All the heavens begin with the love in the courtyard.

When I first came to Jinzhou No. 2 Machinery Factory, there were hardly any people in the factory, not to mention at night, even during the day. Now, the constant sound of machines day and night has brought vitality back to the factory!

Looking at the brightly lit factory, Lei Dongbao suddenly recalled the glory days of Xiaolei Village. Back then, he stood at the factory gate, looking at the lights inside and sighing. Time has passed, and it seems like he has been away from Xiaolei Village for almost a year!

At this very moment, in Xiaolei Village, more than 100 kilometers away, inside the newly built Leiting Electric Factory, which was less than two years old, it was completely dark, with only a few security guards yawning at the entrance.

In July, Thunder brand electric fans made a triumphant comeback with strong advertising, quickly carving out a path in Anyun Province. But their rise was as rapid as their fall!

Starting from July 10th, Hongyun fans swept through the entire Anhui Province like a whirlwind, and successfully spread this whirlwind to other provinces. In just twenty days, sales exceeded 400,000 units.

This sales figure stunned everyone. Of course, the most stunned were the current managers of Xiaolei Village. They never expected that they had misjudged the situation and that plastic fans were being used in this way!

The biggest victim of Hongyun Fan's overwhelming success was naturally Leiting brand electric fans. They originally hoped to revive their business in July, but unexpectedly, after spending four or five million on advertising, their sales in July only just exceeded 50,000 units!

Moreover, the sales trend is declining very rapidly. Starting from the second half of July, sales have been falling almost in a straight line.

By August, sales had entered a period of stability because sales had plummeted. In the first ten days of August, sales from both inside and outside the province combined had just barely exceeded 10,000 units. Under these circumstances, all the leaders were anxious.

But what means can Thunder Electric Factory possibly rise again now?

They were truly out of options; not only were they out of options, they were also out of money!

Thanks to the advertising campaign that started at the end of June, Thunder Fan quickly revived. As a result, the leaders resumed the three-shift system to speed up production. The nearly ten million yuan invested in the Hongyun Fan project was almost used up in the first half of July.

Aside from Leiting Electric Appliances, other projects in Xiaolei Village are progressing quite smoothly. After securing funding, the Xiaolei Village villa complex quickly purchased materials and began renovations.

The Angora rabbit breeding base in Xiao Lei's family quickly introduced new rabbit breeds. Since everyone had several years of breeding experience, the Angora rabbit breeding went very smoothly. Because the past two years have been the golden age for Angora rabbit breeding, there was no worry about selling rabbit fur, and the price was extremely high. Although the profit margin was not as high as selling electrical appliances, it was still very high compared to other side businesses. The women in Xiao Lei's family were very satisfied with their current life.

Now, many villages and brigades around Xiao Lei's family are growing rabbit feed for them. Truckloads of feed are delivered to Xiao Lei's family every day. It is very likely that within two or three years, they will be able to achieve the scale of 200,000 Angora rabbits that the leaders have set!

However, Leiting Electric Factory was the only one that resumed three shifts at the end of June. By mid-July, it switched back to two shifts, and by the end of July, it switched to day shifts. By the end of the month, even the day shifts were shut down.

After a month and a half of sales, less than 70,000 electric fans have been sold, but there are still nearly 100,000 units in the warehouse, and the company still owes the bank nearly 10 million yuan in loans. It's a complete failure!

With August almost over, the warehouse is still full of inventory, and the banks are starting to chase after debts again. At this point, all the leaders are starting to panic!

But what can we do now?

How to do?

The managers of Leiting Electric Appliance Factory have been summoned to Jinling County several times recently and have been thoroughly scolded. Meanwhile, the leaders of Jinling County, including Chen Pingyuan, have been verbally abused by their superiors. They are being reprimanded at every level and ordered to find a solution to the problem in Xiaolei Village as soon as possible!

At the very least, those 100,000 units in stock need to be sold before the fan season ends.

Because once the inventory of 100,000 units is cleared, at least half of the bank loan can be repaid. Moreover, the sales volume of Leiting Electric Factory this year can reach 170,000 to 180,000 units. Although this number is far less than last year, at least it won't look so bad.

By the end of the year, they'll find a way to transfer their own people away and find some hotheads or scapegoats to take over this mess. Then, whether Thunder Electric lives or dies next year is none of their business. Even if it goes bankrupt, it'll be none of their concern.

This idea became the consensus of the current managers of Leiting Electric Factory, and everyone began to think of ways to clear out the inventory of 100,000 electric fans.

While it's still peak sales season, we absolutely have to find a way to clear out this inventory; every second counts!

So a series of internal discussions were held, and two solutions were eventually devised!

The first solution, of course, is to lower the price. This method always works. Lower the factory price and ask the department stores to lower the price of Thunder brand electric fans as well, so that customers can benefit from the discounts!

The second method is to mobilize all employees, including those working on the assembly line and those in sales, so that they can get goods from the factory at internal prices!

Everyone has relatives. With over a thousand employees, you should try to sell the electric fans to your relatives and friends, and even your relatives' relatives. Anyway, we'll lower the internal price for you this time. In short, sell as many as you can!

