Reborn in 1999: Starting as a black marketeer

From the initial preparations to the official opening of the company, and then to the first batch of goods selling out, it took nearly three months.

I earned a total of about 140 million RMB, which doesn't seem like much.

Of course, the speed at which you make money will increase as the snowball starts rolling and the company grows larger.

Wang Feiyang estimates that the second batch of goods, worth 700,000 RMB, will last for at most a month and a half, which means that he will have to place another order in a month at most.

And if we place another order, the quantity will double again!

If this continues, it might not take more than six months for my brand's chain store plan to officially begin implementation.

By then, he would have accumulated enough capital and his team would be well-integrated. The number of end customers would not be important, because Wang Feiyang planned to operate directly-owned stores, meaning the company would open its own stores!

While opening up to franchisees has many advantages, such as rapidly expanding the number of outlets in the early stages and reducing company operating costs, true giants like ZARA and Uniqlo follow a direct-sales model.

Only by firmly controlling the sales network can the company quickly receive market feedback, make policy adjustments, and flexibly allocate goods.

Of course, the biggest advantage of operating your own direct sales business is the higher profit margin...

Take Wang Feiyang's company's current Levi's counterfeit products as an example. The cost is about 200 rubles per piece, the wholesale price to end customers is 600 rubles per piece, and the retail price is 1000 rubles per piece.

So the company currently earns 400 rubles per item, but if the company opens its own stores for retail, it would earn 800 rubles per item, doubling its profits!

This is the biggest advantage of operating your own directly-owned stores...

…………

Recently, Wang Feiyang has been working with Anna to prepare for the establishment of a brand chain company. Anna is very experienced in this area, after all, her previous company was a chain company. Of course, the scale cannot be compared with giants like ZARA and Uniqlo, but a lot of experience can be learned from her.

"Boss, if we're going to build our own brand chain, then a design team will be extremely important. After all, we won't be able to sell counterfeit designer brands in our store anymore, and we'd better avoid even copying their designs to avoid future complications. After all, the chaos in Russia can't go on forever; things will eventually return to order, and those big brands will re-enter Russia..." Anna earnestly advised.

It's true that designers are the soul of branded clothing companies. Even fast fashion chains like ZARA and Uniqlo maintain large teams of designers.

Of course, Uniqlo's designers are quite "serious" and honestly design their own styles.

The work done by ZARA's design team is a bit outrageous. They travel between major fashion weeks in Paris, Milan, and New York every day, attend new product launches of various brands, and then write down the designer styles they like. After returning home, they make slight modifications to certain details, and that becomes ZARA's style.

The most outrageous thing is that because ZARA has its own highly efficient production line, the cycle from design to production to terminal sales of a new product can be compressed to within one month, while the cycle for big brands usually takes three to six months.

Therefore, when ZARA copies the new styles of those big brands, ZARA stores will start stocking and selling them a month later. By the time those big brands' new styles are officially launched, ZARA may have already been selling the same styles for several months!

Who could tolerate this? As a result, ZARA is the clothing company with the most lawsuits, constantly embroiled in legal battles with other brands...

Wang Feiyang nodded and asked, "The design team is indeed important, but we need to determine the brand positioning first. Should we go for a fashion-forward approach like ZARA or a home-oriented, comfortable approach like Uniqlo? After careful consideration, I believe that if we can combine ZARA's fashion sense with Uniqlo's quality, taking the best of both, then our brand can go further in the future. Therefore, we need to consider this aspect when selecting designers. Do you have any good recommendations?"

In 2000, both Uniqlo and ZARA had been established for over twenty years and had already grown to a considerable size. ZARA's stores were basically all over Europe and America, while Uniqlo was only developing in Japan, but it already had about four hundred directly operated stores.

Anna was very familiar with ZARA, but not with Uniqlo. However, seeing Wang Feiyang list the two brands together, she also made a mental note of this brand and prepared to learn more about it.

"Okay, boss, I'll contact some designers and people with brand management experience when I get back and ask them for advice. If I find any outstanding candidates, I'll recommend them to you," Anna said earnestly, without pretending to know what she didn't.

Anna considers herself quite experienced in sales management, but she lacks experience in establishing a brand from scratch and accurately positioning and designing it.

Wang Feiyang nodded in agreement with Anna's suggestion. This matter couldn't be rushed; they had to be absolutely certain before taking action.

Anyway, I still have a long way to go in terms of funds. It will take some time to accumulate them. After all, once you start a brand chain, you need to spend a lot of money on advertising, hiring big-name celebrities as spokespeople, etc., which all require a lot of money.

…………

In the afternoon, Wang Feiyang was working in his office when Anna knocked on the door and came in. "Boss, two people are here to see you. They are Chinese."

Wang Feiyang was a little puzzled. Who would come to the company to find him directly without calling in advance? Could it be a freight forwarder or a money exchange company coming to promote their business?

"Let them in," Wang Feiyang said casually without giving it much thought.

When Anna led the people in, they were indeed two Chinese people. The one in front looked to be about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with a fair complexion and wearing glasses. He looked like a refined young man.

Following behind him was a young man in his early twenties, over 1.8 meters tall, with a burly build and a fierce-looking face that looked intimidating.

"Hello, you are..." Wang Feiyang stood up and greeted them.

The refined-looking young man put on a smile. "You must be Mr. Wang. We've come here today to discuss something with you."

Instead of introducing himself, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a slip of paper, and showed it to Wang Feiyang.

Wang Feiyang was stunned when he saw it, because the note was the IOU he had written to Guo Juan.

But how did this IOU end up in this person's hands, and why are they coming to me with this IOU...?