Chapter 45: Chapter 45: A Perfect Combination
Lü Weibin got an update on the strawberry greenhouses.
He then drove the three-wheeler back, taking the four baskets of Jasmine Strawberries to the packing house.
As soon as he returned, he saw Xiaoli, the delivery driver, coming back on an electric three-wheeler.
"Xiaoli, you’re just in time. Take the packaged strawberries to the shop on Erma Road."
"Oh, okay. Let me catch my breath first. I just hauled a load of canned goods from the cannery to the supermarkets in the city."
Lü Weibin offered him a cigarette, but Xiaoli, who was normally a heavy smoker, shook his head vigorously. "I quit!"
"You quit? Impressive!"
"Don’t ask. I took my dad to the hospital for a check-up the day before yesterday. It’s late-stage lung cancer!" Xiaoli’s face was a mask of lingering fear and worry.
"Late-stage lung cancer?" GULP... Lü Weibin’s palms began to sweat. Jiang Miao had warned him to stop smoking, telling him how easily it could lead to lung cancer. ’With a wife and several young kids at home depending on me...’ he thought, ’maybe I should quit too.’
After a short break, Xiaoli grabbed a handcart and went to the temporary cold storage to retrieve the inventory—over three hundred boxes of strawberries.
After signing off with the inventory clerk, he wheeled the cart back to his three-wheeler.
"Manager Lü? You’re still here?"
"Huh? I just spaced out for a moment."
Lü Weibin hurried over to help Xiaoli load the boxes.
"Thanks, Manager Lü."
"Don’t mention it. I’m thinking of quitting too. How about we keep each other accountable?"
Xiaoli glanced at Lü Weibin. Seeing the serious look in his eyes, he nodded. "Sounds good."
A few moments later, all three hundred-odd boxes of strawberries were loaded, and Xiaoli drove off on his three-wheeler.
「About an hour later.」
Xiaoli’s three-wheeler finally broke free from the army of electric vehicles on Erma Road, squeezing through to the front of a shop.
The shop’s sign read: Hailufeng Company Direct-Owned Store.
Two smaller signs flanked the main one, reading "Eel Restaurant" and "Strawberry Garden."
He parked the three-wheeler in front of the Strawberry Garden, engaged the handbrake, and took the delivery order to the front counter. "Meiya, here’s the order. I need a signature."
"One second." Meiya took the order, walked over to the cargo bed of the three-wheeler, and counted the large boxes. There were nine in total. After confirming all the seals were intact, she signed the form.
She and Xiaoli started carrying in the boxes, moving two of them.
Just then, a customer came up to pay, so she had to hurry back to the register.
The customer was a pretty, long-haired young mother, holding a little girl in her arms.
"Can I use this coupon here?"
Meiya nodded. "You can."
"Five boxes come to 58. The coupon takes off 10, so your total is 48."
The payment notification chimed instantly.
DING DONG! Payment of 48 yuan received!
"Thank you! I’ll bag these up for you."
By the time Meiya finished with the customer, Xiaoli had already brought in the rest of the boxes.
Xiaoli checked his phone. Seeing it was already past 11:40, he took a selfie in front of the shop and sent it to the attendance department’s group chat on WeChat.
He then properly parked the three-wheeler and went straight into the Eel Restaurant to order an eel-over-rice set.
As a company employee, he could pay upfront at the Eel Restaurant and get reimbursed by the finance department at the end of the month. This was part of the meal allowance for fieldwork. However, the full allowance was limited to company-owned restaurants; if he ate elsewhere while on duty, he could only be reimbursed 15 yuan per meal.
Furthermore, meals at company restaurants had to be dine-in only, with no takeout and no wasting food. The upside was that it was essentially all-you-can-eat. No matter how much he consumed in one sitting, the finance department would reimburse the full cost.
Xiaoli went up to the employees’ dining room on the second floor.
A few moments later, a large portion of eel-over-rice was brought to his table.
At the next table were an inventory clerk and a sales associate from the Hailufeng Gold Shop, who were also there for lunch.
Xiaoli didn’t know them well, so he just gave a nod and then dug into his food.
