May 30th, Wednesday.

At Fuhui Capital.

Li Shi was pondering matters regarding Starhawk Fitness.

He had already spoken with Chang You from Outu Technology, and they hit it off immediately, believing they could develop deep cooperation on this project.

For Chang You, although Guo Licheng’s Tuoguan Fitness was his primary cooperation target, Tuoguan Fitness had limited capacity and couldn’t accommodate so many smart fitness clothing racks.

Previously, when it wasn’t certain whether the smart fitness clothing racks could be profitable, the contract manufacturers couldn’t invest in too many production lines.

But now that they were making money and operating at full capacity, monthly production had reached nearly ten thousand units. If they were willing to invest in opening new production lines, reaching twenty thousand units or even more wouldn’t be difficult.

And each Tuoguan Fitness center only needed about ten smart fitness clothing racks.

After all, fitness centers had limited space and needed to reserve ample room for the strength area, other specialized equipment, cardio machines like treadmills and ellipticals, as well as yoga rooms, group exercise studios, and so on. None of these could be eliminated.

And ten devices per Tuoguan Fitness center was completely insufficient to absorb the production capacity of smart fitness clothing racks.

It wasn’t possible for Tuoguan Fitness to open a hundred new stores every month, was it?

Therefore, this business would inevitably need to be done with other fitness centers as well.

Chang You and Guo Licheng weren’t worried that this would affect Tuoguan Fitness’s business, because its core competitiveness didn’t lie in this.

Having smart fitness clothing racks enter various fitness centers would not only bring more player groups and income to “Fitness Battle,” but would also serve as living advertisements for Tenda Group and Outu Technology. Once widely distributed, there would be extremely promising long-term returns in the future.

So Chang You was also interested in testing the waters with Starhawk Fitness to see whether smart fitness clothing racks would be popular in ordinary fitness centers, thereby initiating large-scale procurement business with major chain fitness centers.

Once this path was proven viable, those large chain fitness centers with at least hundreds of locations nationwide would purchase a staggering number of smart fitness clothing racks.

Placing smart fitness clothing racks in these chain fitness centers would attract their members to try and experience them, and some of these people would choose to buy one for their homes, greatly expanding the customer base.

In other words, cooperating with chain fitness centers was actually a process of business expansion and advertising, which would be much more effective than simply promoting online.

For Li Shi, Starhawk Fitness was clearly another typical case of getting a free ride. If this succeeded, he would not only benefit from Tenda but also take away some business from those large chain fitness centers. Once Starhawk Fitness developed, his investment would certainly yield extremely handsome returns!

For the first batch of over a hundred smart fitness clothing racks, Chang You decided to supply them directly from the next batch of in-stock products.

He also wanted to see as soon as possible whether smart fitness clothing racks could succeed in traditional fitness centers.

Recently, Starhawk Fitness had begun adjusting the layouts at various locations and informing their members through flyers, advertising boards, and other means. At the earliest, once this batch of smart fitness clothing racks arrived over the weekend, they could be opened for the trial experience.

And once this model became highly popular, Li Shi would consider joining with several other investors to continue investing, helping Starhawk Fitness open more locations, continuing large-scale procurement of smart fitness clothing racks, and expanding as much as possible in the short term by leveraging this unique advantage!

At this moment, there was a knock on the office door, and Xue Zhebin entered.

“Mr. Li, I’ve clarified the situation. Tenda does indeed intend to buy or long-term lease shops on the street near the Horrified Inn. And yesterday, they seem to have issued an ultimatum: either long-term lease or sell. For shops that don’t cooperate, the food street will choose to bypass them directly!”

“The situation there is quite chaotic now. The shop owners talk about uniting, but in reality, they’re all calculating their own interests. As far as I know, several shops have already signed contracts with Tenda…”

Xue Zhebin reported everything he had learned in detail.

Li Shi immediately perked up: “Excellent! This aligns perfectly with my predictions!”

“Previously they seemed to only discuss long-term leasing, but now they’ve added a purchase option, which means Mr. Pei must have provided substantial funding. This proves that Mr. Pei actually values this place greatly!”

When construction on the food market first began, Li Shi had already obtained this information, but he hadn’t had a good idea about how to capitalize on this opportunity.

Because there were many shops around the food market, yet they were all in a half-dead state. If the places he bought didn’t align with Tenda’s development direction, wouldn’t that be a huge loss?

But now, the target had become quite clear.

