fictionpage Chapter 40 Paper Prices Soar in Hangzhou
Chapter 40 Paper Prices Soar in Hangzhou
Li Zhi, on the other hand, also saw Lin Mu's post and slapped his forehead.
Today, Brother Li's shop is a top merchant on Taobao, with monthly order volume between 2.5 and 3.
Because he sells underwear, he usually just uses plastic shipping bags to pack the items, with the average packaging material cost per order being around 4 cents. He thought there wasn't much room left to cut costs in packaging.
However, with a large volume of shipments, he frequently made mistakes in sending items, a problem that remains unresolved to this day. It wasn't until he saw Lin Mu's post that he suddenly realized, "That's right, why can't he streamline the packaging process?"
Li Zhi immediately went to the warehouse and optimized the packaging process. Following the instructions in the post, he set up several worktables, with three tables from left to right, each responsible for a different function.
After this optimization, his packaging efficiency increased by 30%, and the mistake of pasting the wrong tracking number was also greatly reduced.
Meanwhile, at Cat Sister's shop, Yang Xiaofang came across the post shared by Factory Manager Mao. She took the time to read it carefully and thought to herself that it was a really good post. The replies from City Lord and others in the forum also gave her a lot of inspiration.
According to her current packaging process, a pair of stockings is first packed in a transparent plastic bag, then the plastic bag is put into a cardboard box, and the cardboard box is then filled with foam. The entire packaging process, including the box and the labor cost for the auntie, costs 6 cents.
She ships 1000 orders every month, and the packaging costs alone amount to 600 yuan a month, not including shipping costs.
Yang Xiaofang had big ambitions. She thought to herself, "The packaging cost is 600 yuan a month now. If I can achieve monthly sales of 10,000 orders in the future, wouldn't the packaging cost be 6000 yuan a month? I must save this money."
She immediately took action. She went to a nearby convenience store, struck up a conversation with the owner, and tried to take away some of the store's remaining cardboard boxes for free.
To Yang Xiaofang's surprise, the shop owner said, "Xiaofang, I'm sorry, the cardboard boxes in the shop have already been taken by someone else who also runs a Taobao shop. How about this, next time I have cardboard boxes in the shop, I'll save them for you and not give them to anyone else."
"Oh? Is that so? Thank you, sister."
Yang Xiaofang thought to herself, what a coincidence, there's a second Taobao shop in the same neighborhood.
Suddenly, she felt nervous. Could it be that her colleague was also trying to do what she did, running around all the nearby convenience stores and supermarkets and sweeping up all the cardboard boxes?
After saying goodbye to the convenience store owner, Yang Xiaofang hurried to visit all the convenience stores and supermarkets in the area.
Fortunately, that competitor didn't go that far. She spent a few dozen yuan to buy a bunch of usable cardboard boxes. Roughly calculated, these boxes could save her several hundred yuan in packaging costs each month.
……
In a factory that specializes in making cardboard boxes.
Today, the sales manager's phone was ringing off the hook with calls from people asking if the factory had any misprinted packaging boxes.
At first, the sales manager was very happy. These misprinted cardboard boxes were difficult to ship. In the past, they couldn't be sold even at a price of one cent each. In many cases, in order not to waste inventory, they could only be packaged and sold directly to pulp mills so that the pulp mills could make use of the waste.
So, upon receiving an inquiry from the first customer, the sales manager wholesaled 1000 cardboard boxes at one cent each. The following day, he received two more inquiries and successfully cleared out 5000 unsold, misprinted cardboard boxes from the warehouse. However, things took a turn for the worse afterward.
Many more buyers inquired about whether the factory sold misprinted cardboard boxes, and he could only regretfully reply that they didn't, filled with doubt. Normally, hardly anyone would ask about such a niche product as misprinted cardboard boxes; why were so many people asking today?
And it wasn't just phone inquiries; the sales manager also noticed a significant increase in inquiries on the 1688 store today, with dozens of orders placed and several sales completed in a single day.
The few orders that were completed involved purchases of several thousand items, which was much more generous than the small buyers who used to only buy a few hundred.
This puzzled the sales manager. His factory had been listed on 1688 for almost half a year, but business had been lukewarm. Why did it suddenly become so popular today?
Could it be that someone was directing traffic to him without his knowledge? Curious, he asked a buyer who had made a purchase about his doubts. The buyer didn't hide anything and directly sent him a link, telling him to take a look.
The sales manager clicked on a link to a post on the Taobao seller forum, which had already received 500 replies and was labeled as "hot".
After carefully reading the post, he suddenly realized that someone had posted a tutorial on how Taobao sellers could save costs, which in turn boosted his cardboard box sales.
Oh dear, the sales manager was filled with regret. If he had known that the misprinted cardboard boxes would be so popular, he shouldn't have sold them for one cent each, but instead doubled the price to two cents each. Now he's lost several hundred dollars for nothing.
……
The president's office at Alibaba.
Lu Zhaoxi took a break from his busy schedule and checked the system to see what Lin Mu had posted.
Soon, he saw the post on the forum that was going viral about saving on packaging costs.
Lu Zhaoxi skimmed through the entire guide, praising it repeatedly as an excellent post and a top-notch guide.
Those in the manufacturing industry should squeeze every last drop of profit from every raw material cost. Sometimes, the life or death of a company depends on that 1% net profit.
He then called the company secretary and asked him to help check whether the sales of cardboard boxes on Alibaba's 1688 platform had increased as a result of this post.
Within a day, the company secretary gave a report, and the conclusions he drew greatly surprised Lu Zhaoxi.
Driven by Lin Mu's post, paper became scarce in Hangzhou. Cardboard boxes in convenience stores and supermarkets were snapped up by Taobao sellers in the surrounding area, and the purchase price of waste cardboard boxes rose from 6 cents to 8 cents per kilogram. This also led to a 2% increase in the wholesale volume of cardboard boxes on the 1688 platform.
"Good, good, good." Lu Zhaoxi said three times. Lin Mu always manages to surprise him. It's a shame to keep him as a lowly P2. He should be promoted to a higher level by the end of the year.
Of course, Taobao's promotion rules are already very formalized; it's not like he can just make a decision on a whim and promote whoever he wants.
In 2008, Taobao required employees to meet performance targets, pass a presentation and assessment, and align their values to be promoted from P2 to P3.
The so-called performance target means that the performance evaluation needs to reach B+ for two consecutive quarters.
Promotion defenses not only require performance evaluation, but also a certain level of PowerPoint presentation skills and oral communication ability.
Taobao will arrange a judging panel of 3 to 5 people, including one direct supervisor, one P3 from another department, and one P4 from the same department. Only a unanimous vote can lead to a smooth promotion.
As for aligning values, that depends on anonymous reviews from merchants on the platform. If there are very serious negative allegations, after investigation and verification, even if the first two criteria are met, promotion will be completely impossible, and the employee will have to undergo a new 3-month probationary period.
Of course, given Lin Mu's abilities, these tests are not difficult for him, and this promotion is almost a certainty.
Because he was in a good mood, Lu Zhaoxi wrote a letter of praise and sent it to Lu Hai, asking Lu Hai to commend Lin Mu and also to encourage Lin Mu to do more work and post more tutorial-type posts on the Taobao seller forum in the future.