be said that it was one of the earliest village collectives to try out direct distribution from the source.

However, the quality and styles of the leftover goods in Lin'an are relatively outdated, because they are mainly targeted at domestic wholesalers. Although the prices are cheap, they cannot be sold at a high price.

There is also a surplus goods market in Shanghai, in the Qipu Road business district, which is a distribution center for export surplus goods. Among them, Hongqiao Clothing City is full of surplus goods of European and American brands such as GAP and H&M, as well as A-grade goods.

You can buy a large quantity of clothes that cost 100 yuan in a specialty store for only 10 to 20 yuan.

Find a few models, take some photos, and you can sell it for 69 yuan, with a net profit of over 60% after deducting costs.

In 2010, when the average order value for clothing on Taobao was 99 yuan, he could crush all his competitors by simply engaging in price wars.

After all, in the current e-commerce apparel category, no merchant has yet figured out what exactly they are selling when selling women's clothing. Even Han Du Yi She is still figuring out how to extract patterns.

Is it a product? Or a brand?
No, they're selling beautiful photos of models and the atmosphere!
Otherwise, how could Zhang Dayi and her team have turned Ruhan into the first listed company in the influencer e-commerce industry with just a Taobao store?
However, this model requires stockpiling inventory, and the amount of inventory required is enormous. After all, selling leftover stock is not a wholesale business, but a business of scale, and you can only make money when you have a large scale.

The two most important things for an online clothing store are model photos and cash.

Model photos are easy to obtain. Tianhuo Media has no shortage of models and photographers. If they want to get freebies, they can directly publish trial shoots internally. Each model can shoot five designs, and 100 models would make 500 designs.

The Meishe Shanghai local model group has nearly 3,000 members, including many professional Taobao online sellers. For example, Zhao Yihuan used to make money by selling clothes on Taobao. Now, Zhao Yihuan, who is somewhat famous, can probably sell a set of clothes for 20 to 50 yuan. On a good day, she can earn 2000 yuan.

However, most newcomers only earn 5 to 20 yuan per set of clothes, and their daily income is at most around 500 yuan.

But it's still much better than most working people, otherwise so many young women who are confident in their appearance wouldn't flock to this industry.

Photographers and retouchers can also be temporarily hired part-time, just like Wang Yao did back then.

A typical Taobao store's product detail page plus model photos costs around 300 yuan, but Wang Yao can reduce it to as low as 30 yuan.
Cost squeezing is the biggest advantage and profit.

Making money is essentially about probability, and this is especially true for e-commerce. As long as you have enough online presence, your exposure and conversion rate will naturally be higher than your competitors.

This is the most classic brick-moving store group tactic in the future era of involution.

Technical issues are relatively easy to solve; the remaining problems are practical ones. The clearance sale requires a large amount of inventory to be stocked up in the early stages, otherwise product costs cannot be reduced.

The price difference between buying 10,000 items at once and buying 100 items at once can be tenfold. In his previous life, when Wang Yao was dealing in leftover stock, he would buy it warehouse by warehouse, and the items were so cheap that they were practically free.

It is estimated that Chen Tao's loan amount should be around 30.

In the evening, Wang Yao helped Zhou Cong organize and plan the shipping process. Then, they browsed the discussion surrounding the small card on various online forums and, based on today's data, estimated tomorrow's shipping volume and prepared inventory in advance.

Then I sent a text message to Nazha and her daughter, saying that there was a part-time job interview on Sunday and that they should prepare.

Because it was Saturday, Wang Yao slept in until he naturally woke up.

When I woke up, Zhou Cong was already packing.

After exchanging greetings, Wang Yao planned to first go to Hongqiao Clothing City to check out the prices and styles, while waiting for Chen Tao's message.

Hongqiao Garment City originated in the 1990s, mainly focusing on foreign trade and packaging of mid-to-high-end overstock. Wang Yao visited several stores of major brands and negotiated with them. The lowest price he could get was 30% off, but it required a minimum investment of 200,000 yuan.

Cash transactions only, no credit accepted.

Wang Yao paired 10 spring and autumn outfits, all classic styles from the year before last and last year.

Each set consists of an inner layer, a skirt/pants outfit, and an outer jacket. At the time, a set sold for 800-1000 yuan in the boutique.
Now, we're offering a 3% discount on the goods, with each set costing around 240 yuan. Adding in the cost of model photos, logistics, distribution, and other miscellaneous expenses, the cost per set is 300 yuan.

Currently, there isn't a single legitimate brand online store in Taobao's apparel category. HSTYLE, a future leader in apparel e-commerce, only officially launched its online presence this year.

Most outlets are self-operated by individual vendors, and most don't even have model photos. They just take flat display pictures with a digital camera. Only a very small number of individual vendors who have made money start to spend money to hire models and professional teams to shoot product detail pages, but these are still very conventional display pictures.

Wang Yao's presentation method, which combines clothing matching with high-quality model images, is absolutely outrageous—both flamboyant and stylish, leading countless versions.

Therefore, even with a high price, the transaction rate will not be low.

Moreover, there are traffic generation and SEO keyword technology as a safety net.

The cost is 300, the selling price is 699, and the gross profit margin is around 40%, which is not low for a fast-moving consumer goods apparel category.

Moreover, the gross profit margin is lower when selling a bundled product as a set, but if you sell individual items, the gross profit margin can be increased to over 60%, which makes it very profitable overall.

Because we chose spring and autumn styles, the cost of goods was a bit higher. After all, even the leftover stock is seasonal. If we had bought summer styles, the discounts would have been much greater.

After all, as the old saying goes, "Buy clothes out of season, and you'll have a villa by the sea."

When Wang Yao was about to leave with Yang Yi, he passed by a hosiery shop, went in and took a large batch of hosiery samples, intending to give them away as welfare items.

After all, it's cold to wear short skirts and shorts with bare legs in winter, so you have to wear stockings to keep warm.

Wang Yao had just finished shopping at the clothing market when he received a call from Chen Tao.

"Junior brother, are you up yet?" Chen Tao's cheerful voice came from the phone.

"Thank you, Senior Brother," Wang Yao said with a smile.

"I submitted your application to my supervisor last night, and I didn't expect to get a reply today. It's a 30 yuan commercial loan with equal principal and interest payments over 3 years, without collateral, and an interest rate of 5.0%," Chen Tao said with a smile.

Wang Yao raised an eyebrow slightly. Ten years ago was a period of economic growth, and loan interest rates were high. Now, the general interest rate for unsecured commercial loans is 6% to 7%, and Chen Tao's offer of 5% is not considered high.

"Oh? We got news so quickly? I'm so sorry to have troubled you to work overtime this weekend, senior." Wang Yao feigned surprise.
"It's lunchtime, senior brother, let's find a place to meet and talk."

"Don't go outside, come to my house. Your sister-in-law just mailed some local specialties from her hometown yesterday. Try them out."

Chen Tao extended the invitation with a smile.

(End of this chapter)