Chapter 22,Part 2: — Purchasing - Clearly a large-scale survival program!
Chapter 22,Part 2: — Purchasing - Clearly a large-scale survival program!
Lin Cheng didn’t immediately decide which store to purchase from, but observed matters first, standing in a corner of the market.
For frequent shipments outside the market, there should be long-term supply channels for restaurants, supermarkets, and other companies. The quality of the goods may not be the best, but the overall quality was stable.
Such stores would not be too big and there would not be many different things being sold, but the boss would be constantly operating their mobile phone and computer. Most of the items were sold through e-commerce, and the quality should be okay.
There should be a bunch of individual customers in front of the store who buy things in one or two catties. If the price was reasonable, then the items should be good. If the retail price was low, the items should be old stock.
Lin Cheng approached a medium-sized shop, followed by Lin Momo.
The items in this shop were relatively complete. Although it was not as crowded as some other shops, there were some people coming to the door from time to time. After laughing and talking with the customers, the proprietress would quickly weigh and pack the things the customers needed without asking too many questions. It seemed that these were repeat customers.
Judging from the purchase volume of several customers, they were mostly small merchants and small vendors.
Seeing two unfamiliar faces coming to the store—they didn’t seem like they would come here often to shop—the proprietress was slightly taken aback.
However, the proprietress quickly put on a professional smile and greeted Lin Cheng. “Is the handsome guy here to buy? There are dry goods and seasonings in the store. What do you need?”
“Both dry goods and seasonings.”
As Lin Cheng said this, he took out a sheet of paper from his pocket—taken from Lin Momo’s notebook—and handed it to the proprietress. “All of these.”
The proprietress took the paper and read it quickly.
“We have these in our store. The frozen items are in the back. You can just ask me to get them for you later. How much do you want?” the proprietress asked. She glanced at the number on the note and asked again, “Just these numbers written on the note?”
“Yes.” Lin Cheng nodded.
These were the numbers that Lin Momo gathered from asking her grandma, grandma Zhang, grandma Li, and many others… Lin Cheng also searched for recipes on his phone, and the two roughly estimated the amount they needed to purchase.
“Let me take a look… There are still some in the warehouse, which should be enough for your order.”
“What’s the price?” Lin Cheng asked.
“Don’t worry, I will give you the best price. How about this, bean paste is two yuan five a catty, white sugar is three yuan a catty…” The proprietress reported a series of prices, and took out a calculator to quickly calculate everything once again. “For what you want, the total price is 448.3 yuan—you can just pay 445.”
“This is the market price?” Lin Cheng asked.
“Exactly so!” said the proprietress. “The quality is guaranteed, let me load the goods for you right away.”
Lin Cheng didn’t agree immediately, but said again, “Let me ask you for a better price.”
“I’m already offering the cost price, and if I give you a better price, then I will lose money…”
Looking at her, Lin Cheng looked calm, and the proprietress’s eyes moved slightly, “Then tell me how much you want to pay.”
Hearing what the proprietress said, Lin Momo, who had been silent all this time, boldly said, “223.”
“How much? “
“223…. Alright, 230 yuan. If you don’t want to sell it, we’ll leave.” Saying this, Lin Momo made a gesture of pulling Lin Cheng away.
This was what she learned from the landlady yesterday: the landlady bargained with the repairman who fixed the leak yesterday, and was able to cut the price right down to half—from the original 40 yuan to a mere 20!
Seeing Lin Momo like this, Lin Cheng almost laughed out of helplessness.
Lin Cheng halted Lin Momo and brought her back to the shop.
“Sugar, peanuts, red bean paste… the prices of these can be calculated according to what you said before, but the dried mushrooms and bamboo shoots… 20% off the price you quoted,” Lin Chengyu said clearly.
“This won’t work. Shiitake mushrooms and bamboo shoots are not cheap, and the entire market has raised prices recently, so I definitely can’t give you a 20% discount.” The proprietress said with a look of embarrassment, and then said: “Why don’t you go to another place to have a look.”
“Does your shiitake mushrooms and dried bamboo shoots come from Jiaming?” Lin Cheng glanced at the box and asked.
The proprietress nodded, “Yes, Jiaming is a big factory with guaranteed quality. The other small factories are cheap, and they are full of gravel.”
