The guy with the buck teeth has a friend surnamed Qian, known as "Money Madman." He's obsessed with money and will do anything that makes money. In Liuhua District, he owns six clothing stalls, two fabric stalls, a car repair shop, a leather shoe factory, and even a high-end furniture factory.
Boss Qian has a typical Fujianese appearance; he is lean and shrewd, and his Mandarin is not very standard, but he is very polite to people. Even though Chu Yu and Shu Lan don't look like business people at first glance, he is still very warm towards them.
"Old Qian, Miss Zhou's clothing chain store needs to import a batch of fabrics. I told her that your fabrics are the best, so I brought Miss Zhou here. Miss Zhou is a regular customer of mine, so please don't neglect her."
Mr. Qian offered him a cigarette, which the man with the buck teeth took and put behind his ear. Both Mr. Qian and the man were in the fabric business, and they tacitly understood that the man could accept the cigarette but could not smoke it. Smoking in someone else's fabric stall was tantamount to cutting off their livelihood.
Mr. Qian has a wide variety of goods, including imported Hong Kong fabrics, as well as accessories such as linings, zippers, and buttons.
Linings and buttons can be compromised, but zippers are of utmost importance. These days, zippers are not very durable. Even 20 years from now, in the new millennium, clothing zippers will easily wear out. For custom shops and clothing chains, the first priority is to ensure that accessories are durable.
The zippers at Boss Qian's place are all imported. People from Guangzhou are shrewd and know exactly how to get the best value for their money. They also have many years of experience in the clothing industry, so it's especially safe for Chu Yu to source her goods from him.
Boss Qian not only has a lot of fabric, but his clothing stall is also quite impressive.
Italian-style leather shoes, snow boots, cashmere winter coats, mohair sweaters in various colors... In short, you can find all kinds of international brands at his stall, and they are even better made than before. Except for the lack of brand names, Boss Qian's goods are just as good.
Chu Yu and Shu Lan were stunned.
Luxury goods from all over the world are here. Boss Qian did copy them, but he made them his own style. All the clothing styles were modified and labeled with his own English brand name.
These days, whether it's genuine or counterfeit, as long as the brand is in English, it's considered a foreign product in the eyes of Chinese people.
In the era before the rise of domestic products, foreign goods were widely sought after. Boss Qian could sell a Xiali car a day. He used the money he earned from the clothing and fabric stall to smuggle cars and home appliances. He invested the money he earned from smuggling home appliances into leather shoe factories and furniture factories.
Chu Yu was utterly stunned.
Qian Laifeng is rich, but he's not without his worries. The bigger his business is, the less cash he has. He wants to bring an Italian production line to his furniture factory, but he's struggling to come up with the money.
"The Italian production line?"
Xibao also wants to import a production line. Guangdong Province is at the forefront of furniture production in the country, and Chuyu plans to spend 100,000 yuan to buy an outdated production line from Guangdong. The production technology is not advanced; it's an old production line from decades ago. But there's no other way. Importing a production line costs money, and it's easy to get ripped off. Foreigners don't have the integrity described in the magazine "Zhixin." Knowing that China is in dire need of reconstruction, they prey on Chinese people who don't understand technology.
A state-owned factory imported production lines from Germany and Japan, spending millions of dollars, only to be told that the production lines it received were outdated models from decades ago.
China has been cut off from international relations for too long and can only buy experience with money. This is exactly what Chu Yu is worried about. Her Mandarin income can be invested in Xibao. The problem is that if the production line she brought in at a high price succeeds, all her assets will be burned to ashes.
I'm willing to take risks, but I don't want to be scammed.
Qian Laifeng had the same mindset as Chu Yu. At this time, the stalls were done and there weren't many people. Chu Yu was knowledgeable about fabric design and had an exceptional way of speaking. Qian Laifeng, on the other hand, wasn't very educated but was willing to communicate with young people with progressive ideas.
"There's a void in the domestic high-end furniture market, and there's nothing we can do about it. To produce high-end furniture, you need advanced production lines. Right now, the production technology in the entire Guangdong province isn't up to par. It might be passable domestically, but internationally, it's at least thirty years behind. Before the reform and opening up, we couldn't produce high-end furniture either. But times have changed. After the reform and opening up, not to mention the whole country, even just in Guangdong province, a portion of the population has become wealthy. With money comes the desire to enjoy life. Buying cars, houses, and building houses requires elevators, high-end decorations, and high-end furniture."
Mr. Qian's furniture store has been operating for several years and is making decent profits. Although it doesn't have the same cash flow as the clothing business, its future looks promising.
Mr. Qian believes that clothing is just riding the wave of good times; its current popularity doesn't guarantee it will remain popular decades from now. But furniture is different; its current small market doesn't mean it will be small in the future.
Making high-end furniture means you might not make a single sale for a year, but when you do, you can live off it for the whole year. Wealthy businessmen from Guangdong province bring in furniture from the port city, and a single piece can cost tens of thousands of yuan. There are even designers who come from the port city specifically to offer custom services.
Mr. Qian firmly believes that you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, so he wanted to do this business, importing Nix furniture production lines and patented technology from Italy, which would bring about a disruptive change to the domestic furniture industry.
For high-tech products that don't use wood, the edge banding, painting, and gilding processes are extremely important. Once the technology is introduced, Mr. Qian's furniture store will become a top player in the industry.
What is our country's most competitive advantage?
Cheap labor is the natural advantage!
Mr. Qian is very optimistic about the high-end furniture market.
Chu Yu and Qian were of the same mind. After listening to Boss Qian explain the technology behind the production line, Chu Yu admired Boss Qian's foresight.
How much would it cost to bring in this production line?
"This is Nixon's latest production line, which will cost at least several hundred thousand. The exact price is still under negotiation. The problem is that introducing the production line requires a large number of workers and a piece of commercial land. Right now, there aren't many workers in Guangdong Province, and there isn't suitable land either. It will cost a lot of money to get everything done."
Mr. Qian was rich, but he spent all his money on investments and expanding production, leaving nothing behind.
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