"Psst, we've reached 2,000 recommendation votes, so there will be three updates tomorrow. Please continue to give all your recommendation votes to author-kun!"
"Yes, I understand. I will guarantee the company's orders are executed!" After hanging up the phone, Shen Yuequn's expression was a little strange.
"What's wrong? What did the company say?" his wife asked curiously.
"The company issued a very strange order!" Shen Yuequn's face was still full of confusion.
"How is it strange?"
"They want us to actively give money away!"
"Huang He must have hit his head!" His wife's mouth twitched. "Are you going to set up your stall today?"
"I am, of course, I have to!" Shen Yuequn nodded. "Although the company's order puzzles me, I know how to solve the problem that occurred yesterday!"
At 10 AM, Shen Yuequn, with his three-wheeled cart, reappeared in the market. As the loudspeaker from Wenzhou, Zhejiang, sounded, many pedestrians once again gathered around Shen Yuequn's stall. Quite a few people had already started enthusiastically unboxing.
The charm of the blind boxes themselves was undeniable.
In the blink of an eye, over a hundred blind boxes were sold. However, what was bound to come eventually did. Soon, someone came over with a shoebox. The people were essentially the same as yesterday, and their demands hadn't changed: they wanted Shen Yuequn to give them refunds or exchanges.
They also cursed Shen Yuequn for running away yesterday.
"Esteemed customer, I am just a vendor. Everything must be approved by higher authorities. I understand your difficulties. So, as soon as I went back yesterday, I reported these matters to my superiors!" Shen Yuequn quickly said. "The superiors have considered it a lot and said that regarding the shoe sizes, they were indeed not thoughtful enough. However, our rule of no returns or exchanges cannot be changed, otherwise, blind boxes would not be blind boxes!"
"Isn't what you're saying just nonsense?" the person said angrily.
"However, the superiors have provided another solution for everyone, which is for us to help you consign your shoes!" Shen Yuequn said with a smile. "You can put your leather shoes on my stall here, set a price, and let others who need them buy them. Then I will return the money to you. Perhaps you could even sell them for over a hundred yuan, which is much more cost-effective than me returning ten yuan to you."
"What if you run away with my shoes?" the person asked hesitantly.
"We definitely won't run away. However, we are small vendors and cannot do business in one place forever, so we will have to move on eventually. Therefore, we can give you a 10 yuan deposit. But one point must be made clear: once you accept our deposit, if the leather shoes are lost, or cannot be returned for any other reason, we will not bear any responsibility!" Shen Yuequn said.
"Fine, I understand. You're just offering a convenient refund without admitting it. Alright, I'll consign them here. Give me the 10 yuan deposit!" The person quickly said, then threw the leather shoes onto the cart and left without looking back.
"Friend, you haven't set a price for these shoes yet?"
"Whatever you think is fine. You guys can set the price!" the person replied.
"I really don't know what the chairman is thinking!" Shen Yuequn sighed and shook his head. He then turned the shoe over, looked at the sole, and his face immediately revealed an expression of astonishment. He then affixed a price of 500 yuan to the shoes and openly placed them on his stall for consignment.
"I say, boss, 500 yuan is too expensive! Even Old Man's Head leather shoes don't sell for 500 yuan!" someone nearby saw this and gasped.
"Do you think Old Man's Head is a good brand?" Shen Yuequn spat. "Don't think that just because the brand has a foreigner's head on it and a string of English, it's a foreign brand. Let me tell you the truth, it's produced by another leather shoe factory in Wenzhou, right next to our factory. Their craftsmanship is even worse than ours, and the quality is even inferior to our leather shoes. Forget selling their shoes for 200, even 100 is ridiculous!" Shen Yuequn grumbled.
"Damn it! I always thought Old Man's Head was a foreign brand, and wearing them made me look good. Tsk tsk!" many people around had very ugly expressions. Chinese people nowadays were still too naive. Seeing a purely English brand and a foreign old man's head logo, they truly believed it was a foreign brand.
"But even if Old Man's Head shoes aren't worth much, why are your shoes selling for 500 yuan!" someone else questioned.
"Because my shoes were genuinely crafted by top Italian shoemakers!" Shen Yuequn said with pride. "Do you know Italy? It's the capital of leather shoes in the world. The top ten most expensive leather shoe brands in the world are all in Italy. To improve China's shoemaking skills and create China's own high-end leather shoe brand, our Jiangnan Leather Factory specifically invited eight of the most skilled shoemakers from Italy. They don't use any machines, they only handcraft shoes, making only one pair a day. But their monthly salary is 5,000 yuan, and that's in US dollars! Do you know what that means? Their monthly salary is 40,000 RMB! Add in all sorts of top-quality raw materials, and the cost of each pair of shoes averages 2,000 yuan!"
"This pair of shoes was made by one of the masters named Kaka. You see the kk mark on these shoes? This is Master Kaka's private mark. I recognized it at a glance!"
Shen Yuequn turned the shoes over and indeed found a hidden kk mark on the sole, which was also machine-stamped.
"These shoes were originally intended by our company for the high-end market, with a price of 5,000 yuan per pair. Unfortunately, the company went bankrupt. These expensive shoes ended up in these blind boxes, it's truly a waste of good materials!"
"I can only price them at 500 yuan. If anyone buys them, they've made a huge profit!!" Shen Yuequn shook his head and continued selling blind boxes. The others around him couldn't help but cast their gazes at the shoes, their eyes full of suspicion.
"Haha, I also got a pair of leather shoes!" Suddenly, someone luckily unboxed a pair of leather shoes.
"Quick, see if your shoe sole has any marks on it!" people around excitedly asked.
"Let me see!" The person quickly looked at the sole, only to find that besides the factory mark 'jn', there were no other marks.
"These are the leather shoes produced by our factory ourselves, they have no marks. Can you wear them? If not, you can leave them with me for consignment, but I suggest you set the price at 50 yuan, it will be easier to sell!" Shen Yuequn said with a smile.
"No, my feet are exactly size 39, I can wear them!" the person said. Seeing that there was indeed no kk mark on the shoes, many people gradually began to believe Shen Yuequn's story.
Of course, expecting them to pay 500 yuan for these shoes was impossible. Only a fool would spend 500 yuan on a pair of leather shoes!
Afterward, three more people wanted to return their shoes. Shen Yuequn had them all consign their shoes. However, none of the shoes could be sold for 500 yuan; they were all consigned at a price of 50 yuan.
When all the blind boxes were cleared, Shen Yuequn returned with an empty cart and four pairs of leather shoes. His wife asked curiously in the cart, "Husband, how come I never knew the factory had eight Italians working there?"
"Nonsense, when have you ever seen a foreigner in our factory?" Shen Yuequn rolled his eyes.
"Then what you said before..."
"These were all made up by the chairman for us to say!" Shen Yuequn said earnestly.
"Ah... then the kk letters..."
"Oh, didn't the company have five sole molding machines? Originally, all these machines were supposed to be printed with the 'jn' mark. But one sole molding machine had a problem. For a few days, all the marks it produced were soft, like kk, kj, jy... there were a total of 8 wrong marks. It should have all been scrapped according to regulations, but the factory manager at the time was reluctant. He said that since it was just the mark on the sole that was wrong, buyers wouldn't care about such a thing, so they just used them!" Shen Yuequn shook his head. It was originally a machine malfunction, but now it had turned into foreign shoemaking masters. It seemed that masters were indeed prone to eccentricities!