Chapter 491: Guaranteed Profit
After the meeting, Xiao Jun stayed in Gu's parents' room where a fire was burning. Under the dim light, he carefully tore off a page from the notebook given by An Zhixia and cut it into twelve pieces.
He practiced the three slightly complex and meaningful window decorations he had just learned. Because the paper was small, he was more skilled and precise in controlling the scissors.
After cutting out ten sheets of paper, he was able to quickly cut them out without even looking at the samples, and the lines of the window grilles were even and smooth.
He became proficient in the most complicated one, and was able to cut out the other two in one go without using the template after cutting five or six pieces each.
The more Xiao Jun cut, the more experience he gained. He actually derived more than ten kinds of patterns from those three!
Xiao Jun hadn't slept for long when he was awakened by the crowing of his own rooster.
He crawled out of the bed that had finally been warmed up, got up shiveringly, washed, then put on his bag and took the scissors borrowed from Old Lady Gu, and walked to the village entrance in the dark against the north wind, stumbling along, while the photographer and assistant followed him.
Xiangyang Village is very remote, and only when there is a market will the village send oxcarts to take villagers to the market. Usually, if an individual borrows an oxcart, he must either feed the ox well or deduct work points to pay for the feed.
For the villagers who would rather break a penny into eight petals, they would rather walk a few more steps than use ox carts.
However, the residents of the town do not have fields and do not need to make fertilizer for farming, so the various brigades negotiated and took turns to contract the cleaning work of various toilets in the town.
Today it was the turn of the brigade to which Xiangyang Village belonged, and each village sent out two ox carts.
When Xiao Jun and his companions arrived, one oxcart was already full of women and wives, and the other cart was also half full. They hurried forward to sit down.
A familiar faint fishy smell came to Xiao Jun's nose along with the dry and cold air. He stopped and looked at the ox cart with difficulty in the dim light of the kerosene lamp.
However, it was pitch black and nothing could be seen.
While he was hesitating, the remaining positions were quickly taken by others who were a few steps behind.
Xiao Jun just shrugged his shoulders and followed the ox cart, taking one step forward and one step back. When the sun came out, he had been jogging for an hour and his whole body was warm.
He also saw the appearance of the oxcart clearly. It was covered with stains of rich colors from years of accumulation.
Xiao Jun felt that the smell in the air was stronger, and the acid in his stomach seemed to be rushing out.
However, he was quite touched when he saw the villagers in the car chatting and laughing with satisfaction.
If someone had told him before that he could laugh while sitting on a manure truck, he would have thought that person was crazy.
In fact, these villagers can look happy even if they have a little bit of something.
The smile was pure and warm, and he was so infected that he couldn't help but curl up the corners of his mouth.
It took them two hours to reach the town. Xiao Jun made an appointment with someone to go back, and then he wandered around with his bag slung over his shoulder. The town was not big, with only two streets running vertically and horizontally, and you could almost see the whole thing at a glance. It was not even as big as the community where his family lived.
Xiao Jun was a little confused. He came here with great enthusiasm, only to see such a depressed town.
But now that we're here, we might as well give it a try, right?
He found the supply and marketing cooperative and walked in. There were only two rooms in total. There were a wide variety of goods, but it seemed quite crowded.
"Do you need to buy anything, kid?"
The supply and marketing cooperative's publicity and management are in place. The salespersons are no longer as arrogant as they were a few years ago. They chuckled and greeted people enthusiastically.
Xiao Jun was a little embarrassed. He pinched the paper cut out of white striped paper in his hand, and handed it to her with a smile, saying, "Hello, sister, this is the paper cut I made, take a look."
The salesperson took it with some curiosity. On the palm-sized stack of papers, there was a vivid picture of a proud rooster with a big tail. Some of the papers had pictures and texts forming a flower cluster; some were money bags; some were even cut with "1981 Year of the Rooster, Good Luck"; one group had four numbers 1981, but each number was a hollow peony pattern, and the number nine was in the shape of a Chinese knot, with a rooster standing inside to announce the dawn!
The pattern is novel and has a good meaning. The salesperson thought that it would look even better if it was cut out of bright red paper!
There were only four sales clerks in the store, and they gathered around curiously to share the stack of small window paper-cuts.
"Wow, this style is really beautiful, I have never seen it in all these years!"
“Most window decorations nowadays are made by machines, but I still like handmade ones!
Little friend, you are not here to sell window decorations, are you? "
"Little classmate, if you use red paper, I can buy a few more. Otherwise, why don't you buy some red paper first?" a younger salesperson couldn't help but suggest.
Xiao Jun touched his ear and said embarrassedly: "Sister, I don't have money to buy red paper.
I came here to do business with you."
Several salespeople looked at each other.
The older one looked up and saw that no customers had come in yet, so he asked with a smile: "Young comrade, the supply and marketing cooperative is owned by the state, and we have no right to decide whether to do business with you."
"It's okay for you to listen," Xiao Jun said with a curved lip corner.
He has red lips and white teeth, is tall and slender, and has a somewhat ruffian air. Although he is not very old, he has already begun to show the charm that appeals to both young and old.
The youngest salesperson nodded and agreed, "Yeah, let's listen to it. It's not like we'll suffer any real loss."
The other salesmen looked at each other and said, "Okay, go ahead.
But let me make it clear in advance that we are just small salesmen and cannot make any decisions at all."
Xiao Jun hummed, "Actually, I was referring to the New Year's sales promotion method used by a supply and marketing cooperative in Dongcheng District, Kyoto, which was on the verge of closing a few years ago.
I will cut window decorations for you on the spot as gifts. As long as customers spend one dollar or more on shopping, they can get a pair of exquisite window decorations worth twenty cents!
I just hope you can give me some red paper in return."
Red paper is very cheap, only one cent for a large sheet, and you can cut at least six normal-sized window decorations!
The profit of a product worth one dollar is at least 40 or 50 cents, and if you spend 1.7 cents on publicity, as long as the publicity is effective, it is equivalent to a business that is sure to make a profit!
The window paper-cuts purchased by the supply and marketing cooperatives are all mass-produced by machines. The workmanship cannot compare with those cut by hand. The styles are also old, and there are only a few of them. How can they be as novel and beautiful as the ones cut by Xiao Jun?
Furthermore, every household in Shan City, western province has a particularly strong demand for Spring Festival couplets and window decorations, especially since the relaxation of the restrictions two years ago. People seem to want to make up for the missed years and have never been stingy with spending in this regard.
If you buy something and get window cutouts for free, they can't guarantee it in other places, but the residents in the city absolutely can't resist this temptation, especially when Xiao Jun blows the window cutouts into 20 cents a pair!
The four salesmen saw surprise and excitement in each other's eyes.
(End of this chapter)
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