Chapter 65 Rising to Fame
The shopkeeper frowned and said, "If the coal stove is expensive, we can't afford it."

Wang An chuckled. It seems that the ancients were just technologically underdeveloped and not stupid. This statement is true. He easily saw through a routine commonly used in later generations.

Wang An suddenly had an idea and changed his words: "I don't want your money for this coal stove. I'll give it to you for free. I just need a deposit..."

Seeing the shopkeeper's expression of "as expected", Wang An said hurriedly, "I only charge you one penny as a deposit for a coal stove made of sheet iron. To tell you the truth, the cost of the iron material and the labor is more than one penny."

"It's pointless for me to cheat you out of a deposit of one penny for a coal stove like this."

The shopkeeper swallowed back the words that were about to come out of his mouth, rolled his eyes twice, and still said with the cautiousness that is unique to small businessmen: "We have to take a look first."

"Okay, boss, just wait." After Wang An said this, he didn't even drink the mutton soup, and went out excitedly to find his two sales managers who were promoting the product on the street.

The nature is not far from here, and the coming and going is also very fast.

After a while, Wang An came to the mutton soup shop with a sales manager pulling a cart.

Wang An walked into the shop carrying a lit honeycomb coal stove and placed it next to the old charcoal stove in the middle of the room.

"Boss, come and see our coal stove."

The shopkeeper had never seen such strange-shaped honeycomb coal before, and like ordinary people, he had many doubts about its performance.

Wang An defeated the opponent with just two sentences. "Whether this honeycomb briquettes are good or not is not up to you to say. You won't know until you use them!"

"Anyway, I still say the same thing. If the cost of your stove for a day exceeds eight cents, it's all mine."

Compared with fancy sales promotions and introductions, hard cost guarantees are the visible benefits.

The shopkeeper smiled so hard that his teeth were showing. He then carefully studied the coal stove and confirmed that the iron sheet covering the exterior, including the labor and materials, cost more than one penny.

He immediately became generous and with a wave of his hand he paid the deposit for the honeycomb coal stove plus the payment for one hundred coal briquettes.

Wang An did not waste any time and immediately had one hundred coal briquettes unloaded from the cart. He also personally taught the shopkeeper how to use them.

Whether it is honeycomb coal or honeycomb coal stove, the method of use is actually very simple, so Wang An did not have to spend much effort and the shopkeeper was able to use it skillfully.

Before leaving, Wang An did not forget to turn around and tell someone the good news.

"Buy 500 briquettes and I'll refund your deposit!"

"It's a good feeling!"

When Wang An left the mutton soup shop, the sales manager immediately complimented him with admiration: "You are worthy of being the shopkeeper. You sold a hundred coal briquettes in the blink of an eye."

"It's equivalent to three to five days of sales!"

Wang An was also greatly inspired. In fact, compared with ordinary people, the restaurant owners who opened businesses had a greater demand for cheap coal.

In fact, it is normal to think about it. No matter what era, capital is always looking for cheaper commercial energy.

And because of the large usage, the order quantity is naturally larger.

This is just the first order. If they see the benefits of honeycomb briquettes, I am afraid they will use more. "Let Ergou write the name of our coal store on the honeycomb briquettes stove with a brush, so that more people will know about our honeycomb briquettes."

Inspired by this incident, Wang An also began to think creatively.

"How much can we sell if we do street promotion every day? It would be better to cooperate with coal shops and coal warehouses and let them distribute the coal for me. I will do both wholesale and retail business for them. This is the only way to quickly expand the market!"

Wang An did it as soon as he thought of it. He immediately called another sales manager who was still doing promotion, rushed back to the warehouse, and summoned all the business personnel to announce his business plan.

First, the promotion target group will be changed from ordinary people to restaurants, hotels, inns and other groups that consume a lot of coal;

Second, visit all coal shops and coal warehouses in Beijing to seek cooperation, and seek exclusive agents in the streets, alleys and alleys;

Third, for customers who purchase honeycomb coal, whether they are agents or front-line users, all will be provided free of charge, but a deposit of one penny of silver will be collected for each honeycomb coal stove.

Of course, there are preferential policies, that is, if you buy 500 honeycomb coals, you can get your deposit back and the honeycomb coal stove will be given away for free.

In fact, Wang An also thought that he could not only make money from honeycomb coal, but he could even make more money by selling honeycomb coal stoves, but the reality was extremely cruel.

Honeycomb coal is a new thing after all. When people don't even have the desire to try it, you have to sell them a honeycomb coal stove at a high price in order for them to use it. Even some people who are interested will give up the idea, which is extremely unfavorable for the rapid promotion of honeycomb coal.

I have also thought about not even charging a deposit and giving away a honeycomb coal stove as long as you buy honeycomb coal.

But think about it, this is not a good idea. After all, no one will cherish free things, and it may even allow some unethical people to take more and use them.

Anyway, it doesn't cost anything to have one honeycomb coal stove or ten, so we can't rule out the possibility that some people will want several at a time, one in the bedroom, one in the living room, and even one in the toilet.

Don’t worry about whether it’s useful or not, it’s free anyway.

After announcing the above new policies, Wang An excitedly imitated the movements he had seen in pre-production movies, clapping and shouting.

"Go go go go go! Take action!"

Everyone was confused, but at least they understood the word "action", so they started to act.

So, in the following period of time, a strange phenomenon appeared in Beijing.

More than a dozen carts carrying black coal briquettes roamed the streets and alleys of the capital. Whenever they came across a restaurant or coal shop, these carts would stop and enthusiastically sell a kind of coal briquettes called honeycomb coal to the shopkeepers.

Under Banche's eloquent sales pitch, these shopkeepers were quickly impressed by the improved cost-effectiveness and the free coal stoves. Considering the huge potential savings in terms of low trial and error costs, they decided to give it a try.

As a result, seven or eight out of ten restaurants in the streets and alleys of Beijing had honeycomb coal stoves with words such as "Wang's Coal Store", "Pioneer of Honeycomb Coal", and "Use Honeycomb Coal to Burn Cheap and Last Long" written on them.

Regardless of how much the sales volume of honeycomb coal increased in that period of time, most of the people in the capital had heard of Wang Ji and honeycomb coal.

Those merchants who used honeycomb coal discovered its benefits within just two or three days.

After all, it was personal use, which was far more intuitive than exaggerated sales pitches. It was indeed as cheap and long-burning as advertised on his honeycomb coal stove.

(End of this chapter)