21
First Battle Victory
Returning home, the three brothers went directly to Qi Lei’s house. Upon entering, they saw their three fathers watching a soccer match—France versus Paraguay.
Seeing the three boys returning only now, Tang Chenggang didn’t forget to remind Tang Yi, “You little brat! You only get that thousand for two months—not a cent more! You better be careful and don’t squander it all!”
Under normal circumstances, Tang Yi would have thrown a tantrum, begging his father for mercy.
But now? Hah!!
Tang Xiaoyi lifted his chin arrogantly. “Do whatever you want!”
After saying that, he pushed Qi Lei and Wu Ning into Qi Lei’s room.
Tang Chenggang was left dumbfounded, glancing first at Wu’s Father, then at Qi’s Father.
“Hey! That little bastard’s gotten bold.” He shouted toward the room, “Aren’t you watching the game?”
But Qi Lei poked his head out from the room, glanced at the TV for a few moments, and finally tossed out a remark, “Paraguay has no future. France has this one in the bag.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
The three fathers were speechless. Was France really that solid? Not necessarily, right?
As soon as Tang Yi entered the room, he locked the door. Wu Ning, meanwhile, drew the curtains tightly shut.
Then, both of them stared wide-eyed at Qi Lei. “Hurry! Take it all out!”
Qi Lei had actually been itching to do so for a while. Setting up a stall might not have been a big deal to him, but being reborn at sixteen—a different starting point in life—held an extraordinary allure.
He, too, wanted to see what kind of results he could achieve in this timeline.
He pulled out a plastic bag he had been clutching to his chest and dumped its contents onto the bed. A huge pile, impressively vast.
Tang Xiaoyi and Wu Xiaoning’s eyes gleamed with greed.
It was all money—fives, tens, ones, and twos, even two fifty-yuan bills!
“Count it! Let’s count it all!”
Tang Xiaoyi rubbed his hands together and pounced on the pile. The three brothers sat on the bed and began counting the money.
The scene was like three little money-grubbers.
They were so excited it bordered on obscene—counting while licking their lips.
Finally, after counting all the money three times, the three brothers added up their respective totals to determine the night’s revenue.
“How much?”
Tang Xiaoyi almost growled, both excited and afraid to speak too loudly, worried their fathers might hear. He stared impatiently at Wu Ning.
Wu Ning, holding a pen and notebook, looked at the sum they had calculated and was stunned.
“99999”
“927!!”
“How much!?”
Tang Yi couldn’t help but shout, then immediately glanced fearfully at the door. “Is that for real!?”
Wu Xiaojian looked pained. “It should be right! But this…” He turned to Qi Lei. “But this isn’t what I estimated!”
After all, Wu Ning came from an “accountant family,” so keeping track of the books naturally fell to him, and he took it seriously.
While selling and even when they were at Qi Lei’s grandfather’s place, he had been silently calculating.
Although they had sold a lot that night—over 300 pairs of socks, about a third of their stock—they had to remember the three of them were in a bet, and Qi Lei had been selling them cheap.
With 300 pairs of socks, priced at five yuan for three pairs or five yuan for two pairs, the revenue should have been around 600 yuan.
That number alone had already shocked Wu Ning.
Based on earlier estimates, each pair of socks only had a gross profit of two or three mao, so 300 pairs would only yield sixty to seventy yuan in profit.
Wu Ning had to admit, even that income was quite substantial, far exceeding his expectations.
However, he hadn’t expected the actual revenue to differ so drastically from his estimate.
Where did that extra three hundred yuan come from?
“927?!” Tang Yi’s jaw dropped. “Holy cow! How is it so much?”
Qi Lei was also silently calculating in his mind and finally concluded, “It’s about what I expected!”
“What do you mean?” Wu Ning was puzzled. “It’s more! And not just a little more!”
Qi Lei said, “You forgot to account for those high-end brands.”
“Oh?” Wu Ning was taken aback—he really hadn’t paid much attention to that.
Because whether to sell or not was entirely up to Qi Lei; the two of them weren’t skilled enough to handle it.
Qi Lei explained, “Guess how many branded items we sold tonight?”
The two shook their heads. “No idea.”
