Since opening her mind the day before, Ding Yun's business became much smoother in the following days. Even without offering free samples, her daily sales remained substantial.
The only drawback was that not all new products were popular.
While shredded radish and fried shredded potato were quite well-received, mashed potatoes were truly unpopular. Even after tasting them, few were willing to buy. People felt that since mashed potatoes were just potatoes mashed with salt, sugar, and other seasonings, something they could easily make at home, spending money to buy them externally was truly a sign of having too much money to spend.
However, although Ding Yun didn't make much mashed potato, "not much" was relative to a ton of potatoes. She had actually produced three to five hundred catties. With no one buying, it was unlikely she could turn them into potato starch or anything similar, as she had already cooked the mashed potatoes. So, she could only offer the mashed potatoes as a bonus. For every purchase exceeding fifty cents, one catty was given away. Only then did the mashed potatoes slowly begin to clear out.
Meanwhile, Ding Yun started feeling that working alone was too tiring. The most crucial issue was that the sales speed couldn't keep up. Furthermore, on the third day, she was still cutting shredded potatoes and radishes, which necessitated the addition of steamed dumplings with shredded radish filling as a new product.
This undoubtedly made her even busier. She had to steam dumplings, pan-fry potato and radish cakes, weigh shredded radish for others, bag fried shredded potatoes, and simultaneously handle all the transactions, collecting and giving change herself. It was no wonder she was overwhelmed.
This workload was only manageable because she prepared semi-finished products for potato cakes, radish cakes, and steamed dumplings using the food batch cooking machine in her space. Without that machine, Ding Yun would have been busy to the point of spitting blood.
Faced with this situation, Ding Yun couldn't just sit idly by. She also couldn't constantly enter her space to use the medical equipment to relieve her fatigue. As for hiring employees, she worried that outsiders frequently entering and leaving her home would arouse suspicion, leading them to question the origin of her semi-finished products and her disappearances at specific times.
Therefore, after much deliberation, to ease her burden slightly, Ding Yun decided to boldly sell semi-finished products, something no one else was selling at the time, hoping to reduce her workload. Of course, the price would be correspondingly lower.
The reason her decision was considered bold was that at that time, people either sold finished products, ready-to-eat food, or raw ingredients. No one had ever heard of selling semi-finished products. Semi-finished products still required cooking in the kitchen after purchase. So why wouldn't people just spend a little more time cooking from scratch at home? Ding Yun wasn't selling anything particularly complex, so why spend money unnecessarily?
However, by directly halving the price, Ding Yun managed to break into the market. Even if people in the neighborhood weren't accustomed to buying semi-finished products, as long as her prices were low enough, someone would be tempted. Potato and radish cakes, which were previously four for one mao, were now eight for one mao if purchased as semi-finished products. For the same price, one got double the quantity. They only needed a little oil to pan-fry at home, and anyone could do the math and realize that buying this way was much more cost-effective than buying finished products.
For those living farther from the shop, hot food often arrived lukewarm or less crispy. Now, with semi-finished products, they could be made fresh at home, resulting in a much better taste.
Before long, most people were attracted by Ding Yun's low prices and got used to buying semi-finished products to pan-fry themselves, or to have their wives or mothers help them. Only a small minority, whose families couldn't cook or had very poor cooking skills, grudgingly paid the original price for Ding Yun's ready-made food.
Of course, these were not the smartest consumers. Even those who couldn't cook themselves and had no one at home who could still bought semi-finished products. At worst, they could ask a neighbor to help pan-fry them. After frying, giving one or two to the neighbor as a reward would still mean getting two or three more for the same price.
At the same time, those who were initially reluctant to let their family members spend one mao to buy four potato or radish cakes were now less resistant. Sometimes, when guests visited, they would even proactively give money to their husbands or children to buy some semi-finished products. This was because, in private, they had already done the math: the shop could hardly make much profit from selling semi-finished products at eight for one mao. Even if they made them at home, the cost would be similar. Moreover, making a few would be a waste of time, and making too many would result in leftovers that couldn't be stored. So, if they wanted to eat them, it was better to buy the semi-finished products and fry them.
Ding Yun's semi-finished steamed dumplings also sold well. Some even suggested that radish filling was not satisfying and asked if she could add some meat, offering to pay more. However, Ding Yun only verbally agreed to consider it, but didn't actually follow through. After all, those who wanted meat were a minority, and she didn't want to go through the trouble. Most people still preferred the cheaper radish filling. Besides, her knife skills hadn't reached the point of handling meat yet, and buying meat in the market required meat coupons, while buying it privately was too expensive. Why bother? She would just placate them for now and deal with it later. Who knew, maybe in a while, she would be able to handle meat.
With the large volume of semi-finished products sold, Ding Yun's income decreased, but at least she no longer had to make shredded dried radishes or potato starch from the shredded potatoes and radishes she cut daily but couldn't sell. At the same time, her daily routine became a bit easier. She was no longer constantly on her feet. With her mind no longer burdened by a pile of worries and her life free from financial concerns, Ding Yun's learning progress significantly improved. Her knife skills progressed beyond cutting potatoes and radishes, and in cooking, she finally learned to stew and roast.
Theoretically, everything seemed to be developing in a good direction. However, this also brought another problem. For instance, if she no longer cut shredded potatoes and radishes, how would she sell potato and radish cakes? New ingredients like tofu, lotus root, and cucumbers would require new processing methods and ways to sell them. She, who had just gotten a little free time, became busy again.
She was busy researching the market prices of newly appearing ingredients and considering what dishes to make from them. Tofu and lotus root were fine; they could be made into lotus root cakes. But cucumbers were props for practicing the "willow-thread cucumber" technique, and all the cucumbers were cut that way. It was difficult to pickle them into preserved vegetables. In the end, she had to sell them as cold dishes at a low price, selling only the "willow-thread cucumbers" for two cents each. If customers brought their own bowls, it was only one cent.
Her actions confused her regular customers, who didn't understand what kind of business Ding Yun was trying to run. Her shop wasn't quite a restaurant, nor a snack and pickle stall, nor a late-night eatery. It was a mix of everything, messy and chaotic. Sometimes, when they came early in the morning, they didn't know what Ding Yun would be selling that day, making it feel like opening a mystery box.
But Ding Yun couldn't help it. Her knife skills were improving rapidly, and the ingredients she needed to practice with changed every few days. Her primary purpose for selling items was to clear out the ingredients from her space after she finished practicing her knife skills. Therefore, she could only claim externally that she changed her offerings every few days to prevent people from getting tired of eating the same thing. People generally accepted this explanation. Some even praised her business acumen and excellent skills, saying that whoever married her would be incredibly fortunate.
Thus, Ding Yun's rather peculiar shop, with its frequently changing offerings, managed to establish a foothold in the county town. It even became a popular spot. When people from outside visited relatives, locals would invariably recommend Ding Yun's shop among the first few. If this were decades later, her shop would undoubtedly be a popular influencer check-in spot.