Double-12 was not even over yet and the two were already planning about what to get on the upcoming 618.
Huo Sishen, who had been ignored for an entire week every night was very baffled.
He didn’t understand the joy for women.
The joy of shopping.
The excitement of placing one’s order in the middle of the night.
All of those baffled him greatly.
Nevertheless, from the perspective of a businessman, the women demographic certainly offered a lot of growing room.
Let it be the wealthy ones or the not-so-wealthy ones, they are all foolish.
They have just purchased a whole bunch of useless items. How was that a good deal?
The facial masks have expiration dates. He could already foresee the outcome of them being thrown out or given away as gifts.
But… why did it matter as long as his wife was happy?
“You have enough money?”
That was his final conclusion on what to say after his week-long observation.
A model man, indeed.
Gu Shishi nodded affirmatively. “Yup. We got this. Chuchu and I will be paying them off in installments.”
Mr. Huo was about to question his own hearing.
“Have Siyi bring you over a card this afternoon. Whatever happened to the credit card from before?”
Gu Shishi shook her hand. “No, no. I still have money. Remember the one given to me by the Zhang family? We are paying them off in installments to get more deals.”
Excellent.
Huo Sishen narrowed his eyes.
His wife, had stooped to the level of paying off her purchases in installments.
Low and behold, she was enjoying it deeply.
He pinched his lips shut and lowered his head.
“Mmm.”
That was nothing that he could do.
As long as she was happy.
“What about Chuchu? She was into those deals as well?”
Huo Sishen suddenly felt that all the teachings that he had given his sister in the past had failed.
Too much suppression would lead to extreme behaviors when the pressure had been lifted.
Diverting is always a better solution than brute force.
“Uh huh.”
Gu Shishi looked up from the screen of her cellphone.
“It’s a good deal. When we pay in installments, we are making at least a month’s interest from the bank.”
Huo Sishen took in a deep breath.
When Gu Shishi saw the look on him after she was done talking, she couldn’t help but stuck her tongue out.
“It’s an experience.
“An enjoyment that you had never experienced in the past.”
Huo Sishen nodded.
She was right about that. That was certainly not something that he had experienced before.
But he didn’t plan on meddling into what the girls enjoy doing. All he needed to do was to assist them.
“Don’t stay up too late.”
His only complaint was her staying up late at night.
“Rowr!”
Gu Shishi was more or less done with her shopping spree.
She returned to her docile little wife state that night and bathed early and waited for a certain someone in bed…
Starting the very next day, the satisfied Mr. Huo, as expected, never asked about Double-12 again.
At the same time, the sale number of Huajian continued to be displayed on the screen of Liu Zhichao and the others.
They had swapped to a new brand and had only one-month time to advertise.
Their market share was very lacking.
Liu Zhichao set his sales goal for Double-12 at 1 million yuan, translating into roughly 5,000 products.
He had been staring at the sales report since the day they launched the pre-order channels.
Liu Zhichao was anxious!
His factory along with is employees, from production to QA to frontend sales people, roughly 300 ~ 400 individuals, had already been abandoned once!
Their former boss had abandoned them and sold them all as a package when the marketing of the former product had failed.
If their new brand and new products were to fail again, what would happen his time? What would their fate be?
And, if they went on sale again, would they be able to find a new boss? Or that they would just go belly up?
He would be the one responsible for the downsizing and the layoffs.
“Lao Liu, care to grab a drink tonight?”
Lao Xia from R&D walked over to him.
It was going to be a sleepless night anyway.
Liu Zhichao nodded, “Sure.”
He needed a smoke!
It wasn’t like he could fall asleep even when he went home anyway.
They have sold a total 34 sets on the day 1.
Then an average of 50 sets per day in the next 3 days.
And about the same offline at the counter. As they didn’t have a lot of storefronts, very few consumers were aware of this brand and most were cautious about products that went onto their faces.
“Aye, boss was right. We should have arranged for a streaming service. The little boy I was watching last night sold some 5,000 plus lipsticks in one night.”
“Such amazing salesman ability.”
The thought of it alone saddened Liu Zhichao.
It was too late to arrange for that now!
All contracts for Double-12 had been signed by now.
