Chapter 37: Plan (1)
"Yeah if you want to make your business success, you need to to know what is marketing plan"
"Still, I don't know what is that though."
"Tell me, how is your store operate normally?"
"I can't tell that information carelessly you know."
"Ahh, that's not what I mean. I just need to know how you decide the price and manage to get a lot of customers and become well-known in Capital."
"I see. Our Company sells various kinds of stuff and we get that from our Vendor. They will decide the price and we buy it after we satisfied with the price. After that, we use that price and add an extra as profit and resell them in our store."
"Then there's no rival in Capital?"
"No rival in Althea yet."
"I see, so that's why you guys can decide the price easily."
"What do you mean?"
"If you have a rival business, you need to consider your price too. Because your rival can have some trick to make the customer prefer to come to their store, like lower the price than your store."
"Isn't that mean they will lose their profit?"
"Not quite, there is some way to make the profit even you lower the price."
"How?"
"Let's make an example. You sell fruits the same as your rival at the same price. After around one week, you rival lower the price but you still sell it at a normal price. You will see your rival have more income than you. This because fruit has a period of time and rotten. Before they rot, they will lose their value and if you still sell them with the same price as the fresh one, your customer will be disappointed."
"I see."
"Another example when you lower your price is discount."
"Discount?"
"That's mean you lower the price of some product because of some circumstances. For example when you celebrate your company birthdays, festivals or some event."
"I don't know how will we get the profit from doing that."
"Let's think of yourself as a customer and you come to my store. When you buy 4 apples I give you 1 apple as a bonus during some event. What's your impression?"
"Your store is very generous."
"So would you come again in the future?"
"Maybe, to get the bonus."
"Exactly. Human is a greedy creature and they mostly prioritized profit when they spent their money. They will do everything to get as much as possible with less money. If you give a bonus as bait, would you think they will spend it on your store?"
"Yeah, I see."
"And if your store gives a discount when there a festival, that will make your store fame increase isn't it?"
"I see."
"You won't lose much profit because you lower the price for a while. What you need in business is a continuation. If your customer stopped to come, your business will come to the end."
"So should we do that in the future?"
"You can test it on one of your stores. You don't need to trust me easily."
"But your word sound convincing."
"Thanks."
"But you very smart on this field, are your parents a merchant too?"
"No, I just being told by someone before."
Honestly, I just tell him about a simple marketing plan on Earth though.
"Umm, may I join the conversation too?"
The young lady finally speaking to us. When we continue our journey, she just sitting inside the wagon and stay silent.
"Of course my lady, you seem very interesting with Vin's ideas, isn't it?
"Yeah."
"Thank you. I can tell you various ideas if you want."
"Tell me please!!!"
Yosh, she takes the bait. She is under trial to fix the trouble in the branch store and with my advice, I believe she will pass the trial and get the best result.
"So what do you want to ask my lady?"
"You can call me Sophia."
"Isn't it to rude for me to call your name directly?"
"No, I think this way is better. You are the first kid that talked to me. Usually, I spent my day to study and learning how to become a good merchant."
"I see."
So she is a sheltered girl. She may think of me as a "friend" because our age is the same and she feels more relaxed when she talked with a kid like her.
"I want to develop my parents' business and make more profit than before, but I can't find how to do that. I don't want to copy my parents' effort and need to finds my way."
"So do you know about advertisement Sophia?"
"Advertisement?"
"Simply put, advertisement is you do something to promote your business and make your store get a lot of customers than before."
"I don't know that because our Avalon Merchant Union has full control of commerce in Capital."
"I see. Do you have any ideas in your mind about promoting your store?"
"Maybe we can make store signs with big letters to show our store name."
"Indeed you can do that, but if you want to make some different, then think from different perspectives. Imagine yourself as a customer and what do you expect when you come to a store to buy something."
"If I become a customer?"
"First is your store. Your store needs to be clean. The item placement must neat and well-organized."
"Second is your goods. They have to on their best condition and have a lot of variety so when your customer comes, they will find the item they looking for."
"Third is your employee. Your employee needs to make a pleasant face and always smile to the customer. They must be very polite and very patient. That's the standard expectation of the customer."
Well, I'm not an expert in that field so I just give her my opinion. Even though It was my opinion, I pretty sure most of the people will agree with me.
"Yeah, our store is cleaned every day, our good is good too and the employee is selected before they can work in our store."
"Now when you already met the expectation, you will do an advertisement to increase your store customer."
"You can promote your store via pamphlet."
"What is that?"
"You write about your store in the paper and give it to anyone who has a chance to become a new customer."
"But the paper is expensive."
Yeah in this world, the paper is hard to make and the book is very expensive and exclusive to noble.
"So how about making a drawing art?"
"Why?"
"Humans usually judging something by their appearance. So let's draw your goods with some effect."
"Isn't it mean we deceived the customer?"
"No.Lets make an example. If you want to promote some clothes, you can hire a model. The model must have a good face and perfect body shape to make the clothes looks better. The customer will think 'the clothes make the model better' so they come to buy the clothes to make them look better too."
Like how the model wearing a costume on Earth to promote, I can use that as an example.
"And if you are selling fruit, why don't you spray pure water and make it looks fresh?"
I take one apple in the basket and one water jug from my storage pouch. I polished the apple and spray it with fresh water, then I take another apple and ask Sophia to compare it.
"I see, the apple looks fresh and more enticing."
"You can use simple methods like this to increase your item value."
"Wow Vin, you very smart. I never think about this before you told me."
"You just need to learn more seriously Sophia, and you need experience too when handling business like this."
Almost none of the businessmen so lucky on their first try. Usually, they will fail and learn from their mistakes.
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