The kabayaki eel was grilled until slightly charred, drizzled with a secret sauce, and garnished with a pinch of chopped scallions. It sat on a bed of plump, fragrant Wuchang Rice, accompanied by a side of boiled vegetables—snow peas, celery, and spinach—and a bowl of winter melon and pork rib soup.
The set meal cost 30 yuan.
The price was a bit steep for the Shanmei District but cheap compared to a dedicated Japanese restaurant. And for a commercial, trendy area like Erma Road, 30 yuan for an eel-over-rice set was actually a pretty good deal.
The sales associate from the next table sighed as she ate. "This eel rice is delicious, but you get tired of it eating it every day."
"We’re lucky to have something this good to eat," the inventory clerk replied, taking a sip of his winter melon and pork rib soup.
Xiaoli paused his chopsticks, smiled at them, and shared a bit of company scuttlebutt. "If you want something different, you’ll probably have to wait a bit longer. The company commissary is experimenting with char siu and beggar’s chicken. I’ve been going for taste tests the past few days. I bet once they get the recipes right, they’ll have the Eel Restaurant start serving char siu rice and beggar’s chicken."
"Oh, really? That would be fantastic!" The sales associate’s face lit up.
A few minutes later, Meiya also came up for her lunch break.
Meanwhile, downstairs, the Eel Restaurant and the Strawberry Garden were getting incredibly busy.
Lunchtime and evenings were peak hours for foot traffic on Erma Road. It wasn’t just locals who came to spend money; many out-of-town tourists also frequented the area to "check in" at the trendy spots.
A group of tourists from Yangcheng arrived, apparently drawn by a video they had seen online.
"Do you have a table?"
"There’s still room on the second floor."
The woman, carrying a handbag, turned to her husband. "Honey, why don’t you go upstairs and order? I want to buy some strawberries to try."
"Alright! Don’t take too long."
The woman walked from the Eel Restaurant’s ground-floor lobby straight through a side door into the Strawberry Garden; the two stores were connected internally.
The Strawberry Garden’s setup was simple: just two rows of refrigerated display cases, a few extra refrigerators, and a checkout counter.
The display cases were filled with boxes of strawberries.
"Can I try a sample?"
Xiao Jing, who was covering Meiya’s shift, took out a box of strawberries. "Of course. These are our Vanilla Strawberries."
As she spoke, she washed a strawberry and cut it into four pieces.
At that moment, several other customers ambled over.
"Do you only sell strawberries in this shop?"
Xiao Jing replied with a smile, "These strawberries are from our company’s own farm. Please, everyone, try some."
The female tourist picked up a piece of the Vanilla Strawberry with a toothpick. She could smell its rich aroma before it even reached her lips. She took a bite. "It’s so sweet! Fragrant and sweet, and it really does have a hint of vanilla flavor."
By now, Xiao Jing had already sliced up the other two varieties. "This is our Cheese Strawberry, and this is our Jasmine Strawberry. Feel free to try them all."
"Can you give us a discount?"
Xiao Jing could only smile and shake her head. "I’m sorry, the prices are set by the company. We do have a special offer, though. You can take a look."
"Spend 100, get 20 off?"
"I have a coupon from the eel restaurant next door. Can I use it here?"
"Yes, you can."
"Can I combine the coupon with the special offer?"
"You can."
One customer quickly selected ten boxes of strawberries. "I’ll take these!"
"Just a moment." Xiao Jing quickly rang up the purchase, accepted the coupon, printed the receipt, and bagged the strawberries.
"Thank you for your purchase. Since you spent over 100 yuan, here’s a complimentary coupon for the Eel Restaurant. It’s good for a ten-yuan discount."
Through this method of cross-promotion, customers who bought strawberries at the Strawberry Garden were incentivized to eat at the Eel Restaurant, and customers who ate at the Eel Restaurant were encouraged to buy strawberries at the Strawberry Garden.
The appeal of a small bargain is a near-universal human trait.
This was one of the ingenious tactics the marketing department had devised for its brick-and-mortar stores.
The marketing strategy was to not give out coupons for the current store, but for a different one. Since the two stores sold different products, customers were likely to make a second, separate purchase just to take advantage of that small discount.
Thanks to this strategy, even though the direct-owned store had only been open for a week, its daily revenue had already reached thirty to forty thousand yuan.