Qi Lei said, “A total of 13 pairs!”
“How many?!” they instinctively asked again. “13 pairs? That can’t be true!”
Their first reaction was disbelief.
Impossible. The “regular vendors” couldn’t even sell one pair a day, and you sold 13 pairs in one night? And Qi Lei’s prices were even higher than theirs.
“It’s true,” Qi Lei said without joking. “Not only did we sell 13 pairs, but there was almost no haggling over the prices. In other words, the asking price was the final price.”
“…”
“…”
The two brothers were dumbfounded, completely unable to understand how this had happened.
Only Qi Lei could explain the mystery behind it.
Although it was just a small sock stall, the knowledge behind it was anything but shallow.
It involved marketing tactics that would later be overused by supermarkets and e-commerce platforms, as well as little tricks from consumer psychology.
The five varieties of over 1,000 pairs of ordinary socks were never the main source of profit.
The reason they were priced so low—so low that there was no profit to be made—was to attract foot traffic.
And the effect? It was obvious.
Other sock stalls, no matter how professional or skilled, how many could they sell? At most, a dozen or twenty pairs in one night.
If they made one or two yuan per pair, how much could they really earn?
But at Qi Lei’s stall, over 300 pairs were sold, not to mention the attention drawn by the “crowd,” “low prices,” and “high-end products,” even if some didn’t end up buying ordinary socks.
Over 300 pairs meant nearly 200 customers.
Of course, not all of these customers had the ability or need to purchase high-end brands, and some might have noticed that the high-end products weren’t cheaper than elsewhere and gone to buy from other stalls.
However, even if only a small fraction of ordinary customers converted into elite customers, shifting their attention to high-end brand socks and making a purchase, the goal was achieved.
It’s worth noting that Qi Lei didn’t discount the high-end brands at all.
He bought them at the lowest cost and sold them at the highest price, even above market rates.
Because the five-yuan-for-three-pairs ordinary socks created a psychological suggestion: this stall is cheap, and this stall doesn’t lower prices.
As a result, even the high-end socks were bought without haggling.
In this era, there were plenty of budget-conscious and thrifty customers, but there were also many who didn’t care about money and didn’t ask about prices.
The profit margin in between was staggering.
The cost of ordinary socks was between 1 and 2 yuan per pair, while high-end socks cost 6 to 8 yuan per pair. The most expensive silk stockings cost over ten yuan per pair.
On top of that, he marked them up by about ten yuan, achieving a profit margin of over 100%.
Although they only sold 13 pairs, that was already over ten times better than Auntie next door who couldn’t even sell one pair a day!
Just these 13 pairs of premium socks alone generated two to three hundred yuan in sales, with profits reaching over a hundred yuan.
Combined with the nearly sixty to seventy yuan profit from regular socks, the three brothers had achieved an initial victory, earning two hundred yuan in just one evening.
As for why they only stocked five varieties of regular socks instead of carrying all types to attract more customers…
The reasoning was actually quite simple. Too many low-priced options would easily overwhelm customers with choices while also more readily satisfying their needs.
Once all needs were met, who would still look at premium items? Who would still buy high-end products?
So, although they only carried five basic varieties, there was strategy behind it.
“Two hundred yuan…”
At this moment, Tang Xiaoyi sat on the bed, completely stunned. “We earned two hundred yuan in just one night!”
Although Tang Xiaoyi was someone who had seen the world, and under Old Tang’s influence two hundred yuan wasn’t considered much…
In Shangbei, there were plenty of people earning several thousand or even over ten thousand yuan monthly – nothing particularly remarkable.
But earning two hundred yuan himself? That was completely different!
This wasn’t just exceeding expectations anymore – it was completely unbelievable.
“Six thousand yuan a month? Twelve thousand for the whole summer vacation? Am I just too awesome?”
Wu Xiaojian also felt like he was dreaming. He wasn’t exactly an inexperienced kid either.
But earning six thousand yuan a month? Even Wu Lianshan couldn’t catch up with that!
“Damn, so Old Wu isn’t all that after all! He’s not even as good as me!”
“Achoo!!” Next door, Wu Lianshan sneezed loudly.
“Who’s talking about me?”
…