The internet café finally opened for business under the name War God Internet Café. The Internet Fee was 3 yuan per hour, while overnight sessions ran from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. the following morning and cost 15 yuan.
This was the standard price for Ordinary People’s internet cafés in Huhai City during this era. Later internet café prices were not comparable.
To attract nearby customers, the internet café charged half the usual Internet Fee during its first three days.
However, Xu Honglei did not introduce an internet café membership system.
An internet café Membership System retained customers by offering lower Internet Fees, but it also reduced profits substantially.
There were no other internet cafés nearby to compete with him yet. He should take advantage of this opportunity and make as much money as possible!
Sure enough, Xu Honglei’s half-price strategy for the first three days attracted a large number of customers at once. Even after the three days had passed, his internet café remained packed.
Although his earlier market research had been rather crude, it was generally accurate. The consumers who came to use the Internet at his internet café were basically migrant workers renting rooms nearby.
Moreover, summer weather and Xu Honglei’s unchanged prices helped the internet café sell large quantities of beverages, instant noodles, ham sausages, and other food items.
Although the internet café was open twenty-four hours a day, overnight customers usually left around eight in the morning. New customers did not begin arriving in noticeable numbers until around nine.
By around ten-thirty or eleven, the internet café was full. When overnight sessions began at ten in the evening, it stayed packed, with more than half the computers occupied throughout the night. Business was exceptionally good.
About a week after opening, once business had stabilized, Xu Honglei made a rough estimate. After deducting electricity costs, each computer generated about 35 yuan in daily gross profit from Internet Fees.
It was summer, and two large standing Air Conditioners stood in the café, driving up the electricity bill.
His internet café had Forty Computers, which generated about 1,400 yuan in daily gross profit from Internet Fees. Including profits from beverages, snacks, ham sausages, instant noodles, and other supplementary food items, his monthly gross profit came to more than fifty thousand yuan.
After deducting business taxes and other fees, along with the two Cashiers’ wages and Five social insurances and one housing fund expenses, he still had more than forty thousand yuan in monthly gross profit, excluding Computer Depreciation and Shop Rent.
Xu Honglei then found the Counter-Shop Owner from whom he had previously bought computers and asked for ten more on credit, promising to settle the account at the end of the month.
Xu Honglei wanted more computers on credit, but he could not be too greedy. Getting ten was already good. If he made an outrageous demand for no reason, he might not even get those ten.
Sure enough, the Counter-Shop Owner considered the matter, then accompanied Xu Honglei to inspect the business at his internet café. After considering it again, he agreed to Xu Honglei’s request.
Xu Honglei could obtain some computers on credit from the Counter-Shop Owner mainly because he knew that the Counter-Shop Owners in the Computer Mall also bought goods from one another on credit.
Whether in this era or Twenty Years Later, buying and selling on credit was standard practice in the Business World. The larger the business, the more credit it used.
After adding ten computers, each additional ten would increase his gross profit by roughly ten thousand yuan, provided business kept up.
If he continued expanding at this pace, his income would increase by ten thousand yuan in the first month, twenty thousand in the second, and thirty thousand in the third.
The additional income from these three months alone would cover the remaining Three Months' Rent owed to Landlady Chen Huiru.
Of course, he could not calculate his accounts too rigidly. He needed some room for maneuver; otherwise, an accident could cause his Capital Chain to collapse.
He must not forget that he still owed fifty thousand yuan on his credit card!
He had to repay at least ten percent of his Credit Card debt each month. Otherwise, his bank Credit Record would be blemished.
However, Xu Honglei also had a plan.
He would use the internet café’s Gross Revenue to repay the Credit Card, then use the Credit Card to pay the electricity bill and buy computers from the Counter-Shop Owner in the Computer Mall.
This would also increase the Credit Card’s transaction records, serving as a way to maintain the card and improving his bank Credit Record.
A good bank Credit Record would make obtaining a Loan easier in the future and might also result in a slightly higher approved limit.
Everything was difficult at the beginning, but Xu Honglei had made a good start and the process had gone smoothly. One reason was The dividends of the era; another was that he had seized the opportunity.
After the internet café opened, Xu Honglei spent most days there, working part-time as the Internet Café Manager, handling miscellaneous matters, and doing his best to meet customer needs.
The two girls did not understand computers. An internet café with Forty to Fifty Units did not need another Internet Café Manager. Since Xu Honglei had nothing else to do, he might as well stay there and oversee things.
These miscellaneous matters should not be underestimated. For an internet café with a shallow Moat, making customers more comfortable was often the key to retaining them.
Moreover, public security in this era was far worse than it would be Twenty Years Later. If someone caused trouble in the shop, the two girls could not handle it.
Besides, they were paid his wages, and as young women, they could not possibly help him deal with such matters.
Having a man keep watch in the shop would be better.
While Xu Honglei stayed at the internet café, he was not idle either. Instead, he sat there writing web novels.
Although Qidian had only just been established that year, it was still small and had not launched a payment model. Xu Honglei could write in advance and save his work in his QQ mailbox and on a USB drive.
Once Qidian began charging readers and Webnovel Authors could make money, he could publish the works and earn some income.
In his previous life, he earned money by writing Web Novels. He began as a part-time writer and later became a full-time one, accumulating more than ten million characters of writing experience.
During this era, the most popular type of novel was Fantasy. In particular, war god-style fantasy webnovels were readers’ favorites.
The clichéd Fantasy Webnovel tropes that would become common Twenty Years Later had not yet gained popularity. Xu Honglei was confident that his Webnovel would become hugely popular once he published it.
He did not dare dream of becoming a platinum master author on Qidian, as that required opportunity. But he was still confident that he could become an ordinary master webnovel author on Qidian.
Well-written Webnovels could be extremely profitable. Even minor Webnovel Authors earned much more than Ordinary People, let alone master authors.
Of course, although the threshold for writing Webnovels was low, making money in this Line of work still required talent. Writers who failed to meet market demand or improve their ability to control the plot would probably earn nothing.
Only around five percent of Webnovel Authors could support themselves by writing Webnovels. The rest were failed authors who created for love rather than money.