All he could say was that they were too old school and still focused on offline advertising. Their online presence was very lacking.
“We have just taken our first step. Don’t be intimated just yet.”
Lao Xia took a sip of his tea.
“Haven’t the boss painted the posters for next year’s advertisement already?”
Liu Zhichao had a peculiar look on him as soon as he heard that.
Speaking of, Boss Gu was very proactive.
She painted at the rate of one a day and completed the packaging for all of their products. As though she hasn’t had enough fun, she went onto painting posters!
She even said she would offer a painting for each of the top 3 highest spending customers over the Double-12 promotion.
Gifting customers painting was a very peculiar gesture in the skincare product field.
Low and behold, he felt that it wasn’t a bad idea at all.
He could hardly take his eyes off the original paintings from his boss. He’d look at it for a while, then wanted to look at it some more, and then some more… He didn’t know why that was but he just felt that they were very nicely done.
Wouldn’t it be amazing to have one?!
“Let me go find out whether the boss has the gift ones done yet. I want to have marketing place them on the website sooner rather than later.”
Liu Zhichao stopped smoking immediately.
He walked over to the front of the factory, then turned back to his office.
Lao Xia too, snuffed out his cigarette. “Alright, I’ll go test out the new formulas as well.”
***
Gu Shishi had, indeed, completed her paintings.
The one for the packaging were just minor projects. She completed the ones meant for gifts.
An emperor applying moisturizing lotions.
A court lady placing a hairpin on herself.
A knight walking forward quickly.
A drunk scholar.
She also painted a few fans as well, most to entertain herself but she also threw them in as extra gifts.
When she was no longer concerned about the cost and commercial value of her work, she felt a whole new sense of freedom and joy.
She also deviated from her normal traditional, delicate, and simple style. Instead, it had an added sense of liveliness to them.
When Liu Zhichao messaged her, she had just finished taking pictures of them and was just about to send them over to him.
“I have prepared a total of 12 gifts. Some are paintings, some are fans, and some are paintings on ceramics. You decide whether we should give them to the top spenders or we should keep a few and save them for, say, the 10,000thorder or the 6666th order, etc.”
“Okay,” responded Liu Zhichao quickly.
Then he wiped away his sweat.
The 10,000thorder?
He felt he’d be too happy to even sleep if they ever received that many orders.
Aye.
The boss had such high hopes.
That made him worried even more.
The pre-sale in the last few days really wasn’t all that optimistic!
Had Gu Shishi knew of his worries, she would probably comfort him some.
Many people didn’t care for pre-sale.
Especially the wealthy ones.
At least Chen Kexin said she would be buying a ton.
To put it simply, 10,000 orders only came out to be 2 ~ 3 million yuan.
Not only would they receive the products that they have purchased, but they would get a painting on top of that.
Mmm… that was a steal.
Gu Shishi wasn’t worried one bit.
Besides, she felt that their balancing lotion was an okay product.
All the rich young ladies and wives liked it. The price point of 300 yuan for a 100 mL bottle was not expensive at all.
And if they tag on some of the oil-control face wash and refreshing lotion newly developed by Master Xia, their sales numbers should not look too bad.
Even if it wasn’t great right away, she was hopeful about it’s future.
Gu Shishi was calmed, not frantic.
She had done all that she could. Now they just wait patiently.
One should not regret once the paintbrush had hit the paper. One should just remain calm when the result revealed itself.
Plant Manager Liu still needed work on his emotional readiness.
Gu Shishi comforted him a little. “We have 618 for next year as well. If you are truly worried, you can start on some proposals for that now.”
Liu Zhichao, “… … Sure!”
Some distractions right now would not be a bad idea.
Gu Shishi, at the end of the day, was a reliable boss, and would not want to see him spending all this time worrying with nothing coming out of it.
In addition, she should hold herself accountable for the boss’s investment too.
As such, she felt very justified in prodding certain individuals.
She turned around and sent the photos of her gift paintings over to Old Mrs. Chen and Chen Kexin, etc., as well as her main ink painting group.
[My work for Double-12. Any one who is interested can feel free to participate in the promotional activity.]
[Free gifts.]
