The discounts offered in Baiyue's new contracts have made merchants forget all about the previous issues and collectively excited.

In the current domestic market, these merchants, along with their distributors, want to promote their products to supermarkets and chain stores.

They also need to pay a "protection fee".

These costs include hidden expenses such as headcount fees, annual allowances, discounts, and shelf space fees.

This payment is also made up of a pretext, and it can't be settled in one payment.

Some are paid monthly, while others are paid annually.

All the miscellaneous expenses, while not a huge amount, were certainly not insignificant either.

Sometimes it's in the tens of thousands, sometimes it's in the hundreds of thousands, depending on the specific product and brand.

Would distributors and manufacturers be happy about this? Of course not.

But that's the industry standard; everyone pays. If you don't pay, there are other products that can replace it. After all, the country is a major producer with overcapacity.

So no matter how miserable they were, they had to follow the rules of the trade, pay their dues, and obediently call someone "grandpa."

Now, Baiyue, which has sent a new contract, has not only canceled this part of the payment, but also offered a rebate that is far lower than that of its competitors.

In the past, these large chain supermarkets, relying on their big names and wide distribution, often squeezed the mid-range market.

The rebates given to distributors and manufacturers reached 30%.

The settlement period is also three to six months, or even longer.

It wasn't until the busiest time of the year, when it was time to reconcile accounts, that they hurriedly transferred the payments and profits to distributors and manufacturers.

Baiyue has now reduced its rebate to as low as 5% and shortened the settlement period to once a week.

In the past, manufacturers had to bear the loss when goods were damaged and compensate supermarkets for the damage assessment.

Now, not only has this fee and its designation been directly cancelled.

As long as the goods are in good condition when they are delivered to Baiyue's warehouse, any subsequent damage or dirt that renders them unsellable will not be a problem.

Baiyue will bear all the losses itself and will no longer put pressure on distributors and manufacturers to assess and compensate for the damages.

The drafting of this new contract is hard to believe, not only for the distributors and manufacturers who have previously cooperated with Guangyuan.

Even within Lu Fan's company, there had been dissenting voices.

Especially Zhou Huan, who had just taken office.

Other distributors and manufacturers were unaware that Guangyuan's signboard had been removed, also because of Zhou Huan, who was in contact with them.

Otherwise, why would anyone think that Guangyuan was going to support its subsidiary? It's just that the supermarket is essentially the same thing with a different name, and the general manager is still Zhou Huan!

Getting back to the main point, Zhou Huan's objection stemmed from the fact that President Lu was, after all, the boss.

He is the current head of the company, but has never had any experience in operating offline supermarkets.

They were unaware that some industry rules existed to prevent situations where excessive concessions would lead to the company's own demise.

Take, for example, those "unfounded" charges that Lu Fan mentioned. In Zhou Huan's view, many small supermarkets would not be able to survive if they did not charge these kinds of fees.

Although Guangyuan didn't rely on these cleverly disguised projects to survive, even a powerful dragon can't suppress a local snake, so it chose to follow the crowd and avoid being suppressed by its competitors.

Zhou Huan earnestly advised Lu Fan to think more about his colleagues: "They're all enemies, Mr. Lu!"

Faced with Zhou Huan's endless, earnest, and persuasive explanations, Lu Fan felt as if he had returned to the past and gone back to school, encountering the head teacher again.

He chuckled at his own idea, but seeing Zhou Huan's devastated and hurt expression, he suppressed his laughter, adopted a slightly more serious expression, and then said:

"Oh dear Manager Zhou! It's not as serious as you think."

"As for the profitability issue, haven't we already discussed it before?"

"All the shops in the shopping malls belong to me, so there is no problem with high rent. No enemy or competitor can possibly cause us any trouble because of this."

"As for supply? Haven't all the sources of goods already been secured by our new contracts? As for other matters, we'll leave that to us in the future."

In Lu Fan's view, problems will always arise, one after another.

Therefore, it's good to plan ahead, but there's no need to worry excessively. Even the most costly issue of rent has been ignored, so in Lu Fan's opinion, Zhou Huan has absolutely no need to worry too much.

But Zhou Huan's eyes were vacant, and he finally understood something:

It's no wonder that the Lu family brand has been suppressed by Shengjing Company.

This kind of extravagant spending spree that completely disregards the survival of competitors is not something everyone can learn or do!

This is outrageous! Absolutely outrageous!

But Zhou Huan never once considered leaving his crazy boss, Lu Fan, to find another way out.

Zhou Huan was perfectly content following a crazy but generous big boss!

Lu Fan turned the question on Zhou Huan and asked him in return:

"Is things any better now? Are you confident that you can start making a profit within six months?"