Arriving in a new city, how to quickly establish a foothold is a problem.
Ye Xu's idea was to earn points, so the best way was to attract a large number of ordinary people to dine, rather than continuing to do business with adventurers.
However, there are too many ordinary people and not enough seats in the restaurant. Even if all four floors were replaced with tables for two, the number of customers served would still be limited, and the restaurant could not fully take advantage of the sheer number of ordinary people.
At this moment, Ye Xu thought of modern cold pot skewers. Cold skewers are mostly sold from mobile stalls, with few places offering dine-in service. People can buy them and eat them on the go, which is very convenient.
Ye Xu certainly doesn't need to make cold pot skewers; who wants to eat cold food on such a cold day? However, he can borrow the "eat-on-the-go" model, limiting the "on-the-go" to the shop. He can arrange the skewers cooked in the broth like oden, and let people eat from one end to the other, finally paying according to the bamboo skewers.
Because the shop has heating, you won't get cold while eating the skewers. During cold snaps, the local residents are used to eating quickly, so they usually finish their skewers by the time they reach the end of the line.
Ye Xu and the staff designed a moving passageway to ensure that everyone would be full by the time they reached the end, without needing to get new skewers, while moving at a normal pace. Then, a rest area was set up at the end for those who ate slowly to stand and continue eating for a while.
With no seats available, a lot of space was freed up. Areas that could previously only seat one family could now accommodate many standing people, instantly increasing the capacity. The only concern is whether some people will take advantage of the situation to commit petty theft, as it's impossible to completely prevent this when people are packed together.
"Dad, how can we prevent customers from stealing things in the store?" Ye Xu asked confidently.
System: "..." Can't you have some backbone?
Despite his inner grumbling, the system diligently guided Ye Xu to open the shop and search for the "Core Values" buff. This buff's specific function was to instill the twenty-four-character core values, making visitors subconsciously adhere to virtues such as civility, harmony, integrity, and friendliness.
When everyone is civilized, they naturally won't steal. And a harmonious and friendly atmosphere can calm down some short-tempered guests. Even if they are accidentally pushed, they won't immediately get angry, but will choose to negotiate amicably.
Ye Xu thought that the system was quite creative when designing products.
This buff is incredibly useful. Even though it's expensive, I bought it despite the high price because it's "permanent." It's all for the sake of stable future operations; I can't be stingy.
After purchasing the buff, Shuangshuang began adjusting the store's layout, and Ye Xu didn't interfere. The system assistant was far more skilled in this area than he was; it could be used like a half-robot. It was better for an amateur like him not to hold her back.
To accommodate more guests, they unanimously decided to open up the fourth floor as well. This made the small private rooms, which were originally intended as lounges but had been moved several times and ended up on the fourth floor, seem quite redundant. The system, after arrogantly charging 100 points as a demolition fee, helped dismantle the place.
From then on, Ye Xu had a four-story self-service skewer area. After purchasing enough skewer cooking machines, he could officially open for business.
As for whether the kitchen can handle the workload, that's a headache for Shuangshuang. Ye Xu is currently a hands-off manager, only overseeing the overall direction. If the kitchen is short-staffed, Shuangshuang will hire people herself—who told him, the store manager, not to spend any money? Humph.
"Uh..." Shuangshuang didn't say much to the sulking manager. "It would be best if each of the four floors had its own kitchen, so that each could manage its own. Otherwise, it would be very troublesome to deliver the skewers."
Ye Xu nodded repeatedly: "Whatever, whatever you decide. We have enough employee coupons right now."
After accumulating enough points, I can save up enough to buy an employee voucher in just a few days. All of this is thanks to Xiaoyu; the Guardian's buff is incredibly powerful. However, there's really no need to buy a voucher; I still have quite a few unused gift packs.
The final plan that everyone came up with was to supply only ten kinds of affordable ingredients, most of which were all-you-can-eat.