Chen Kexin had heard of it earlier but had yet to see the samples. When she had taken a look and before she could even respond, Old Mrs. Chen was already on the move.
“What is this? This link… Keke, download the app for me. The gifts are for the top buyers? Eh, this emperor was applying balancing lotion before his early gathering with his nobles? Harhar!”
Chen Kexin, “… then there is this empress who was using the facial wash.”
“Eh? This one is pretty too. Aye. There’s this court lady putting flowers on… Oh! She’s applying facial mask on herself… the knight applying sunscreen before he got onto his horse? This is too funny!”
Old Mrs. Chen busted out laughing.
“This is the products that Shishi had developed? Keke, place some orders for me. And then there’s that gifts… …”
Chen Kexin scratched her head, “Okay.”
A set for herself. A set for her grandma. A set for her mom.
Her female cousin on her dad’s side, female cousins on her mother’s side, male cousins on her father’s side, uncles and aunties… if they all placed orders, would they become TOP 1?
“Keke, create a secondary account and have your mother place some orders too. Do you think we can get two gifts that way?”
Old Mrs. Chen was studying the rules of the promotional activity through her bifocal lenses.
Chen Kexin, “!”
Her grandma was surely mighty. She even figured out that they could create a secondary account!
The members of the Ink Painting Association were also stunned by the photos shared in their chat group at the same time.
All of them were rattled.
[Huang Chuan: @Ink Painting Guru, our ancestors are about to bust out of their coffins… …]
[Lei: This is interesting. It explored the potential direction of development of ink painting and also its integration it into every day’s life. This is certainly meaningful.]
[Lao Shao: There were imperial maids who had assisted the empress in applying facial masks back in the Qing dynasty. It’s historically accurate. How good are these facial masks? I need to buy something for my wife. This is not a bad idea.]
[Huang Chuan: I feel that this painting of the court lady applying hairpin is the most delicate and exhibited the most skills. @Ink Painting Guru, have you copy painted other well-known artists in the past?]
{Ben 8: Is this painting of the emperor for sale, little friend? Or as a gift for purchases only? Can I trade for it with a different painting?}
Gu Shishi peeked at the conversations when she had a free moment and smiled bitterly.
Her main purpose was to show them her latest work. These old grandpas really weren’t part of her demographic.
[Ink Painting Guru: I am soliciting for your expert opinion. I feel very mellow when I paint as of late. Let it be closeup or distant sceneries or portraits and that my characters feel livelier.]
When the others saw her comment, they weren’t sure what to make of it.
How could they not be lively?
They were already using facial wash and facial masks!
Nevertheless, after her words, the group turned their attention from the message of her paintings to her paint strokes.
Sure enough, when they studied it carefully, it was apparent that her techniques had improved!
Her characters were lively.
Her closeups and distant sceneries no longer felt forced and showy like they did before but gave a natural feeling that “they had always been there.”
They were truly superb!
[Huang Chuang: Can we borrow that for our exchange?]
Well, not really.
Gu Shishi wiped her sweat away.
Huang Chuang, having said that, also noticed a not-so-practical issue.
Nevermind that this was created with a specific purpose in mind.
How would they critique an ancient character using facial wash among their otherwise serious scenery, flower, and bird paintings at their ink painting exchange?
Uh.
Huang Chuang immediately recalled his message.
And resent a new one.
[@Ink Painting Guru, there will be an ink painting exhibition in town a week from now. Do you have any current work to exhibit?]
Gu Shishi couldn’t say that she has anything at the moment.
She had done a lot of practice ones but they were all free willed.
[Can we borrow the Picnic with Wife from last time? The exhibition is only for two weekends and your work will be framed in glass. We shall return it in perfect condition.]
Gu Shishi was taken aback a little. She even stopped typing and switched to voice chat.
“President Huang, didn’t I leave the painting with you?”
Huang Chuan, “… No, not really.”
The others at the association, “… … No, that was not the case.”
And that was when Gu Shishi found out that the boss had bought the painting the second she left.
And donated 50 million yuan.
Gu Shishi was so shocked that her paintbrush fell out of her hand.
Prodigal!
That prodigal man!
She could only tell President Huang that she would go and find out.
She really had no idea where the boss had been keeping the painting.