Obviously, Tenda’s goal was to connect the food market and the Horrified Inn through a food street over one kilometer long, creating synergy!

This way, tourists could easily walk from the Horrified Inn along the food street to the food market in the evening after visiting the Horrified Inn, enjoying various delicacies.

And it was said that a new large-scale project was also under construction inside the Horrified Inn, which would further revitalize the entire surrounding economy.

As for those shop owners demanding sky-high prices, Tenda had obviously figured out a solution.

Human greed is endless, and these shops definitely couldn’t be indulged endlessly. Otherwise, if the first shop succeeded in raising the price, the others would follow suit, leading to haggling with every shop owner, and the matter would never end.

Tenda offered a unified price to all shops, providing both long-term lease and purchase options, which was already quite generous in terms of pricing.

If this weren’t Tenda’s project, Li Shi would definitely think buying was much more advantageous than renting.

Because funds have time value. As long as those shop owners didn’t simply squander this money but chose to use it for more promising investments, the returns generated after ten years would far exceed 50%.

But this was Tenda’s project, and that made it different.

The rate of return on Tenda’s projects couldn’t be measured by a simple number.

However, the shop owners might not understand this principle, as they didn’t believe in Tenda’s business myth as deeply as Mr. Li did.

The shop owners’ collective price hike was, strictly speaking, more of a short-sighted behavior.

For the owners’ collective price hike, Tenda had also provided a solution: divide them.

The original plan was to have a direct route from the food market to the Horrified Inn. Many shop owners along this route felt that Tenda would acquire their shops at any cost, so they naturally felt secure.

But now Tenda had changed its approach and would choose multiple routes, ultimately deciding on one based on actual conditions.

The food street might take a detour, bypassing some shops.

This way, shops that originally had no chance of being part of the food street were now under consideration.

These shop owners would certainly compete to sign contracts with Tenda to seize this opportunity.

The shops originally on the direct route might end up with nothing.

Under these circumstances, it was impossible for the shop owners to unite closely. After all, one mistake meant losing hundreds of thousands, and most small business owners didn’t have that courage.

Moreover, it was said that Tenda had added a direct shop purchase option on top of the original long-term lease, which showed that this matter had already alerted Mr. Pei, prompting him to allocate an additional large sum of funds.

Li Shi felt that the opportunity had arrived!

He immediately said, “Let’s also go buy shops in that area! However, unlike Tenda, we’ll only buy, not rent.”

“And we won’t compete with Tenda. After Tenda’s route is determined, we’ll approach those shops that weren’t selected and buy them at a relatively favorable price.”

“I think… a 40% premium should be fine.”

Tenda’s proposal was a 50% premium, but the final route of the food street would definitely be just one, and many nearby shops would not be selected.

The owners of these shops would likely regret their decisions deeply.

Of course, there might be some particularly confident owners who believed they could make something of their businesses adjacent to the food street, but there would definitely also be owners who hesitated and missed the opportunity to sell their shops.

Li Shi and other investors would find these people and acquire their properties at a high price.

For a shop that had already been confirmed not to be on the food street, this premium was actually quite substantial, and someone would definitely sell.

After buying them, Li Shi would draw professional talent from his other invested industries, such as chain internet cafes, bars, coffee shops, etc., to manage these storefronts.

Moreover, Li Shi could choose to rent some of the shops back to Tenda at a low price, signing long-term contracts.

Although the food street could initially only cover one street, what if the flow of people continued to grow and the food street needed to expand in the future?

Besides, Mr. Li’s standing was completely different from those shop owners.

Those shop owners mostly lacked resources and capabilities, and had rejected Tenda’s goodwill, so Tenda would definitely not cooperate with them.

But Li Shi had resources and a good relationship with Mr. Pei. Their cooperation had been quite pleasant. Even if he couldn’t become an “internal food street shop,” becoming a “food street partner shop” wouldn’t be a problem.

As long as he had Tenda’s recognition, getting a share of the food street business wouldn’t be a problem.

Tenda had no reason to refuse this proposal because Li Shi and other investors were purchasing shops around the food street, and Tenda couldn’t possibly take all these shops.

Why collaborate with unfamiliar shop owners who had neither resources nor capabilities when they could work with Li Shi, an old acquaintance?

What Li Shi cared about most was actually the appreciation potential of these shops many years later.

Those shop owners might have doubts about this and couldn’t wait that long, but Li Shi absolutely had no doubts.

Xue Zhebin nodded: “Alright, I’ll notify the other investors right away!”