The ingredients are priced according to market rates. Customers pay an entrance fee of one copper coin per person. Afterwards, they get a container to hold both bamboo skewers and the skewers themselves. After finishing, they go downstairs to pay, where they are charged again based on the number of skewers.
This time, since Ye Xu chose the store location himself, he specifically picked a spot with a large open space in front. With open space, an outdoor waiting area could be set up, connected to the lobby and becoming part of the overall building. It would be sheltered from wind and snow, have heating, and half of it could be used as a checkout area, so there was no need to worry about it blocking the entrance and affecting entry and exit.
Checkout is naturally done by machine; the staff don't have time to count the skewers one by one. However, some dishwashers should be placed at the entrance to wash the dirty skewer containers so they can be given to the next customer.
“If we price it according to the market price, ordinary people won’t flock here to eat skewers,” Ye Xu analyzed. “Eating at home should cost about 5 copper coins less than eating here.”
Five copper coins is a price that's neither high nor low, which might make thrifty housewives hesitate. Their families could certainly afford it, but how much more would five copper coins per meal add up to over a month?
Based on Ye Xu's prediction, most people would probably choose to eat here only once a day to satisfy their cravings. The remaining two meals would be eaten at home.
On its first day of official opening, business was booming.
It wasn't that everyone had exceptional insight and could immediately recognize the deliciousness of the food in the interdimensional shop. Rather, a hot pot restaurant had already opened in the city before Ye Xu arrived.
Ye Xu deliberately chose this city, hoping to take advantage of the other party's influence. They had already helped him promote the existence of hot pot, which would save him a lot of trouble when he opened his own shop.
The hot pot restaurant incident had indeed been the talk of the town, with both commoners and adventurers enjoying the conversation. However, the hot pot was very expensive, making it unaffordable for ordinary people. As the first to try something new, there was no industry benchmark to lower prices from the start, allowing the restaurant to arbitrarily set high prices to ensure profits.
After discovering the problem, Ye Xu immediately instructed the staff to promote the restaurant using "affordable hot pot" as a selling point. Since the robots were idle before the opening, spending most of the day promoting them was a good use of them.
I heard that a new hot pot restaurant had opened over there, and I was a little worried at first. But after asking around, I felt relieved.
Ye Xu's shop clearly didn't intend to serve adventurers, only earning small sums from ordinary people. The first shop, on the other hand, was the complete opposite; they looked down on ordinary people's money and only served adventurers.
The two businesses are not competitors at all, and their customer bases complement each other, allowing them to operate in separate spheres. The shop owner, a shrewd man, quickly realized that he could actually benefit from this situation.
The more ordinary people eat hot pot, the more people will talk about it. Hot pot's popularity will continue to attract more adventurers to try it. However, Ye Xu's shop only sells a few kinds of inexpensive vegetables, which cannot satisfy the adventurers' appetites at all. Therefore, this wave of benefits actually benefits his "high-end" hot pot restaurant.
Based on this, Ye Xu's publicity plan went very smoothly, and the other party not only did not obstruct it, but also helped a little.
Seeing the bustling crowd in the store, Shuangshuang was overjoyed: "I was worried that if I moved to a different place, I would have to start all over again."
"Not at all. And even if we start from scratch, we can still get things going by using fragrance to attract customers, just like before. It won't take much effort." Ye Xu was quite confident.
Luna flew over carrying a miniature economics book and earnestly asked, "Manager, no one should open a store to compete with us this time, right?"
Luna thought that even if there was competition, it would be with a high-end hot pot restaurant competing with another one. Putting aside whether ordinary people would even be interested in such prices, even if they were, the prices of the interdimensional shops were so low that others following suit wouldn't make much profit.
"I'm afraid it's not that optimistic," Ye Xu shook his head.
As I said before, there are plenty of fools who will rush in just because your business is booming. When he opened his shop in Biyue City, it was obvious from the calculations that the shop was "losing money," yet many people still foolishly followed suit. This time, his shop clearly has room to make money, just not as much, and there will definitely be plenty of people following suit.