Did he plan on collecting all of her work?
By golly!
How sweet was that~
Gu Shishi immediately threw her hand over her heart.
A second later, she reached out her other hand and covered up the screen on Huajian’s promotional activity.
Prodigal Huo could not see it.
Absolutely not.
Liu Zhichao and the others were destinated to have a sleepless night the night before Double-12.
Gu Shishi, on the other hand, had dragged Huo Sishen into the bedroom uber early that night.
She would not allow the boss to participate in the Double-12 activity.
No way she would allow him to buy all of their own products!
“Let’s go to bed early tonight. You are returning to the office tomorrow, right?”
Huo Sishen looked at the clock and seemed pleased with her rare invitation.
He was very agreeable.
“Mmm.”
Going to bed early translated into laying down in bed early, engaging in activities that they both enjoyed until a certain someone fell asleep out of exhaustion.
He had no problem with that.
Gu Shishi hasn’t yet figured out what was going her when she was pushed down into the bed.
Owing to the bride halo, even though it had been two months, her heartbeat and her breathing still hastened, her cheeks blushed like flower buds. Biting down on her lip, her body trembled slightly. As though a pink mist had started from her delicate toes up, her entire body turned into a pink hue.
Her intention was to distract a certain someone.
So he wouldn’t notice her own shop and to try to beat out the others on orders.
Her goal had, of course, been accomplished.
She was the only thing in his eyes.
Even her cellphone that she had placed next to her pillow had been pushed off by his large hand and rolled onto their Persian rug.
Any word right now would just ruin the mood.
All he wanted to do was to study her carefully.
Enveloped by the hint of sweet rose smell, it gave him the strong urge in possessing it.
Then, without hesitation, to do exactly that.
Gu Shishi, after she had woken up the next day, covered up her face and silently rolled herself up in her blanket after recalling the scenes from the night before.
The boss, possibly due to a guilty conscience, had picked up her cellphone that he had brushed onto the floor the night before.
It was now vibrating madly on her night table!
She had no choice but reached out one arm and glanced over at it.
Immediately, she saw n x 99+ chat windows!
Her groggy brain became clear right away.
[Huajian Upper Management Group]
:10 AM.
[Xiao Chen from R&D: Where’s our real customer service team? The automated one is maxed out! Everybody is asking how many orders have we had so far and they wanted their gifts!]
:30 AM.
[Lao Li from Customer Service: We are on it. I need 30 more customer service accounts. @Everyone in upper management, its time for you all play backup. Thank you.]
:20 AM
[Sales had exploded: (crying) (bawling) (wailing) @Plant Manager, we have sold 2 million counts in less than 2 hours. @No Money For Production, do we have enough inventory? I suggest activating our backup production plan immediately.]
:00 AM
[Lao Xia: How many are we at now?]
[No Money for Production: Darn! We have sold almost half a year’s worth of inventory in one night. Hot dang dang dang! Our team had already worked overtime for a week and now we’ll just have to keep at it. All the way till the end of the year! @Plant Manager, please have our overtime pay ready. @Lao Zheng from Raw Materials, please place orders in massive quantity. I think we only have enough for about 2 months just from eyeballing what we have.]
***
The chat continued all the way till 6 AM.
The sales numbers updated nonstop.
Liu Zhichao had sent out a few rounds of celebratory red envelopes.
The sales manager was happy like his annual goal had been completed in one night and was on cloud nine. He, too, had been sending out lots of red envelopes.
9 AM.
Finally there was a message @ Gu Shishi.
[Liu Zhichao: @Boss, as of 8:30 AM, we have received over 40,000 orders and sold close to 5 million units of products. We are anticipating 8 million units when all is said and done.]
The numbers were not very meaningful to Gu Shishi. She had no idea where that stood compared to other companies.
But, recalling their company’s annual report from the previous year. Their total sales for the year was 20 million yuan with profit of 1 million yuan. She figured that this was a big win for them.
Gu Shishi scrolled through the log from the night before and picked up all the leftover red envelopes for the sake of appearing more personable.
Then, she set a big package herself.
She sent 10 at the limit of 200 yuan each.
She learned that from the boss - it was important to be a generous boss.