Besides these two methods, these leaders really couldn't think of any other solutions. Their limited thinking restricted their imagination, leaving them with no other choice but to resort to this desperate measure!

With everything prepared, these two measures were quickly implemented.

I really didn't say that these two methods were like two powerful medicines, and they quickly produced results!

The floor fan, originally priced at 159 yuan, has been reduced to 139 yuan, and the table fan, originally priced at 129 yuan, has been reduced to 119 yuan. The factory price has also been reduced by 10 to 20 yuan. In this day and age, such a price reduction is indeed quite significant and has quickly attracted a group of customers who want to buy metal fans!

If this potent medicine is just the beginning, then the internal pricing model for nationwide micro-businesses is like a stimulant laced with dichlorvos, quickly igniting the sales enthusiasm of the entire market!

In order to sell off the 100,000 units of inventory as soon as possible, the leaders offered special prices, with all internal prices being the same as the factory price and the same price as the shopping mall's purchase price!

Of course, the leaders weren't so kind. They only had one requirement: you had to pay cash for the goods. You had to sell as much as you paid for, because cash was king!

Even with cash payment, this internal pricing model quickly attracted the attention of all Leiting Electric Appliance Factory employees, including sales personnel from both inside and outside the province, and even the repair technicians who cooperated with Leiting Electric Appliance Factory!

It's worth noting that before this, the internal price was much higher than the purchase price in the mall. Lei Dongbao set this rule in order to win over repairmen, for example, for table fans with a factory price of 85 yuan.

The department store's purchase price is 800,000, the internal price is 100, the department store sells it for 129, and the repairman sells it for 120 or 119, which is 10 or 8 yuan cheaper than the department store. For customers of this era, it is still quite attractive!

Moreover, the internal pricing was initially limited to the repair technicians who cooperated with Lei Dongbao, and others were absolutely prohibited from participating. This was just a small perk set up to win over the repair technicians. Only in this way could a repair channel throughout the province be established quickly.

Even the sales staff are only responsible for sales; they don't handle money. Purchasing and settlement are all handled by dedicated finance and cashier staff!

Now, the internal price is available to all employees. This means that anyone related to Leiting Electric Factory has this benefit, and the ex-factory price of 85 is directly reduced to 75, the same purchase price as in shopping malls!

Awesome, everyone! Exciting, right?

A fan that costs over a hundred yuan in the mall, I can take it for you for seventy-five yuan!

The profit you make from selling a single electric fan can be less than a month's salary for you. Exciting, isn't it!

That's definitely exciting!

The era of micro-business for everyone started in Jinling County and quickly spread. Soon, floor fans that cost 100 yuan each appeared on the market, but after a day, they were only 95 yuan!

One more day, it will be only 90; one more day, it will be only 85!

I only make ten yuan per unit, but I can sell twenty units a day. That's awesome! That's amazing!

In the past, I would work hard for a month, getting scolded by my supervisor and nagging from my wife every day. Now, I just carry a basket of fans to the street, wave it around, and say, "Thunder brand electric fans, factory direct sales, only 85 yuan, and I can sell 10 or 8 units in no time!"

It's so beautiful! I'm dying of joy! My wife praises me for being capable, my kids are all affectionate towards me, and seeing the envious and jealous look on my supervisor's face makes me so happy!

The first batch of employees who dared to spend real money to exchange for fans at the factory quickly earned their first pot of gold, which rapidly attracted other employees to join!

The 100,000 units in stock at Leiting Electric Factory were being shipped out at a visible speed. Ten accountants were assigned to collect the money, and they were so busy counting that their mouths were dry. The leaders were all laughing and talking.

But what many people don't understand is that the story of capitalists dumping milk, which was told in textbooks, is still puzzling to this day. Why didn't they lower the price? Why did they choose to dump the milk?

Of course, reality will soon teach them a harsh lesson, and they will soon understand why capitalists are dumping milk and are unwilling to sell it at low prices!

Chapter 65: Thunder Electric Enters an Abyss

From the beginning of Love in the Courtyard, Volume 65: Thunder Electric Enters an Abyss. In less than half a month from late August to early September, Thunder Electric Factory sold more than 70,000 of its 100,000-unit inventory.

This sales speed has surprised everyone. If nothing unexpected happens, Leiting Electric's inventory of 100,000 units will definitely be cleared out this year!

But barring any unforeseen circumstances, that was impossible; it was just a matter of time. However, no one expected that it would happen so quickly!

At the end of August, a municipal department store in Anyun Province announced that it would no longer sell Thunder brand electric fans and would return all of the more than 500 electric fans it had previously purchased to Thunder Electric Factory.

This seemed to be just the beginning. In the following days, dozens of department stores and electronics stores announced returns and stopped selling Thunder brand electric fans.

The actions of these department stores left the leaders of Thunder Electric Factory somewhat bewildered. Before they could figure out what was going on, almost every department store, large or small, in the entire Anyun Province began returning goods.

Moreover, the amount of goods being withdrawn kept increasing and couldn't be stopped. It was only at this point that they gradually realized that it was probably an internal pricing issue that had disrupted the market!

