Zhang Yahui exclaimed with delight: “Oh! Mr. Pei, you truly have a discerning eye, seeing through it at a glance!”
“Indeed, these are all Brother Bao’s ideas. None of us have that kind of mindset.”
“Through his rich design experience accumulated in the gaming department, Brother Bao has applied game design concepts to the food market, bringing the entire food market to life and giving it a soul!”
Pei Qian: “…”
Great, it’s Bao Xu again.
If you had just happened to pass by and suggested the cyberpunk theme for decoration, that would have been fine. I could have called it an unintentional mistake.
But now, how do you explain this situation?!
Obviously, this entire design system absolutely couldn’t have been created by just a “sudden inspiration.” It definitely required repeated investigation and thorough preparation. Even during the design process, there must have been constant communication with Liang Qingfan to ensure that the structure and layout of all stalls conformed to the corresponding plan.
This Bao Xu—his crimes are compounding!
Zhang Yahui continued walking forward, arriving at one of the food stalls.
Since they hadn’t officially opened for business today, only a small portion of the stall owners had arrived.
Other stall owners would gradually come to prepare and test things out during the day, but they wouldn’t all appear at once.
“By scanning the QR code on the stall with the Tenda Life APP, you can order and pay. Then, instead of queuing here, you can walk around first and come back to pick up your food when it’s ready.”
“In the Tenda Life APP, you can monitor the status of your order at any time and see what number you are in line.”
The stall’s QR code was displayed on a screen that was also packaged in a cyberpunk style, refreshing and changing every few minutes.
In addition, this display screen also showed the stall’s popular dishes and snack menu, as well as the current queue number.
The reason the QR code needed to be refreshed frequently was to prevent some customers from taking a picture of the QR code and ordering remotely, disrupting the normal queuing order, or causing food items to pile up without being picked up in time.
Furthermore, each food stall also had a dedicated waiting area and dining area. Although the number of seats wasn’t many and it was somewhat crowded, it at least gave customers a place to rest their feet. Plus, these cyberpunk-style tables and chairs further enhanced the immersive feeling of the entire scene.
In the middle of the waiting area was a high-tech looking “stamp machine.” Its structure was actually very simple—you just place the notebook on it, then press the upper part of the stamp machine for it to automatically complete the stamping. It was just that the outer packaging was quite cool.
Zhang Yahui continued to introduce: “This is the stamp machine for check-ins.”
“Its size matches the pre-pressed position on the notebook perfectly. As long as you align it with the position and press the stamp machine, it will print in a perfect location—truly a blessing for people with OCD.”
“If customers collect all the stamps from every stall, we’ll also provide an additional gift: a beautiful small mechanical arm figurine. However, it hasn’t arrived yet and is still being procured.”
“By the way, all these details were also thought up by Brother Bao. He truly upholds Tenda Games’ consistent tradition of excellence, making me feel inferior in comparison.”
Pei Qian: “…”
This is rebellion, pure rebellion!
This Bao Xu, are you trying to defy the heavens?!
So after returning from traveling with Liang Qingfan, you’ve been busy with the food market all this time? And judging by how dedicated you are, you’ve probably been working at maximum hours every day?
I’ve done nothing wrong to you, so why are you doing this?
For a moment, Pei Qian didn’t know what to say, feeling only deep bewilderment.
Zhang Yahui tentatively asked, “Mr. Pei, some stall owners have arrived today. Would you like to taste their cooking?”
Pei Qian shook his head, “No need, I’m sure it won’t taste bad.”
What’s the point of tasting? It definitely won’t be bad!
These stall owners were selected from all over the country, and they’re all making their specialty snacks. How could they possibly taste bad?
Besides, Pei Qian’s mood was very heavy right now, and he didn’t really feel like eating anything.
He had only one thought now: he must find a way to widely spread the word about what Bao Xu had done.
Let the entire Tenda Group know what “good deeds” he had done!
When everyone feels moved by this, they’ll vote him second place for outstanding employee again, continuing his travel legend!
There’s no other way, Bao Xu. You forced me into this.
You made the first move, so don’t blame me for being ruthless!
Zhang Yahui nodded, taking Pei Qian’s “won’t taste bad” as a form of praise.
“Well… Mr. Pei, would you like to offer some suggestions? With the opening imminent, is there anything that needs improvement?”
Pei Qian fell silent.
Areas for improvement?
If possible, I wish you would change everything!
It would be best to strip down all the decorations!
But he couldn’t do that.
All the designs were integrated seamlessly and just right—there was nothing to pick on, no flaw to exploit.
Just as Pei Qian was at his wits’ end, he suddenly noticed the prices of the snacks at the stall.
That’s it!
Why not try something simple, direct, and straightforward? Price cuts!
You people are always coming up with new fancy ideas, but I only need to respond with one unchanging strategy: reduce prices!
