The other snack shops were deserted.

Not even a fly would bother to fly in and land for a while.

The stark contrast left the shop owners visibly flustered.

Chi Minghe pretended to be in a difficult position, but in the end, he still explained the method under Zhang Qiaoyue's 'angry' gaze.

The food street jointly organized a food festival, where vendors could offer discounts according to their own preferences to attract customers.

The pre-festival promotion is of paramount importance, as it directly determines the future market share, i.e., the size of the pie.

Therefore, a certain amount of investment is needed for the promotion of the food festival in the early stages.

The discount promotions and initial advertising investments were the 'children' that Zhang Qiaoyue mentioned earlier as needing to be abandoned in advance.

After listening to Chi Minghe's general explanation, some shop owners immediately expressed their concerns.

"Brother Chi, Zhang Cui's restaurant has Chef Lin's reputation to back it up. What if all the customers we bring in for the food festival end up eating at their restaurant? Wouldn't that be a waste of our efforts?"

As soon as he finished speaking, a shop owner immediately voiced his agreement.

"In everyone's opinion, how much profit can Zhang Cuijia Restaurant and 'Forget Me Not' Milk Tea Shop make from their recent booming business?"

"Don't be ridiculous, you're expecting to make a profit? We'd be grateful if we didn't lose money!"

Some shop owners scoffed at this.

"That's it. Even if all the customers they bring in end up spending money in their store, it only speeds up the rate at which the owner loses money. I don't believe he has that much money to keep subsidizing like a bottomless pit!"

"Hey—Brother Chi, what you said makes sense!"

Even if we can't compete with him in business, we'll still make him spend more money!

When the boss runs out of money, he'll have no choice but to raise the prices.

"By then, the prices will be about the same, and I refuse to believe the store's business can be any worse than it is now!"

The shop owners are quite confident in their signature snacks.

It's like someone who likes to eat rice, but after eating too much rice, they'll occasionally crave the taste of instant noodles.

Chef Lin is very famous, but the students of No. 1 Middle School in the city won't be queuing up for long hours every meal to choose this restaurant!

Currently, everyone chooses it because it's very affordable, and also because of Chef Lin's reputation, which brings a sense of novelty and excitement.

The novelty factor will naturally diminish and eventually disappear over time.

But the allure of price is something that won't disappear anytime soon.

Now, by using food festivals, the goal is to speed up the pace at which business owners spend money. Once they run out of money, they will naturally have to raise prices, which is essentially a way to accelerate the pace at which business owners raise prices later on.

If the boss raises prices quickly later on, it's only a matter of time before their business recovers.

This is still the worst possible outcome of the food festival.

The best outcome was that the food festival was a great success, and the huge influx of visitors made all the shops' businesses boom.

Chi Minghe clearly explained the best and worst possible outcomes to all the shop owners.

Immediately, a shop owner agreed to join the Chi family and host a food festival together.

Some shop owners who were initially hesitant, seeing that others had agreed, immediately stopped hesitating and also voted to agree to hold the food festival.

Chi Minghe's proposal was ultimately unanimously agreed upon by all the shop owners.

With a shared goal, the remaining task was to discuss the specifics and procedures for the food festival.

If the time commitment is too long, the shop owners won't be able to keep up; if the time commitment is too short, they're afraid it won't be effective.

Therefore, the food festival was ultimately scheduled to last for half a month.

There are as many as sixteen snack shops and restaurants participating in the food festival.

The shop owners spared no effort in promoting the food festival in the early stages, each displaying their unique talents.

Since its debut at the Chijia event, merchants have been reluctant to forget the promotional method of posting on WeChat Moments and getting likes and favorites.

This food festival naturally includes this kind of promotional method.

So, while studying, Chi Chan was once again conscripted by Zhang Qiaoyue.

Moreover, Zhang Qiaoyue even came up with online promotional methods.

Let Chi Chan document this food festival with videos!

Therefore, the 'Clever Mom' video account added a new food festival vlog.

Chi Chan had only suggested to Zhang Qiaoyue the idea of ​​starting a food festival, but unexpectedly, with the joint efforts of all the shop owners, the first food festival at the No. 1 Middle School of the city was a great success.

The response was very positive, exceeding Chi Chan's expectations.

On the opening day of the food festival, it even made it into the evening newspaper of Xingcheng City.

Of course, being able to make it into that day's evening paper was thanks to a shop owner having an outstanding nephew who was a reporter at the newspaper, another shop owner having a very good relationship with the neighborhood committee, and everyone's hard work in the early stages of publicity.

Unlike the Chi family, who had only been in business for less than two years.

Most of the merchants on this street are locals from Xingcheng, who have been doing business in Xingcheng for more than ten years, decades, or even a lifetime or several generations.

These business owners' families live here, some even for generations, forming a complex and intertwined network of relationships in Changsha.

The combined effect of these complex relationships ultimately gave the food festival at the No. 1 Middle School of the city the boost of official publicity.

The power of the authorities was undoubtedly immense, creating a favorable situation for the food festival, which started slowly but ultimately flourished.

A few days before the food festival was set up, the entire street was decorated beyond recognition by the shop owners, a sight that Lin Chunni found distasteful.

What's the point of holding a food festival? Aren't we just making things easier for them?

Chef Lin's reputation, coupled with the food festival, will definitely create a winner-takes-all scenario.

After returning home, Lin Chunni even instructed Zhang Cui to increase her purchases, preparing to sit back and collect the money.

Just as Lin Chunni had predicted, the restaurant became a bustling hub of business after the food festival opened.

Zhang Cui was so busy she barely had time to breathe. Chef Lin and his two apprentices were standing in front of the stove from morning till night every day, without a single breath to rest. They were just too busy.

But this situation only lasted a week before Zhang Cui's restaurant had to go out of business. The reason was simple: it was too tiring.

They open at 8 a.m. and close at 12 p.m. every day, a full 16 hours without shift work. How can any of the three people in the kitchen stand it?

Chef Lin was already quite old. He had been able to keep going while the restaurant was busy, but now he was completely exhausted and collapsed after only a week.