[Have you gotten any red pockets today: Thank you all for your hard work. I will treat you all to a nice meal for New Year Eve’s dinner.]
Everybody responded at the same time immediately.
“Boss is awesome”, “Boss is 666”, … …
[Have you gotten any red pockets today: Anything that I can help with? Give me a customer service account as well.]
Gu Shishi hasn’t even gotten out of bed yet. She had an entire day ahead of her to do work.
Liu Zhichao had declined her quickly.
The peak of their sales was the first half an hour after midnight and had been decreasing since.
It had picked up a little again this morning, after the working class people had gotten up but the sales was nowhere near what it was at midnight.
[Liu Zhichao: Perhaps it was the way the gifts were offered. Our sales are normalizing and growing slowly now.]
Gu Shishi understood it right away. In addition to the top 3 orders, they were also offering gifts for the 6666th, 10,000th, 20,000thorders, etc.
Which was why everybody tried to place their orders around midnight.
Liu Zhichao turned around and sent her the latest sales report via private chat.
Gu Shishi took a look at them and, sure enough, saw familiar names among them.
Top 3 were MeowMeow, 111, 222… …
111?
Gu Shishi’s eyes widened. The big brother who liked her paintings?
She didn’t have a lot of work for sales so she hasn’t seen him around for a while.
222. Could that be 111’s secondary account?
Gu Shishi scratched her nose. “Keep up the good work, Plant Manager Liu.”
Such a long road ahead of her.
These were mostly sales to friends and family.
Having done with her work over here, she checked her WeChat messages one more time.
Her aunty from the Zhang family also expressed that they liked the products that she had sent and bought a bunch over Double-12.
She was very lucky and even won the gift for order# 6666.
Chen Kexin, on the other hand, had been sending her messages via WeChat since midnight.
[Big Sister, grandma wants the court lady one and the knight one. If I win anything from my orders, can I have those two? Please, please, please!]
[Oh shoot! It crashed on me again! I was just about to pay!]
[How come we can’t see how many orders there has been on your website… wu wu wu, how… how am I going to try to fight over the gifts then?]
[I have bought enough skincare products for 7 older aunts and 8 younger ones for the next three years in one go. If I didn’t win anything, I will have to wait until 618?]
[Your official website says that you will be producing hair-loss products too?]
[Big Sister, are you in bed already? Here I am staying up into the wee hours placing orders… customer service just told me that they have already had 13,000 orders but the numbers are still changing while she was on the call with me. Dang, dang, dang! This is too difficult!]
Her messages made Gu Shishi wanted to laugh. The very last one came from 3 AM.
So worked so “hard” last night that she was probably still in bed right now.
Gu Shishi thought about it for a little while, swapped to her other cellphone, located 111 from her Ink Painting Guru account.
[Mr. 111, thank you for your support… last night.]
She also had doubts about the real identity of this 111 at the same time.
How many super rich individuals lived in the same city as her?
She couldn’t help but associated that with a certain someone.
Both aliases 111 and 222 sounded suspiciously like secondary accounts.
But what his face had been dragged into bed by her early last night. So that probably couldn’t be him.
Did he instruct Siyi and Sier to do that?
Even the names matched!
[111: You are too kind, Master. We have a lot of female relatives, friends, and subordinates. These are everyday items that they can use.]
[111: It’s a steal when we can receive an extra gift on top of it.]
We?
Gu Shishi narrowed her eyes some and continued tapping away on her phone.
[So 222 is another account of yours them?]
[111: Yes. Since I will be placing order, I thought I would play it safe. I would hate to miss out on Master’s work.]
Gu Shishi’s suspicion dissipated in the next second.
It wasn’t the boss.
He has an alibi nor did this person talk like him.
He was never that polite.
Neither Siyi nor Sier spoke in such a scholarly way either.
“I was overthinking this afterall.”
Gu Shishi scratched her head.
At the company.
Siyi wiped away his cold sweat right after he had finished sending the messages.
His throat tightened when he saw the cold-looking man sitting at the boss’s seat.
“Boss, I think Madam is starting to suspect us. I tried my best to keep my identity hidden but if we are to distribute the gifts among our employees, I’m afraid that will raise Madam’s suspicion again.”
