"Great! The idea of leveraging WeChat fans to sell products is feasible!" Zhao Bingguang immediately affirmed Zhang Yang's plan after hearing his explanation.
"So... about the company…"
"I'll set up an online sales department directly, continue recruiting, and build the structure!" Old Zhao continued.
"Awesome, talking business with you is always so straightforward!" Zhang Yang grinned, very satisfied with Old Zhao's response.
...
In the following days, Zhao Bingguang quickly got involved in the preparation of the company's online sales department.
Recruiting new personnel, registering and applying for various procedures for the online store, uploading product images, and completing more details. The whole process from preparation to normal launch only took a week.
With the online store ready, the new episode of the "Dark Pit Jianghu" video was also edited and began uploading.
Unlike previous videos that only offered exposure to the products, this time, the video advertisement clearly mentioned the company's online sales channel. Those without local offline distributors could shop online.
This seemingly unassuming video update unexpectedly caused the newly opened Taobao store to explode with orders in less than a day!
Yes, you heard right, it exploded with orders!
The Taobao store only offered Wild Fishing Wine Rice, Old Version Carp Bait, Little Yellow Surface, plus a set of carp bait small medicine.
All items combined made no more than ten, yet just one WeChat ad made the store completely overrun with orders!
The newly hired Taobao customer service was a bit at a loss with continuous order notifications popping up in the backend.
Orders kept pouring in from fishing enthusiasts who saw the ad, messages and inquiries kept appearing, quickly reaching over 99+, and even slowing down the computer.
Even worse, the order volume made the company's stock manager feel like committing suicide after viewing it.
Just the Little Yellow Surface alone saw over 5000 packages ordered, with orders still crazily increasing.
August was the peak season for fishing, and the company's stock was never meant to handle such high demand, which meant the existing stock couldn't fulfill the orders.
While others have products and worry about selling, Zhang Yang's company was the opposite, filled with orders but no stock!
After reporting the situation to Zhao Bingguang, Old Zhao decisively instructed that products like the small medicine, which could be quickly restocked, should ramp up production and shipment immediately.
For baits that couldn't be shipped temporarily, he instructed to disable the new order function and arranged for the factory to work overtime around the clock! The goal was to ship all orders successfully in the shortest time possible!
What to do when there's not enough customer service? Hire more!
Offered high overtime pay, extended customer service online hours, and prioritized handling this wave of orders first!
What if there aren't enough packing workers in the warehouse? Even Zhang Yang and his three core team members personally got involved to ensure the shipping tasks were accomplished first.
72 hours!
After a full 72 hours of uncompromising effort, the first wave of product orders was completely shipped!
A simple assessment of the sales amount shocked even Zhao Bingguang!
Wow, one video ad promotion sold a whopping 6500 pounds of Little Yellow Surface and over four thousand bottles of small medicine, totaling an astonishing revenue of 700,000!
Seven hundred thousand, while not considered huge, was still impressive for Zhang Yang's fishing tackle company.
A regular distributor doesn't sell much in a year, but in just three days, the online store sales equaled seven distributors' annual order volume.
Plus, compared to distributor orders, online sales through direct channels have no intermediary profits, making net profits even more remarkable.
Given that the new online store had only been live for days and considering some order options were disabled due to stock limits, several fishing fans left comments under the video lamenting the situation and looking forward to the next restock.
Zhang Yang, receiving the sales summary, was not as excited as Old Zhao. He only glanced at the materials casually and set them aside.
Zhang Yang: "After so much effort nurturing accounts and gaining followers, finally we see some returns! This is just the beginning, there might be even bigger surprises ahead!"
...
Blooming in different ways, while Zhang Yang enjoyed profits and planned strategies, Luo Dapeng, who had been plotting for a while, was displeased watching the new update of the "Dark Pit Jianghu" video.
"Old Luo, what are you pondering? Why do you keep frowning? Don't like the food's taste?" Asked a friend at the dining table, nudging Luo Dapeng's chair back.
Luo Dapeng lifted his head, restoring his expression: "Nothing, just read a news update!"
"Don't zone out, keep up, drink this glass of wine, then tell us about the last thousand-person river fishing event, how did Zhang Yang use those Four Gentlemen small medicine?"
...
Questions from fellow fishing enthusiasts quickly lost all flavor for Old Luo.
Damn, in just a few days, before Luo Dapeng had a chance to talk to Zhang Yang about online sales, Zhang Yang had already put out advertisements for his Taobao store in the new video episode.
All of Luo Dapeng's carefully calculated plans ended before they even began!
...
With much to say if there's news, and little if not, the following months saw Zhang Yang's business development smoothly proceeding, strengthening both offline distributors and online Taobao store as different channels fueled simultaneous growth, swiftly adapting to the initial teething phase of new business avenues.
As for Zhang Yang's team, after a series of adjustments, stabilized their development, extending video updates from a two-day cycle to a three-day cycle.
Apart from filming local fishing grounds, the trio of Han Qiang, Wang Yan, and Zhou Chu began, as per Zhang Yang's request, using the company distributors' connections to gradually expand team filming locations to unique fishing grounds in nearby cities.
Come winter, the team continued to enlarge their travel radius, progressing to warmer southern fishing pits.
2013 passed under this stable development. As the year-end approached, the company did a simple evaluation of business accounts. Aside from investments in factory stock and employee salaries, a remarkable pure surplus of 3.8 million was achieved.
Having funds gave the company strength and courage to act. As the holiday approached, Zhang Yang boldly decided to allocate 500,000 as year-end bonuses for company employees.
Three core team members who had worked with Zhang Yang for a year each received a bonus of 50,000, and considering regular salary and various subsidies, the main team members aimed for an annual salary approximating 100,000.
With high year-end bonuses, employees were overjoyed, but Zhang Yang, the company's leader, remained calm, setting aside a million as a follow-up financial reserve, while sharing the rest of the profits with Old Zhao, his partner, based on their respective shareholding ratios and tax-divided dividends.
Thus, in just under two years, Zhang Yang's personal wealth surpassed 1.5 million, and based on local economic standards, he stepped from the working class into the realm of middle-class if not upper middle-class.
With the stores and company on holiday, Zhang Yang, on the pretext of buying insurance for his family, drove his parents to the municipal hospital for a thorough check-up, especially focusing on blood cancer parameters his father had suffered previously.
The preliminary results were positive, with no signs of the dreadful cancer, and his parents' health was excellent, allowing Zhang Yang to momentarily ease the weight that had burdened his heart.
The company was thriving; he had money, which gave Zhang Yang a comfortable holiday, playing cards and chatting with childhood friends and classmates from his village.
Also, the perennial Lunar New Year item, blind dates.