Rebirth: She is Ready for a Counterattack!-Chapter 398 - 397: Forethought Is a Must

"For example, Li Caimian, you like pearl milk tea and also want to buy pudding milk tea, what do you do?" Gu Xiaoqing asked.

"Then, then I’ll just buy the one I like the most."

"What if we launched this ’family milk tea’? Although the price might be a bit higher than any one of them, which would you buy then?"

The Li Sisters widened their eyes; the answer was obvious. If they really liked both, they would naturally choose the ’family milk tea’!

For instance, adding fifty cents to a dollar more on the original price isn’t unacceptable.

Gu Xiaoqing, in her rebirth, deeply understood this. Milk tea itself has room for profit, and the cost of materials isn’t as high as imagined. Later, many milk tea shops offered similar ’family milk teas’, which were a few bucks more expensive than regular milk teas.

But that was the future prices!

Talking about the purchasing power of one yuan for daily vegetables now is not the same as the value of one yuan in the future.

Currently, you can buy a big cabbage for one yuan, and even the cheapest watermelons are less than a dime per jin.

But what about the future?

She remembered that by 2015, even the cheapest watermelons were at least 0.6 yuan per jin. Things like cucumbers and cabbages were no longer one dime per jin. In daily markets, most vegetables were priced at over one yuan per jin.

She imagines that in the future, even if ’family milk teas’ cost a few bucks more, many people won’t care about the additional cost.

But now... converting by roughly the same ratio, people would be willing to pay an extra price of about between fifty cents and a yuan.

If it were a yuan more, people might think twice.

"There’s another advantage: this ’family milk tea’ can also be a signature item. I guess you’ve encountered some first-time buyers in your shop; what are their reactions?"

Gu Xiaoqing asked the two sisters.

The Li Sisters looked up, thought for a moment, and then replied, "Generally, those who haven’t tried it get overwhelmed by our confusing menu and often ask us what tastes good and what sells well; then they buy that kind of milk tea."

"Hmm, that’s right. At this time, you can only recommend based on previous customer’s preferences. But what if they take a sip and don’t think it’s great? The customers might feel you tricked them, and they won’t come back. This way, we lose a lot of potential customers."

Gu Xiaoqing didn’t mean to launch such a milk tea but hoped that the Li Sisters could think from a different perspective.

Stop just thinking about franchising, training... Franchise stores will become saturated within one or two years.

They should change their mindset and make customer experience the core of the milk tea shop.

Thinking more about the users is about considering the ’life’ of the milk tea shop.

Gu Xiaoqing, in her rebirth, was well aware of the future shocks this market would face. Now people haven’t realized it yet, but soon there will be others running their stores in the same way.

They use cheap ingredients and industrial additives to make cheap milk tea that suits people’s tastes, regardless of cost. By then, her milk tea shop would face huge shocks and brutal price wars.

Yet, the cost of ingredients and techniques determines the price of milk tea, so people who aren’t in the know will abandon pricey milk tea for similarly flavored, cheap milk tea.

But ironically, during the years of rapid economic development, chaos will also hit the market until the future, when the internet spreads nationwide and we enter an era of full informationization, will such deceitful practices recede.

Gu Xiaoqing won’t deceive others, so her only means is to constantly innovate to catch consumers’ eyes and stay at the forefront of the times.

"I see, so when a new customer comes in and doesn’t know what kind of milk tea to choose, we can recommend the ’family milk tea’ to them."

The Li Sisters, being clever, immediately understood Gu Xiaoqing’s meaning.

This is indeed a good method; it not only increases the milk tea’s revenue but also prevents the loss of potential customers.

"Yes, I’m just giving an example. I just hope you think more. I think we can add some investment in advertising for the franchising and establish our brand. But you still need to research the specific new menu, such as cost control, the mix of added ingredients for the family tea, etc."

"Yes, understood."

The two sisters looked up to Gu Xiaoqing with admiration, wishing they themselves had a mind like hers, even if just half as much as their boss’s.

"Also, I think in the summer, we can make some ice cream."

"Ice cream? Do you mean those popsicles sold on the street?"

The Li Sisters asked.

"No, I want the ice cream to taste like the one in McDonald’s," Gu Xiaoqing said nostalgically.

During this era, popsicles weren’t rare, but compared to those, KFC’s sundaes and McDonald’s ice cream definitely tasted better than the traditional popsicles on the street.

Popsicles give the feeling of drinking cold water, but the creamy taste of sundaes lingered in Gu Xiaoqing’s mind. From her past life, she could immediately tell with one bite how different sundaes were from the typical popsicles sold on the street.

In the future, many places could replicate that creamy taste, but what’s predominantly found on the market now are still popsicles.

"Both of you should go out more often, observe a lot, and learn. Knowledge is the best weapon to arm the mind, but knowledge isn’t just what’s in textbooks; ultimately, it is gained from day-to-day experience."

The Li Sisters felt somewhat confused and didn’t quite understand a word, but they realized their boss wanted them to go out, observe, and learn from others.

"Yes, yes, we will definitely work hard."

The Li Sisters admired Gu Xiaoqing even more. In their eyes, daily life was just going to school, going to work, without much thought of anything else.

But a boss is a boss; finding the extraordinary in the mundane makes one truly capable!

Of course, Gu Xiaoqing’s mind was still swirling with various ideas, like adding a machine for fried yogurt. But this thing can only be the icing on the cake and not something to rely on for a decisive advantage.

Of course, hotpot, once developed to a certain degree, will also face bottlenecks, but not as severe as the milk tea shops.

Conversely, she had another idea in reserve, one intended to reverse situations or be an icing on the cake.

"Once the craze reaches its peak, hotpot competitions will hinge not only on the soup base but also on the freshness and quality of the ingredients and meat."

The soup base decides the success of hotpot, but ingredients will widen the gap in that success. Why was Haidilao so tasty in the past?

It’s not just about Haidilao’s soup base, but also its superior meat and various slides compared to typical roadside hotpot shops.

Things like marinated beef or hand-torn lamb... The prerequisite is having top-quality supplies.