Huo Sishen, who was reviewing an acquisition proposal, frowned and looked up coldly.
“111? 222?”
Siyi blushed right away.
He didn’t give it too much thought at the time.
That was what he had been doing since he was a child… he figured Madam would not recognize such a generic alias. Afterall, who hasn’t used 111 as their password before?
He hadn’t expected that Sier would use 222 when he asked him to help place orders!
He worried that Madam would figure out it was them earlier and was so nervous that his palms were clammy.
Luckily, Madam didn’t seem to have gone down that path.
“We will wait for a couple months before we distribute them to the employees.
“And save a portion of them as year-end gifts to our partnering firms.”
Huo Sishen looked nonchalant and free of worries.
“In addition, I don’t need to tell you and Sier where you two were last night, do I?”
Siyi was taken aback a little then, recollecting himself, said, “We went to a bar last night! A bar so remote that there isn’t even internet!”
Huo Sishen waved his hands, “Okay. Now go back to work.”
Siyi excused himself, covered in cold sweat.
That was so tough.
His job was so tough.
“Tell Liu Zhichao that I want the emperor and empress.
“Don’t even try to give me any other.”
Huo Sishen’s nonchalant voice allowed no room for discussion.
Siyi nodded, “Of course.”
A’right, he would go to torture Plant Manager Liu some. Dog food was meant to be shared.
Gu Shishi didn’t know the truth but she wanted to tell Plant Manager Liu to not be happy so early in time. They had a lot of work ahead of them.
As it turned out, when she met up with Plant Manager Liu after Double-12, she discovered to her surprise that this plant manager… was not that happy.
Naturally, after founding out that their miracle sales numbers was nothing but a big bag of dog food in reality, smiling bitterly was all that he could do.
Plant Manager Liu, however, did not feel dispirited.
He felt that what Siyi and Boss Huo said were very true.
Their products needed exposures and word of mouth.
Once the public had tried their products, they would be back for more.
What they needed urgently right now was to get their products out there, even if that meant selling their products at steep discount.
“Yes, Boss Gu, we will continue to work hard on this! We have already completed our first round of testing on our oil-reducing and hair-loss-preventing shampoo. And we have also taken measures about the low inventory caused by Double-12.”
Liu Zhichao felt very confident.
Gu Shishi noticed that he was very motivated and felt relieved. She had the chauffeur brought in the ginger tea for the winter time that she brought with her for the team.
“Thank you everyone for your hard work.”
In addition, Liu Zhichao brought up, “We have completed the analysis for Double-12. Jiahe continued to be the No. 1 among domestic products with sales up to 60 million. We are No. 18 among all skincare product lines and Jiahe is No. 6.”
Gu Shishi lifted her brows.
Jiahe. Gu Wushuang?
“It’s fine. We have only just started out less than a month ago. We will just have to work on 618~!”
Liu Zhichao nodded firmly, “Most certainly.”
At time same time, Gu Wushuang, who was also looking at the sales data, was very pleased.
Their promotion activity was a huge success this time and Jiahe pulled far head of other domestic products and closer to the international brands.
“Brother Cheng, you are right. This company certainly has potential.”
Being in a good mood, she picked up the pudding on the table and fed a spoonful to Huo Wencheng.
Huo Wencheng opened up his mouth and ate it with a smile.
His smile, however, had mixed emotions in it.
The sales data from Double-12 was not that meaningful.
The bigger the brand, the less likely they would participate in promotional activities.
Take Lamei as an example, they had no discounts of any sorts on the day of, just a free sample with any purchases.
Their sales that day was mostly the same as any other day. It did not vary with the shopping festival.
Jiahe, on the other hand, was based on a lower pricing point.
Not only did they participated in many promotion activities, they even adopted strategies like tower-building and free in-app currencies.
In store purchases on the day of even offered buy one get one free or buy one get two free.
Also instant discounts based on purchases, 30 yuan off any purchases over 300 yuan. Consumers were greatly stimulated.
It was only normal that Jiahe did very well.
Double-12 did not target high-end consumers. Mid- to high-end consumers would rarely spend time on building towers. They barely even have the rules figured out.