Chapter 133: Chapter 119 Old Chen’s Wisdom

Chen An’an changed into a white martial arts practice uniform.

Standing amongst the crowd, she was quite conspicuous, her tiny fists striking with enough force to possibly squeeze a drop of water out of a sponge.

She was using all the strength she could muster.

There were also twenty or so other elementary students in the class, with two sessions every afternoon.

Keep practicing, keep practicing.

After all, it’s essential for girls to have some martial arts skills for self-protection in the future.

Chen Pingsheng also conveniently assigned a small task to Chen Qi—since he obviously couldn’t pick her up every day, this grand task fell to his sister, Chen Qi.

Luckily, she had nothing much to do all day and was easy to boss around.

He himself was looking forward to starting his monthly three days of study next month.

Time flew by, and before they knew it, it was the latter half of July.

After thoroughly upgrading and transforming Tengsheng, Chen Pingsheng also made a series of adjustments at the headquarters.

Firstly, he directly established two independent departments for vegetables and fish/meat.

Additionally, he created a procurement department and a market research department.

Plainly speaking, it was because the fluctuations in vegetable prices were too great, and there was huge room for exploitation in purchasing.

Stores he would open in the future were sure to be bigger and more numerous, so he had to be very wary of this area.

Otherwise, a casual kickback could be worth hundreds of thousands or even millions.

There was no need to worry about fruit, as Old Guo, one of the major shareholders, was always at the wholesale market.

He was intimately familiar with any major fluctuations and could tell if there was anything fishy with a glance at the purchase orders.

Liu Jing, Zhang Tao, and others were also experts in this field.

Vegetables were a different story, though. Apart from finding major suppliers for long-term cooperation, the most crucial aspect was preventing staff in the procurement department from embezzlement or accepting high kickbacks.

He could offer his employees very high salaries, but he had zero tolerance for such behaviors.

As such, he specifically implemented a set of strategies in the company to prevent procurement corruption.

Simple.

Those responsible for bringing in the goods were separate from those responsible for purchasing.

If anyone discovered someone taking kickbacks, or falsifying prices to make a profit on the goods,

all one had to do was report it, and whatever amount was taken, it’s all yours.

Even if an investigation revealed a figure like ten million, Chen Pingsheng would hand it directly to the whistle-blower.

This might not be easy to understand.

In government-structured organizations, it’s simpler: whoever reports superiors or colleagues for taking bribes,

as long as the corruption is proven, whatever amount they took is yours.

You might even take their job position.

With such measures in place, who would dare to reach out carelessly?

If people beside you find out someone has accepted illegal money, don’t expect them to cover for you—they’d likely turn around and report you immediately.

This could be their chance to strike it rich.

To avoid any problems with the procurement sector, he established more than one rule: not only would the informer receive money, but they would also be commended by the company.

After three such commendations, they would be eligible for promotion.

In a word, reporting could lead to promotion and wealth.

He didn’t believe anyone would dare to act corruptly under such a system.

Once he could plug the gaps in the procurement sector, the gross profit from vegetables and meat could be much higher than that from fruit.

Take a fish, for example; bought for 2.5 yuan, it could be sold in the market for 4 yuan per jin.

Without question, it would be an underweight offer, giving you at most eight taels for every jin.

Vegetables are even worse, as it’s normal to double or triple the price.

Unless the procurement price is particularly high.

Typically, the markup is many times over.

No help for it, the loss from spoilage is frighteningly high.

Chen Pingsheng, however, still insisted on the thin-profit, high-volume approach. Seasonal vegetables, the best-sellers, could not have a gross profit margin over 50%.

50% is merely double the procurement price.

For everyday popular fish and meat, the pricing should not exceed a 30% markup.

Priced significantly lower than the market.

He aimed to create a comprehensive fresh supermarket that truly earned the praise of consumers.

To achieve this, he must block any potential massive corruption in the procurement sector.

Ten million invested in the inner city, with half a month’s renovation, plus setting up the shop, he expected to open for business before mid-August.

After finishing up there, he went to Fei Yangyang.

As of now, Fei Yangyang had already invested around forty million in total.

Fifteen stores had opened, with a total investment of thirty million.

An additional ten million was poured into the training academy at Fei Yangyang’s headquarters.

With the traffic support from Tengying, Fei Yangyang became one of the earliest so-called online celebrity stores.

Add to that their prices, which the young people of the inner city could scarcely imagine.

A family of four or five could dine luxuriously for just over one hundred to under two hundred yuan.

In a large establishment with such a nice atmosphere, no less.

Once word of mouth took effect, business naturally boomed.

Initially, it seemed they would barely make money due to the low pricing combined with high rent and labor costs.

Unexpectedly, being so popular enabled them to profit every month.

Fifteen stores together could make about five to six hundred thousand yuan a month.

Far less than what a single Water Cloud Space store could make.

Yet Chen Pingsheng was quite satisfied, so he even raised the wages of the service staff again.

Especially for the head chefs of the various stores, they received a monthly increase of three thousand on top of an already high salary.

Others received raises of five hundred to a thousand yuan.

Honestly, his play this time was a capital game. Since he wasn’t earning through profits, he decided to give all the profits to the employees who contributed to it.

But don’t ever think Gao Hu wasn’t making money.

Firstly, his personal annual salary was one million eight hundred thousand.

Secondly, his 15% original shareholding, if valued at the current five hundred million, was seventy-five million.

That’s the nature of the capital game. Unless you can’t make it to the very end, you’re definitely set to become a billionaire in one go.

Something he could never achieve by running hotpot restaurants in Sha City for his entire life.