The next morning, at the Yuwang Mansion.
Outside the room of the Crown Prince of Yu, a servant stood there with his hand raised, looking somewhat hesitant.
"Clang clang~"
In the end, he still went and knocked on the door.
Who is it?
The Crown Prince of Yu's somewhat impatient voice came out. He had been out playing until very late last night, and if he didn't have anything to do this morning, he would probably sleep until after 9 a.m.
As servants of the Yu King's mansion, they naturally knew that the Yu King's heir was most irritable when he slept in late, and disturbing him at this time would be very dangerous.
"Your Highness, Master Qu is requesting an audience outside!"
"Didn't you tell him that I, the young master, am resting?"
The Crown Prince of Yu thought something big had happened, but when he heard it was Master Qu, his voice turned somber.
"Young Master, Master Qu said it's urgent and can't be delayed for a moment. It seems to be about the Zhou family's cloth workshop..."
"Tell him to wait in the front hall!"
"Yes, Your Highness."
The servant wiped his sweat and quickly withdrew.
Before long, the Crown Prince of Yu, dressed in his finest attire, appeared in the front hall, and Master Qu rushed over immediately.
"Your Highness, something terrible has happened! The Zhou family's cloth shop has lowered the price of their cotton-padded coats, making them fifty coins cheaper than ours! Now a lot of people have gathered around!"
Upon hearing this, the Crown Prince of Yu's expression changed slightly.
Are you sure it's been reduced by fifty coins?
"Your Highness, I had my servants inquire once, but I wasn't sure, so I went to confirm it myself. It's true that the price has been reduced by fifty coins!"
"Is there anything unusual in their fabric shop?"
After thinking for a moment, Master Qu said, "There's nothing unusual, except that there are fewer people in the cloth shop than before, only three. But considering that the Zhou family's cloth shop hasn't had any business recently, three people isn't actually a small number."
The Crown Prince of Yu nodded and then asked, "Is it only the Zhou Family Cloth Shop's main branch that's lowering prices?"
"The prices have all been lowered! Except for the main store, the West and North stores have also lowered their prices! Young Master, what should we do? Qu Family Cloth Shop used to have a lot of people coming to buy clothes when it opened in the morning, but now because of Zhou Family Cloth Shop's price reduction, all these people have gone to Zhou Family Cloth Shop! If we don't do something, Zhou Family Cloth Shop's business may rebound in the long run!"
Master Qu's concerns were not unfounded.
Before selling cotton-padded clothes, Qu Family Cloth Shop didn't have many customers. People in Ruzhou were used to buying clothes from Zhou Family Cloth Shop, so even though the quality of the clothes from the two shops was similar, no one came to Qu Family Cloth Shop.
Later, by selling low-priced cotton-padded clothes, the people of Ruzhou gradually became familiar with Qu Family Cloth Shop and developed the habit of buying clothes from Qu Family Cloth Shop.
However, if the Zhou family's cloth shop were to lower prices and win back the people, all the hard-won habits would be wasted, which is why Master Qu was anxious.
The crown prince of Yu paced back and forth, but there was little urgency on his face.
"According to the Imperial Uncle, the Zhou family paid a high price for cotton from him. In addition to the labor costs, the Zhou family's cotton-padded clothes wouldn't make much profit even if they sold them for 500 coins. Let alone selling them for 150 coins now, even if they sold them for 350 coins each, they would still lose money!"
"So they've given up entirely?"
The Crown Prince of Yu nodded and smiled, "Yes, their cotton and cotton-padded clothes are piling up in the warehouse and can't be sold, which has also prevented the normal production and sale of other clothes. If this continues, the Zhou family's cloth workshop will definitely go bankrupt. They have figured this out, so even if they lose money, they have to clear out these stockpiled cotton-padded clothes so that they can have room to sell other clothes! Moreover, they deliberately set their prices fifty coins lower than ours in order to win back their customers!"
Master Qu became anxious after hearing this.
Although Zhou's Cloth Shop is losing money selling cotton-padded clothes, once they clear out all the clothes and attract customers back, business will gradually improve. It may take a long time to earn back the money they lost, but they won't go bankrupt!
"Your Highness, we can't let her succeed!"
Master Qu said worriedly.
The Crown Prince of Yu laughed and said, "We definitely can't let her be comfortable. She lowered her price, didn't she? Then we'll lower ours too, and see if she can outbid us!"
Master Qu was quite excited after hearing this. His original intention was also to lower the price, because he knew that their cotton-padded clothes didn't have much cost price. Moreover, in order to bring down the Zhou family's cloth workshop, they could disregard costs!
So he immediately asked, "Your Highness, how much should we lower our prices?"
"Aren't they deliberately offering fifty coins less than us? Let's do the same and see how they react!"
"Alright, then one hundred coins it is!"
Master Qu was very excited. In fact, the first thing he did when he heard that Zhou's cloth shop had lowered its prices was to follow suit and lower his prices as well.
However, although he was the nominal manager of the Qu Family Cloth Shop, he still had to listen to the Crown Prince of Yu on important matters, especially since dealing with the Zhou Family Cloth Shop was the Crown Prince of Yu's idea.
"Young Master, I'll head back to the cloth shop now!"
"Alright, inform me of any news immediately!"
"yes!"
After answering, Master Qu returned home without stopping.
...
At this time, the area outside Zhou Family Cloth Shop's main store was extremely bustling.
Zhou Ziqiong looked through the curtain but did not enter the main store.
Since Zhou Family Cloth Shop put up a sign announcing a price reduction on cotton-padded coats this morning, more and more customers have started to come in to ask if it's really that cheap. After all, cotton-padded coats at Qu Family Cloth Shop are already cheap enough, but Zhou Family Cloth Shop's coats are fifty coins cheaper than those at Qu Family Cloth Shop!
However, because the cotton-padded clothes at Qu Family Cloth Shop were so cheap before, almost everyone who had the money to buy cotton-padded clothes had already bought them there, so there was no shortage of cotton-padded clothes at this time. They came to join in the fun after hearing that Zhou Family Cloth Shop had lowered its prices.
Those who were short of money and had been hesitant about buying cotton-padded clothes gritted their teeth and bought them after seeing that Zhou's Cloth Shop was fifty coins cheaper than Qu's Cloth Shop.
As for those who didn't have much money at all, even if a cotton-padded coat cost 150 coins, they still couldn't afford it. However, they still stood outside the door, hoping to find a cheaper price.
However, quite a few people were still buying. At this moment, she finally understood why Jing Zhe had only left three employees in the store.
Because their price reduction was merely to force the Qu family's cloth shop to lower its prices, not to actually sell cotton-padded clothes. At 150 coins per piece, they would lose money on each one sold, so naturally they couldn't sell more.
The advantage of having only three people in the store is that they are too busy to handle both selling cotton-padded clothes and processing payments. So even though many people come into the store, not many cotton-padded clothes are actually sold.
There were still many people squeezing into the cloth shop, and many of them were complaining that the Zhou family's cloth shop was too inefficient and far worse than their competitor, the Qu family's cloth shop.
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