With the rise of WeChat e-commerce, price wars are escalating. A fan with a factory price of 75 yuan is being sold for 79 yuan, while department stores are selling it for 119 yuan. Isn't this undermining their business?

Normally, shopping malls these days wouldn't care about these things. After all, they sell more than a dozen brands of electric fans, so they don't need yours. Besides, the sales of Thunder brand electric fans aren't that great these days.

Even if your Thunder Electric Appliance Factory doesn't charge us money, it's none of our business. It's just giving you an extra counter. We only settle accounts once every two weeks or once a month. If we don't sell everything, we have to take it back to you!

But unexpectedly, Leiting Electric Appliances Factory's nationwide micro-business initiative has led to a situation where customers who bought electric fans last year, the year before, and even in June and July of this year have realized that they have only just bought them.

Thunder brand electric fans have been reduced in price to this extent?

Isn't this just messing with us?

We work hard for several months' salary to buy an electric fan, and before we've even used it for a few days, our salary has dropped by a month's worth.

And this internal price completely destroyed the previous trade-in policy of Thunder Brand Advertising!

Think about it, after two or three years, we have to pay so much money to exchange for a new electric fan. Your brand new Thunder brand electric fan only costs a few dozen yuan. This is simply treating those old customers who traded in their old fans like fools!

Most importantly, Thunder brand electric fans sold hundreds of thousands of units in the first two or three years. Now, they have offended hundreds of thousands of families, and countless people have gone to the mall to demand an explanation!

When the shopping mall found Leiting Electric Appliances Factory and asked them to process the return, it was no longer a simple matter of returning the goods.

How should we deal with the customers who bought from us before?

The leaders of Leiting Electric Factory racked their brains but couldn't come up with a foolproof plan. Getting them to take the money out of their pockets was impossible.

But if I don't pay, how can I face those customers?

In short, now that a problem has arisen, we all need to find a solution!

The leaders' solution was truly the only option left, and they had no other choice but to adopt this method!

"A delaying tactic!"

The shopping malls of this era were not like those of later generations. If you were not satisfied with what you bought, you could return it within seven days without giving a reason. The very idea of ​​passing the buck originated with the Chinese.

The leaders simply decided to throw caution to the wind. They didn't need to offend the shopping mall; they would just accept the returned goods as ordered. As for the other customers, those troublemakers, they would let them be!

Anyway, sales are basically no longer dependent on department stores. In the last half month of August, the combined sales of department stores inside and outside the province did not even reach 10,000 units, because the market has been quickly killed by the nationwide micro-business.

At this point, the leaders had come to a realization: they simply ignored the mall's sales figures and decided to let those troublemakers go; since they had already offended them, so be it.

With everyone now running micro-businesses, there are still 20,000 to 30,000 electric fans left. We must find a way to solve this problem this year, no matter what.

Once the money is in hand, a portion will be returned to the bank, and things won't look so awkward for everyone.

Anyway, once I'm done with this busy period of one or two months, I'll apply for a transfer immediately. Once I've paid off most of the bank loan, things won't be so complicated anymore.

They couldn't afford to offend the troublemakers, but they never imagined that some things, the less they were dealt with, the more likely they were to cause trouble!

Just when everyone was at a stalemate, news began to circulate that Thunder Electric Factory was about to go bankrupt, and that the reason Thunder electric fans were being sold cheaply was because they were all defective products from the factory.

The rumor spread so fast that it far exceeded the typical speed of rumor dissemination in this era. It spread throughout Anyun Province almost overnight, instantly plunging Leiting Electric Factory into a true hell!

It's actually normal. The hundreds of thousands of customers who bought Thunder fans before haven't received a solution from the mall, so they are now paying close attention to news about Thunder fans. As soon as this news came out, those hundreds of thousands of mouths spread it to their relatives and friends, telling them not to buy Thunder fans!

Almost overnight, the nationwide micro-business model was brought to a standstill because no one was buying anymore. Not only were no people buying, but all the relatives who had already bought from them were coming to return the electric fans!

Why are people returning such cheap electric fans?

Naturally, this rumor was too powerful. When Leiting Electric Factory offered internal prices to its employees, in order to attract everyone to buy, they clearly stated that these fans were also covered by the three guarantees and could be traded in for new ones, and they would all be given a three guarantees service card!

But suddenly everyone heard that Thunder Electric Factory was going to go bankrupt. At this moment, no one was sure what to do. Although Chinese people love to take advantage of bargains, they are also very cautious!

They would rather buy a 129 yuan electric fan with a guarantee than buy one of those 79 yuan electric fans that are said to be made of inferior materials.

The power of rumors is greater than everyone imagined. Despite the fact that the leaders of Leiting Electric Factory had gathered all the employees to explain several times and even had the leaders of Jinling County vouch for them, they still couldn't stop the rumors from spreading unchecked!

This has really put those more than a thousand micro-business employees in a difficult position. Most of them sell to relatives and friends, who then sell to other relatives and friends. At the very least, they ride bicycles and carry two baskets to sell to people in the surrounding area. It would be easy for these people to find the people who sold them their electric fans!