"Is there any profit to be made?" Luna asked, confused. "We've already priced it so low."
Seeing her genuine eagerness to learn, Ye Xu broke it down and explained: "Our skewers are priced according to the market retail price, which is a bit more expensive than the wholesale price. There's still a lot of room for price reduction. If we don't lower the price, that difference is the profit our competitors can make."
“But the base ingredients are expensive.” Luna put her knowledge to good use, recalling the past of Biyue City.
Ye Xu reminded her, "Back in Biyue City, the restaurant across the street was losing money because each table of guests would order a whole pot of broth. It's different now."
The shop now operates on an oden (Japanese hot pot) model, where one pot of broth can cook hundreds of skewers, and the broth consumption is negligible. When divided among each customer, it costs less than 1 copper coin, yet they charge an entrance fee of 1 copper coin per person, which is also a source of profit.
If others were to adopt this model, their biggest expenses would likely be on magical fuel and labor costs. After all, they don't have that many machines to save on manpower; they'd either have to scale down and sell less each day, or hire more people to help with washing, chopping, and cooking.
Fortunately, labor costs are very low on the continent of Transience, and labor is even less valuable during cold waves. With many civilians unemployed at home, business owners can probably hire a lot of people to help at low prices. So these copycat shops can definitely open, at most earning a little less.
Those who initially followed suit certainly wouldn't follow Ye Xu's lead; they would set their sights on the high-end market. Once the high-end market becomes more competitive, that's when Ye Xu will face real competition.
"We need to hurry up and earn points, otherwise we'll have to move to another location when there are more opponents. This time, we won't have Xiaoyu's spatial teleportation skill to help us," Ye Xu reminded everyone.
The group exchanged glances, all sensing the urgency.
The system requires you to accumulate 100 million points in each dimension, while the maximum amount you can earn in a single dimension is 1 billion points. This is no small amount, so you can't be careless.
They had actually already completed the 100 million points task, and the profits from the latter half of Biyue City's operation were terrifying. On one hand, ordinary people were bringing their families, providing several times more points per table than before; on the other hand, the Guardian's buff had a significant effect, leading to a substantial increase in the positive emotions of each guest.
The accumulated points have now exceeded 300 million, and 1 billion is just around the corner. After discussing it, the group felt that accumulating the maximum points would be ideal. Since there's a limit to the points, and the store has the capacity to earn that limit, why not give it a shot?
Given the current scale of the new skewer mode, the points accumulation speed will be faster than in Biyue City. If all goes well, you should be able to accumulate enough points within a month; it mainly depends on when others start following suit.
"I hope they come later." Shuangshuang clasped her hands together as if in prayer.
The gimmick of affordable skewers attracted ordinary people from most parts of the city to come and try it, but for those from further away, the journey took too long, so no matter how tempting it was, they never came.
As Ye Xu had predicted, the local commoners came to eat there almost every day. As for those from further away, it generally depended on the weather; more people came when it wasn't snowing.
No matter how many people come, the shop is always packed, and at first glance, it doesn't seem to be affected much. Only when closing time is used to tally the accounts do people realize the impact of the weather on business.
“Extreme weather is a double-edged sword.” Luna took notes carefully. “Perhaps we can develop the takeout business that the store manager mentioned in the future.”
When Ye Xu was checking his notes, he saw this entry and told Luna, "Takeout is hard to do. The main reason people eat skewers is that they want something hot. If the takeout is cold when it arrives, why don't they just cook it at home? At least they can eat it hot right after it comes out of the pot."
Delivery usually incurs an extra charge because it increases operating costs. Ye Xu's approach is better; the robots deliver the food, which at most consume a little electricity. The electricity bill is settled annually, with a fixed price regardless of usage. Therefore, the delivery fee is only charged for the box, saving on delivery costs.
"Then we can do takeout in other worlds later. Cold snaps will make it cold, but hot snaps won't." Luna humbly accepted the suggestion.