As long as the prices are low enough, compressing profits to the extreme, no matter how fancy you make things, you won’t be able to make much money.
Moreover, the food market is different from games or chain fast food restaurants. For games, setting a low price and compressing profits might still achieve a high-volume, low-margin effect due to the affordability, making a lot of money.
But the food market is only so big, and each stall can only accommodate a limited number of customers.
There are only so many customers in Jingzhou, and customers from other places would have to bear the costs of train tickets, plane tickets, accommodation, etc. A small reduction in the price of snacks wouldn’t create any special attraction for customers.
Furthermore, everyone’s stomach has its limits. How much could one eat, even if they wanted to?
So, as long as the prices are low enough, this food market definitely won’t make much money!
Pei Qian looked around; the snacks here were diverse, with varieties from all over the country and many different styles.
Setting prices for each one individually would definitely be impractical and unnecessary.
What Pei Qian needed to do now was to find an anchor point, and then have all food items reduce their prices according to this anchor point.
And which snack should be chosen as this anchor point?
Let’s go with grilled cold noodles!
Come to think of it, grilled cold noodles were the source and beginning of all this.
If Meng Chang hadn’t started the Cold Noodle Girl project, there wouldn’t have been a street food competition in the capital. Without the street food competition, there wouldn’t have been the subsequent selection of stall owners, documentary filming, and this whole array of food market affairs.
It was also perfect that Zhang Yahui, the person in charge, specialized in grilled cold noodles. Everything was so coincidental.
Pei Qian asked, “How much is a serving of grilled cold noodles in the food market now?”
Zhang Yahui was taken aback, not expecting Mr. Pei to ask such a seemingly unrelated question.
But he still immediately answered, “There’s slight variation in price among different stalls, but overall, it’s around 10 yuan.”
This price wasn’t expensive.
Currently, street vendors sold grilled cold noodles for about 5 to 6 yuan. The grilled cold noodles in the food market used carefully selected raw materials, with noodle sheets, oil, eggs, and other ingredients all being more expensive than those from street vendors. The taste, location, and the stall owners’ skills were also different… All things considered, selling at 10 yuan wasn’t particularly generous, but it wasn’t expensive either.
After all, when Meng Chang opened Cold Noodle Girl, he directly set the price of the basic gold medal grilled cold noodles at over 12 yuan, with an even more expensive 16 yuan full-portion version.
The grilled cold noodles in the food market, which tasted better than those at Cold Noodle Girl and were cheaper, should already be at a price that most consumers could accept.
Pei Qian remained silent for a moment: “Cut the price! Reduce it to 6 yuan per serving!”
Zhang Yahui couldn’t help but be shocked: “6 yuan? That would mean basically making no profit! The profit margin would be extremely, extremely low, almost non-existent!”
Previously set at 10 yuan, they could still make a little profit.
You can’t just look at the cost of raw materials; the stall owners need to make money too, otherwise why would they be motivated to set up stalls early every morning?
Although Tenda provided stall owners with a fixed salary, who wouldn’t want more money?
Cutting this portion of the profit for no reason would definitely make the stall owners unhappy.
Pei Qian said, “Not just grilled cold noodles, all other snacks should reduce their prices by the same margin!”
“But when settling income with the stall owners, still settle according to the original 10 yuan standard. Any shortfall should be covered by other income from the food market’s peripherals. If that’s still not enough, the company will make up the difference.”
Originally, out of the 10 yuan, there was less than 4 yuan in profit, which was shared between the food market and the stall owners.
But now that Mr. Pei had cut all these profits, the money earned would be minimal, meaning not only giving up the food market’s own profits but also paying to compensate the stall owners’ profits.
This back-and-forth would result in a significant loss!
Of course, the food market didn’t make money solely from snacks; there were also some additional ways to earn money, such as shops selling peripheral products.
But it would be virtually impossible to use these additional money-making methods to fill this hole.
This round of price cuts would instantly transform the food market from a profitable project into one that loses money to gain publicity.
But Pei Qian had made up his mind.
As long as the system doesn’t interfere with me, then no one else can either!
Zhang Yahui could only nod: “Alright, Mr. Pei. I’ll arrange for people to change all the prices on the menus right away.”
Pei Qian walked around a bit more, thinking this should be about it.
Although Bao Xu’s meddling had almost caused the entire food market to fail, fortunately I was smart enough to counter with a simple price cut, easily handling the situation!
Next would be waiting for the food market to officially open.
Pei Qian planned to immediately write a company-wide commendation after returning, then find an appropriate time to send it out, pushing it to the internal communication software and emails of every Tenda employee.
Let all Tenda employees know about Bao Xu’s “glorious deeds.”
Bao Xu, oh Bao Xu, you made the first move, so don’t blame me!