Chapter 212: Chapter 212: Take Mom and Dad out for a spin
Half a month after opening, by the end of the fourth lunar month, although there were some ups and downs along the way, the sales of all the stores had finally stabilized. The store in the city centre was still the highest, with an average daily sales of about 3,000 yuan per store, while the other three stores had an average daily sales of more than 800 yuan. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
The one opposite the school is unusual in that it usually sells for around 800 yuan, but on the weekend, sales surge by more than 50%, and sometimes even double. Naturally, this is thanks to Feng Yiping.
In that store, a special counter has been set aside to display these gadgets for students only, such as exquisite electronic calculators, chic drawing tools, Disney stationery, various exquisite notebooks, cards, etc. In short, they are all fashionable and novel gadgets. Some of these products are imported directly from Hong Kong, and he has used a lot of connections to get them.
He usually volunteers as a publicity ambassador, bringing these things to school every other day, and they are never the same twice. When people ask where he buys them, he doesn't care, he just says, 'The convenience store across the street.'
Yizhong has very strict management, and most of the time, you can only wear school uniforms. In order to stand out and be different, everyone has put a lot of effort into stationery.
Those who enter No. 1 Middle School are either students with good grades or self-funded students from well-off families. Their spending power is incomparable to that of Feng Yiping's classmates from junior high school. In addition, there are more than 2,000 students in No. 1 Middle School. After the weekend holiday and before the end of the holiday, only a very small number of them go shopping, so it is quite easy to increase sales by half.
Inspired by Feng Yiping, Zhou Xinyu decided to expand this counter to several other stores and use it as a strategy to attract customers. Nowadays, children are the little emperors of the family, and their parents are willing to spend money on them. It is inevitable that they will buy a trinket and a few snacks after they come in. If this happens a few times, their parents may also become regular customers in the store.
However, it is not easy to make this feature a success. Compared to comprehensive varieties, it is definitely not as good as those specialised stationery stores. Therefore, their strategy is to seek novelty and change, organising a new batch of goods every month to attract students and then drive parents.
Feng Yiping thinks this is not bad. Just like the convenience store under Li Chao'en, it is selling health and beauty as its selling point. Jia can also use novelty stationery as a selling point.
The system developed by Zhitong Company had encountered a few minor problems during this period. The most serious one was a delay in data transmission, which caused problems when the data was aggregated in the background after the store closed for the day.
Hong Haoran and his three subordinates spent half an hour checking it out and found that there was a small loophole in the program of one of the interfaces. They spent another hour or so fixing it and repeatedly checking the other interfaces to finally ensure that similar faults were all eliminated.
This was not enough. In order to ensure the accuracy of the data this time, Hong Haoran and his subordinates worked overtime until midnight, manually summarising the sales data saved on the terminals of each store that day, and then compared it with the data summarised by the system. They were relieved when they found that there was no difference.
With the first five stores as a foundation, Zhou Xinyu was already preparing to open other branches while everyone was still in the city, first consolidating the territory in the city. Feng Yiping, of course, had no objection to this.
Now there was no shortage of anything, including the most important staff. There were twenty in the first batch, and in fact, two people could replace each other in each store. For the rest, just open four or five more stores and there would be enough staff.
However, this work is repetitive, and he doesn't need to worry about it all the time, so he decides to take advantage of the beautiful spring weather and take a half-day Saturday morning off to spend some time with his family.
He remembers that for a long time after starting work, he would let his elderly parents stay in Fengjiachong, which hadn't changed much since his childhood. Because of work, he would only go back twice a year at most, and when he did, he would always visit relatives and see his classmates. In fact, he didn't really spend much time with his parents.
Later, when he started his own business, sometimes when he was busy with work, or when he had not finished dealing with things before the New Year, he was unable to go home even on New Year's Eve for two consecutive years.
On New Year's Eve, watching the sentimental programmes on the Spring Festival Gala, thinking about the two elderly people at home celebrating the New Year alone and feeling particularly guilty, listening to songs like 'Where Has the Time Gone?', he could not help but feel tears welling up in his eyes, thinking that in the future he must make more time to spend with his parents, who had grown old in just one year.
But after the New Year, once the busyness starts, these once-strong thoughts are once again pushed to the back of my mind. There is no way around it, there is some spare time, but even squeezing out two consecutive days has become a luxury, and naturally I can't go back to my hometown.
