Rebirth: She is Ready for a Counterattack!-Chapter 397 - 396: No Immediate Worries for Man

Gu Xiaoqing indeed wasn’t in a hurry, as the elderly’s stubbornness has always been as firm as a rock, hard to shake.

Moreover, she was planning to study abroad in the United States for a year, so the marriage would definitely have to wait until she returned to start preparing.

Fang Shaohan still had to work; after all, he was no longer the useless guy living in the hospital. It took a real effort for him to get half a day off.

Gu Xiaoqing watched as Fang Shaohan’s car gradually drove out of sight, suddenly feeling a sense of emptiness and boredom in her heart.

It seemed like everything suddenly became much quieter.

"Seems like it’s been a long time since I walked aimlessly like this."

Gu Xiaoqing wandered around familiar places, although all the scenes and settings were familiar, she had a feeling as if the mountain she saw wasn’t really a mountain.

Familiar, yet so distant from her.

Her eyes roamed freely, looking at pedestrians on the street, shops, and small vendors. Suddenly, she noticed a somewhat familiar storefront.

"Is this the milk tea shop that joined my franchise?"

Gu Xiaoqing took two steps forward to take a closer look, and it turned out it wasn’t her milk tea shop, but a store with a very similar design.

Even so, the store still had people coming by now and then to buy a cup of milk tea.

"How could I forget about this human trait?"

Gu Xiaoqing laughed and cried at the same time — counterfeiting, imitation, copying... whenever something gets popular, people mimic your model, using low costs to capture the secondary market.

Hotpot restaurants can keep people because they have the secret sauce recipe. But milk tea is different, as long as they find the source, and the taste is somewhat similar, they can quickly eat into her current market.

She felt empty in her heart because she thought her future path seemed already set up.

Studying abroad, the family could run the hotpot restaurant, and she had her own company, preparing to marry Fang Shaohan as well. Everything seemed so orderly.

Now she realized that there were significant risks in her business, and she needed to be prepared.

Fang Shaohan was devoted to her, but Gu Xiaoqing still felt that having her own career was best.

Relying on a man, in her eyes, was a kind of sorrow.

"Really feels like being in a business world, where you can’t control yourself anymore."

Before, she always thought doing business was easy for those merchants, but now it seems not necessarily the case. The market is urging her to make changes and to start preparations.

Suddenly, she had a flash of insight, a sense of sudden enlightenment in her mind. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Gu Xiaoqing immediately headed to see the Li Sisters, who were diligent and managed everything with great care.

They had always handled operations and training, with Gu Xiaoqing acting like a hands-off boss. However, the company’s major decisions were still controlled by Gu Xiaoqing.

These sisters were certainly not as visionary as the reborn Gu Xiaoqing.

"I’ve looked at your reports. Although the new franchise stores and main store’s customers are still growing, the growth rate has already started to decline."

Gu Xiaoqing used to think that as long as there was growth, it was good. Suddenly, she felt that this wasn’t enough.

Because the slowing growth means the milk tea shop has already started to decline.

But that’s normal; after all, milk tea isn’t like mineral water or cola — available everywhere.

Now it’s evident that if students get tired after playing basketball, they’d drink cold water from the tap, and if they splurge, they’d buy a bottle of iced soda from a vendor near the court.

Not everyone has the patience to walk here and get a cup of milk tea. More so, iced soda is cheaper.

Milk tea, for current consumers, isn’t something they’d easily and casually buy to drink.

"This...we..."

The Li Sisters felt a bit panicked hearing Gu Xiaoqing’s words; they had been running the business very earnestly. They didn’t expect problems to arise still.

Gu Xiaoqing raised her hand, smiling as she shook her head, "I’m not blaming you; the problem lies with me."

"How come..."

The Li Sisters were stunned. They were initially expecting criticism, yet their boss claimed it was her own mistake, leaving them puzzled as to what exactly happened.

The Li Sisters couldn’t understand, and neither could anyone else.

"You guys, whenever you have time, go out more, stroll around the streets, got it?"

The Li Sisters exchanged glances, becoming even more confused, unable to grasp what exactly was going on with their boss.

First, she said it was her own problem, then she told them to go out shopping?

The two of them wanted to touch Gu Xiaoqing’s forehead to see if she had a fever or perhaps got her head stuck in a door.

Obviously, if Gu Xiaoqing knew these two silly girls were thinking this way, she would definitely jump up and make them face the wall in reflection.

"Our stores are starting to be imitated. Although others’ products don’t taste that great for now, it’s only temporary."

However, after seeing the milk tea shop similar to her own, Gu Xiaoqing went up and bought a cup. The taste was much different from hers, after all, she had authentic Hong Kong-style drinks.

But the opponent’s had a very sweet taste, and if improved to suit local tastes, it would definitely pose a significant threat to her.

One has to know that not every Chinese is fond of the original flavors of Hong Kong-style drinks. Even after McDonald’s and KFC entered the domestic market for several years, they have to continuously develop rice-based fast food according to local tastes.

The uniform hamburgers and fries are bound to be phased out.

Having been reborn, Gu Xiaoqing knew too well that when McDonald’s first landed in Beijing, it was almost always packed.

But later on? After 2005, most McDonald’s customers were just resting, using the toilet; it was hard to recreate the previous bustling scenes in every store.

The same goes for KFC. Later, most people used it as a resting place, gone were the days when it was packed every day.

And later, other brands like Dicos and Wallace came online one after another, further eating away the market for hamburgers, fried chicken, and fries.

Having experienced all this, Gu Xiaoqing understood that if she wanted her business to continue, she had to develop new menus to prolong the life of her milk tea shop.

Moreover, finding diversified paths, relying solely on milk tea shops, she feared wouldn’t hold up in the future.

"Develop a new menu?"

The Li Sisters gasped in surprise. They couldn’t understand what their boss had in mind at all. They had already imported several Hong Kong-style snacks and had a few matching dishes, and still needed to develop more?

"For example, these — pearl milk tea, pudding milk tea, red bean milk tea, wheat milk tea, etc., you can put them together and make a ’family combo milk tea.’

Gu Xiaoqing vaguely remembered that such mixed milk teas were quite popular before.

After all, it had everything in it; all flavors could maximize customer satisfaction.