Transmigration of the Famous Cyber Star
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Chapter 100: Starting to Sell Cat Food
Liu man went back home that evening, cleaned up the cat’s poop, poured out some cat food into the bowl, had dinner, and hurriedly logged onto her live-stream.
“Good evening, everyone. Before I start my live-stream, I would like to quickly advertise something. The fans who have been following me on Wei Bo should already know I’m working on becoming a cat food dealer recently. Now, everything’s all set.
Starting from tonight, everyone can start purchasing all kinds of Cats’ Garden cat food from my live-stream. I sell three types of packages: cat food in 8-pounds, 12-pounds, and 16-pounds. They include the chicken flavor, the deep-sea fish flavor, the venison flavor, the beef flavor, and the mixed flavors. No matter how fastidious your cat is about food, it would be satisfied with one of our flavors.
My Daylight enjoys the chicken flavor the most, so I would recommend it. The chicken flavored cat food has a higher price-performance ratio, too.
The fans who have just entered, if you didn’t hear what I said just now, you can go to my Wei Bo. I have a chart introducing all kinds of cat food flavors in my album.”
“Sis, how much does each type of cat food cost?”
“The 8-pounds package costs 609 RMB, the 12-pounds package costs 809 RMB, and the 16-pounds package costs 989 RMB. If you want to buy the deep-sea fish flavor or the venison flavor, you will need to pay 50 RMB more than the price I just said.”
Liu Man had just started her business, so she didn’t dare set her prices too high. She knew her fans would compare her prices with the price in Hong Kong. Liu Man double-checked her cost. Take the 12-pound package, for example. She spent 665 HKD to get it from Hong Kong Westland. The customs tax was around 80 HKD, since if 500 was subtracted from 665, which would be 165. 50 percent of 165 would be approximately 80 HKD. If that was added to the 665 HKD, she would be spending 750 HKD on one pack of 12-pounds cat food. It was way over 690 HKD, the original price in Hong Kong.
No wonder nobody was willing to be a dealer on Mainland. It cost too much.
To attract more customers at the start of her business, Liu Man felt it was reasonable for her to earn around 60 RMB per bag.
“Great! It’s cheaper than I imagined it to be. I’ve already ordered two bags of 12-pounds.” — I’m Tingting
“I’m going to buy 8-pounds of deep-sea fish to see if our Garfield likes it or not.” — Big Faced Cat
“I’m buying 16-pounds of chicken because that’s the most reasonable thing to do for me. I live in the north-western part of China, and the air is dry so I can store the cat food.” — Pancake
…
All the old cat fans of Princess Man made their order to support her.
There was a shopping cart feature on the live-streaming platform. The audiences could buy whatever the live-streamer was advertising by clicking on the shopping cart icon on the bottom left corner. Even if the live-streamer was offline, the fans could also find the shopping cart button on the live-streamer’s profile page and purchase the products at any time.
Liu Man had already written down all the different types of cat food, the packages, and the prices in her settings. Selling these here was different from selling things on Tao Bao, for this live-streaming platform will not vouch as a third party. Once the fans made their payments, the money would go directly to the live-streamer’s account, and the live-streamer would be able to exchange that currency for cash in reality. The platform would take one percent of the money as a service fee and two percent as tax. These fees would exactly offset the exchange rate of HKD and RMB.
There was a huge loophole with this payment way, and it was a disadvantage to the fans. Because of that, not every live-streamer had the ability to open up a shopping cart. Only live-streamers above level 5 could request a shopping cart feature from customer service.
There were thirteen levels for live-streamers on this platform. New accounts that were recently made were, of course, level 0. If one had over 100 fans, they would be at level 1. If one had more than 1,000 fans, they would be at level 2. If one had more than 5,000, they would be at level 3. If one had more than 10k, they would be at level 4. If one had more than 50k, they would be at level 5. If one had more than 100k, they would be at level 6. More than 500k would get one to level 7. More than 1 million would get them to level 8. More than 10 million would get them to level 10. More than 50 million would get them to level 11. More than a hundred million would get them to the highest level — Level 12.
Princess Man had just a bit more than 50k, so she was a level 5. She was only able to get the shopping cart feature.
Coco live-streamed with this application at that pedestrian mall in Shanghai. She was a level 9, with more than five million fans.
Probably because live-streaming wasn’t the most popular way to socialize and entertain, there was a limit to the traffic on this platform. Liu Man hadn’t seen a level 12 live-streamer on this platform yet, and there was a dozen level 11’s. They were already celebrities and not cyber stars, and they only live-streamed to interact with some of their fans.
“Sis, may I ask, when will you be sending out the cat foods?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s my question, too. I only have just a bit of cat food left, and I don’t know if my cat can hold tight until the cat food arrives.”
“Also, which delivery company are you using?”
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Liu Man replied, “The cat foods are coming from Hong Kong, and it will get sent out at the earliest, tomorrow. It will get sent out at, the latest, this weekend. To guarantee safety and effectiveness, we will be using Shunfeng delivery. It may get delayed when the cat foods go through customs.”
“Oh, so they are sending out straight from Hong Kong. I thought sis would be the one to send the cat foods.”
“Although it’s good for them to get directly send out from Hong Kong, it would usually be slow.”
“I’m on an emergency. Can you please send out my delivery first?”
“Don’t urge her! After all, sis is just starting her business. In the future, she would be more smooth at this, and the deliveries will be faster.”
…
The first time she sold cat food was just like the first time she live-streamed. She stumbled upon many issues, but she had many support and aids from her fans this time, for everyone could understand her difficulties.
The fans gave Liu Man face. The backstage showed there was a total of 29 orders and 40 bags. This meant Liu Man earned around 2,000 RMB on her first day, and she was glad. She organized the orders into a chart and sent it to John’s email.
John then sent orders to the company’s storage. The two staff members at the storage packed up the cat foods and mailed them out on that same day.
On the second day, Liu Man successfully got 53 new orders. The storage staff got off work late so they could send out everything before the day ended.
On the third day, Liu Man successfully got 60 new orders. Half of these orders did not get sent out.
On the fourth day, Liu Man successfully got 89 new orders. That was a weekend day, so the staff at storage were on breaks.
On Monday, the orders were crazily piling up. The two staff members could not manage at all, so they complained to their superior ranks,
“Is our main job still to evaluate the products, or are we now only supposed to be sending out cat foods? We’ve been packing up cat foods all day, but we still have to pick up the products from New Zealand’s headquarters every week at the harbor. We can’t even fulfill our original duties. If there are so many orders every day, we need to hire at least three more people.”
These words quickly got heard by Huang Shiting. At first, he agreed to his own company sending out the products because he thought since it was Liu Man’s first time as a dealer, she was inexperienced with limited fans, so she wouldn’t be able to receive too many orders.
Now, it seemed he thought matters were too simple. He didn’t expect Liu Man to be such a good advertiser.
Of course, often, one would only be able to discover the hidden issues after experiencing things. The New Zealand headquarters wasn’t that big, and it costs a lot to hire people in Hong Kong. Huang Shiting had his finances department carefully calculate the cost. If they hired three more people just because of Liu Man, and they still receive less than 100 orders every day, their company would not be earning any profit.
This was why, on this day, Liu Man, who was still in class, received a phone call from Huang Shiting.
Credits: Sydney
