Chapter 72 - Shop Acquired (1/2)
”Uncle Weng, have you ever thought about why you don't have many customers?”
”Which store owner doesn't when they have a bad day. I've thought about it, but I don't know what more to improve. I've tried to improve the quality of my service and meat, but it doesn't seem to help at all.”
”That's right. I didn't mean to disrespect you, Uncle Weng but, I've notice multiple times I've been here you don't really have many customers at all. Most of your customers seem to be in the middle class. The not really rich kind but have a house car so they're not considered poor either.”
”Not only this but you have a great location for your shop, it's not in the center of the Feng Zhong market but it's not too far away either. You should have thousands of people walking past your shop daily, but yet few stops to buy meat.”
Weng Ping didn't know where Wang Ming wanted to go with his explanation, but he kept his ears open as it seemed like Wang Ming was coming to the crux of the problem.
”One of your problems is that you've set up the shop totally wrong. You need to realize this Uncle Weng, you need to have a specific target audience. What you've tried is shove a piece of pie, which was way too big for you down your throat. You have almost everything here, contacts to get literally any piece of meat. But then you get none rich customers that can buy these kinds of meats. The rich people don't like to associate with people they think is below them so they will never visit your shop.”
What Wang Ming said made sense, but Weng Ping still didn't know what Wang Ming's solution to this is.
”But this is only one of your problems, I think how you're business operates, is flawed it's just too outdated. We need to think about fresh ways to garner customers. You can sell your meat to other restaurants, then try to become the sole dealer for any big restaurant in Liaoling city. Another fresh idea I have is for the customer to choose a cut from your meat section, then we cook it for them directly there. We need to appeal to the rich people in Liaoling city as we can never compete with supermarket.”
”That's why I think your shop has so much potential, Uncle Weng. You have a great location for your shop, but you keep appealing to the wrong people. But I also want to thank you for it, as if you hadn't appealed to me, I wouldn't have been able to get to this position as fast as I did.”
Weng Ping went into deep thought to think about what Wang Ming had said. Though for Wang Ming he felt nervous, he had poured his heart out, he really hoped that Weng Ping would say yes. Wang Ming knows that the one thing people in Feng Zhong market don't lack its money. If he could just get those customers to come to Weng Ping's shop then they would hit the jackpot. They would most likely earn 10 times the amount from a rich customer than the amount they earn from a Weng Ping's normal customers.
”I understand what your telling me Wang Ming and you're right. But I rose from humble beginnings I can't and won't discriminate against any person who comes into my shop.”
”No, I don't want you to discriminate against anybody. But I mean you should focus more on products that attracts the richer clients. F. example your Kobe is a good cut, but if you can get the A5 Kobe, or even better A5 Kobe ribeye, we can use that to rope them in.”
Weng Ping felt satisfied with Wang Ming's explanation, even though he didn't have a concrete plan. The most important thing was that they had both found the direction now they only needed to uncover the road.