So I can only comfort myself with the words 'filial piety is the foremost of all good deeds, judging by one's heart rather than one's actions'. I think to myself, once I have made further progress at work and taken my business to the next level next year, I will definitely find more time to go back and spend time with my parents properly, or bring them to be with me...
And so year after year, I make the same promise, only to regret it again and again. My parents always say, 'You be busy, be well!' And then when I go back one day, I realise that my parents have aged so much that I can hardly recognise them...
This time, Feng Yiping didn't want to let this happen again. When they were young, their parents took them out to play, and now, while they can still walk, they must take them out more often.
Feng Yiping's suggestion was supported by Feng Yuxuan. Like her parents, she can only relax for a few days at the end of the year, when the shops are closed. As for usual days, she can only spare a few hours to go shopping with her sister-in-law.
My parents were also a little tempted, but when they heard that they would be going out for a day or two and would have to stay overnight, they were a little worried about the business at home. 'Why don't you go, I'll stay home and look after things,' said Mei Qiuping.
'Mom, the store now uses a system, and whether you're there or not, the staff will still do their jobs well, so what's there to worry about? As for Dad's daily shopping, just ask the people to deliver directly to the store these two days, and with all the years of old relationships, they should be able to meet this request.'
Mom and Dad were still a little hesitant, and they were always uneasy about leaving the business unattended for a day or two. 'Mom, just think of it as accompanying Grandpa on a trip. How long can Grandpa live in the province for a year? These days he has been helping out at the store, and you haven't spent a day out with him in so many days, have you?'
This reason finally convinced Mom and Dad. "Okay then," they said, looking at each other. They were also very pleased that their son could be so filial.
As it turned out, once the decision was made, the group quickly grew. Of course, Xiaomei's family wanted to go, Cai Lei and his friends wanted to join the fun, and Zhou Xinyu and Gao Zhiyi also wanted to go for a spring outing together. So, in the end, a convoy of five cars was formed, driving in a grand procession towards a Taoist shrine hundreds of kilometres away.
Cai Lei knew the roads well and was still driving a borrowed Santana at the front, with three vans in the middle, Feng Yiping at the back, Grandpa sitting in the passenger seat, and Mum, his sister-in-law and Hui Hui in the back. Everyone was very excited.
Halfway there, the group stopped for lunch in an ancient city with relatively well-preserved city walls. Grandpa, Mum, Dad, my sister and I were seeing the legendary city walls for the first time and couldn't wait to climb up. Like little children, we walked back and forth on top, touching the weathered bricks from time to time and feeling a sense of nostalgia.
We stopped here for two hours, and when we arrived at our destination, it was already dark. We found a hotel at the foot of the mountain. Well, this was also the first time Grandpa, Mum and Dad stayed in a hotel, and it was a hotel with stars. It was also the first time we ate in a hotel restaurant.
The next day, everyone got up early to go hiking. Feng Yiping's plan was to go to the top of the Golden Summit while it was still early in the morning and there were not many people, so that everyone could experience the feeling of being on top of the world and find a good angle for photos. Afterwards, they would come back down and visit each place.
However, after seeing the magnificent Taoist palaces on both sides of the stone steps, which have been preserved since the Ming and Qing dynasties, Grandpa, Mum and Dad could not take their eyes off them and could not move. There was nothing Feng Yiping could do but accompany them as they looked up at each one.
All the way up, they kept saying 'tsk, tsk' – such big pillars, such high roofs, such big statues of gods...
When they saw the familiar immortals being worshipped in those grand halls, Grandpa would always tell Feng Yiping the legends of the immortals, what this one was in charge of and what that one was in charge of.
So it was that when they finally reached the top of the golden roof, it was already afternoon. They watched Grandpa, Mum and Dad standing by the railings overlooking the mountains below, and then they followed a crowd of people energetically to the golden temple at the top of the mountain, where they squeezed in to touch the walls, then queued up to take photos in what they thought were the best positions.
Seeing this scene, Feng Yiping, who was hungry, was very satisfied. Thanks to the heavens, this time, he was not only able to bury his head in his work and hurry along, but also had the leisure to look up at the sky and spend time with his family, taking in the scenery along the way.