“Jiaming is fine, but I shouldn’t have to pay 39 yuan. The market price of dried shiitake mushrooms in Longzhou is only 32 to 34 a catty, and similar to Jiaming, Xinhui and Longchang’s are only around 30 to 32, so you can give a 20% discount on the price, and you won’t lose money.”
“Also…” Lin Cheng pointed to several other things and said more.
Before coming to this store, when Lin Cheng passed by other stores, he paid special attention to the cartons of other stores, the labels on the licenses, and the prices when the boss sold them to other people.
Hearing Lin Cheng’s words, the proprietress was stunned, and looked at Lin Cheng in surprise: When she first looked at Lin Cheng, he didn’t seem to be someone operating a small business, but she didn’t expect that he would still be such a knowledgeable person?!
The expression on the proprietress’s face changed several times, and she finally nodded without being pretentious, “Okay, let’s pay the price you said.”
The proprietress calculated the price again.
“Your asking price for the mushroom is really not doable, can I give you a 15% discount instead?”
“That’s okay.”
In the end, the two bought the ingredients at a price of 385 yuan.
… …
At this moment, after watching the entire livestream, the audience in the livestream channel were already stunned.
[Woc! Lin Cheng is too awesome! ]
[My family runs a small restaurant. To be honest, Lin Cheng’s price is really good. ]
[By the way, how did Lin Cheng do it? I don’t know any of the Jiaming, Xinhui, and Longchang he mentioned. How did he know? ]
[Same question. ]
[It seems that when he just entered the market, Lin Cheng stood there for a while. I saw that his eyes seemed to be looking at the products and prices of each store. It should be written down temporarily at that time.]
[Big flex…]
Lin Cheng’s performance was indeed surprising, and there was a significant discrepancy between him and the other stars in everyone’s impression.
[Ahem, let me confirm again, this is a celebrity reality show, right? He’s a star right? ]
[Yes, to be honest I also often fall into doubts.]
[Haha, me too. I have been squatting in Lin Cheng and Momo’s livestream channel for a long time now, and I often think that this is a large-scale survival program.]
… …
Lin Cheng left the market with Lin Momo.
Seeing Lin Cheng carrying big and small bags of ingredients, Lin Momo ran up to him and wanted to help him.
“Dad, I can help you carry some.”
No need…
Lin Cheng’s words of refusal were already on his lips, but meeting the girl’s serious eyes, Lin Cheng still took out a package from his hand and handed it to Lin Momo.
“Take this if you want.”
The bag contained dried shiitake mushrooms, dried fungus and dried vermicelli. It looked like a big bag, but it was actually not heavy.
Just… the focus was on participation.
Lin Cheng thought this in his heart.
Lin Momo, however, held the package of dry goods tightly in her hand with a serious face, and walked along the road being extra careful.
.
… …
Going back, the two still took the bus.
Back at the place where they lived, the two took stock of the ingredients purchased in the morning and afternoon, and put them on the table according to their classification.
The next moment, facing a large table full of ingredients, the father and daughter suddenly fell silent and stared at each other, one big and one small.
Neither Lin Cheng nor Lin Momo had any experience in making buns.
The expressions of the two at this time were relayed to the livestream channel with pinpoint accuracy.
Seeing the father and daughter’s exact ‘staring’ expressions, the barrage section suddenly became lively:
[When they stopped moving I thought the screen suddenly froze.]
[What? ]
[Hahaha, I guess neither father nor daughter know how to make buns.]
[Lin Cheng: After buying the materials, I realized that I don’t know how to make buns at all. ]
[Laughing.]
[I’m just curious, how can two people who don’t know how to make buns sell buns. ]
[Advice to Lin Cheng online: let’s set up a self-service place, the things are placed there, and diners have to eat steamed buns to pack themselves, hahahaha…]
In addition to watching the excitement, there are also people who expressed concern about it: [I made steamed buns, it was really difficult.]
[If they can’t make buns, how will they sell them tomorrow?]
[Last week, it was quite a problem, so it’s not like you won’t be able to complete the task this week, right?]
T/N: I worried about this exact problem when they first picked the employment card a few chapters back but Lin Cheng didn’t seem fazed so I figured he knew what he was doing, and true enough, we end up here hahaha.
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