Shuangshuang laughed and rushed over to hug her: "We won't open a hot pot restaurant in this hot weather! Of course, we'll open a cold food restaurant in that situation!"
"Ah, right, cold food needs to be kept at a cool temperature, but that doesn't seem to work either?" Luna frowned, caught in a dilemma.
Han Yingchen suddenly interjected, "The mall has insulated boxes and ice-making machines."
Luna suddenly realized and looked at Ye Xu.
"Don't look at me." Ye Xu took two steps back. "We need to increase the number of delivery drivers to significantly boost sales. I don't have enough employee coupons, and it's not easy to get delivery drivers."
I've been refreshing the gacha pool these past few days and have rarely encountered SR delivery riders. On the other hand, I've run into pets that are usually hard to pull several times.
Considering he already had enough pets at home, Ye Xu decided not to take any more. He wanted to collect pets with different characteristics from different dimensions; a bunch of Western fantasy creatures were too monotonous.
Everyone turned away in disappointment.
"Don't say that. You don't earn points for food delivery, you only earn currency. It doesn't matter whether you open it or not, right?"
That makes sense. People can't help but suspect that the reason delivery drivers are so hard to get is because they don't earn points. The system is subtly reducing the likelihood of shops offering delivery services in this way, so that if delivery services are offered, the number of customers dining in will decrease significantly, further slowing down the accumulation of points.
Once they realized this, their interest in developing new businesses plummeted.
Luna continued studying her economics books, while Han Yingchen browsed the system shop for items that could enhance his strength. Shuangshuang no longer cared about purchasing; she would just look around when she was bored, occasionally leaning over to advise Han Yingchen on what to buy.
Although he receives a share of the store's profits every month, Han Yingchen still doesn't have many points. Compared to the exorbitantly priced items in the mall, they are completely insignificant.
Ye Xu took some time to look around and found that everything else in the shop was fine, but the bloodline replacement category was particularly nice. After purchasing the corresponding bloodline and fusing it with one's own body, it could greatly enhance physical strength and cultivation talent.
Ye Xu had said before that he didn't intend to unbind himself from the system. If he remained bound to it, he would definitely experience many different high-risk dimensions.
The protective shield provided by the system is indeed useful, but Ye Xu can't rely on it forever, right? If trouble comes, he'll have to rely on his pets to suppress it, which is not as convenient as having his own powerful strength.
However, Ye Xu knew his own limitations; he probably couldn't stand the monotony of cultivation. Ye Xu wasn't afraid of putting in the effort or making a fuss, but he really found it hard to endure the boredom.
Is there a way to gain powerful abilities without training? Yes.
One option is to take drugs, but the side effects are too severe. After taking them, one's cultivation becomes unstable, making it difficult to use the skills effectively, so that's a no-go. The other option is to change one's bloodline, such as fusing with the bloodline of a divine beast. This allows one to possess the strength of a divine beast, and this strength is innate, so it's completely unimpeded and requires little adaptation or mastery.
Ye Xu was naturally very tempted by such a good idea. However, bloodlines are extremely valuable.
All bloodlines require a minimum of 100 million points and a maximum of 1 billion points. Ye Xu suspected that the system didn't expect anyone to buy them; the 1 billion point requirement would require at least two different planes to afford, considering that running a shop itself involves point expenditures.
Looking at the billion-level bloodlines in the mall, Ye Xu let out a sigh.
The highest-grade bloodline truly lives up to its price, with countless advantages. Unfortunately, I can't afford it, and I don't know if I'll be able to accumulate enough points in the next world.
Before anyone would discover her little scheme, Ye Xu quickly closed the online store, switched to the entertainment section, and started watching variety shows to pass the time.
Fifteen days passed like flowing water, and the points accumulated faster than Ye Xu had anticipated. At this time, the first shop with the same positioning as his finally opened.
Fortunately, that affordable skewers restaurant wasn't located near Ye Xu. The merchants in the current city seem to be a bit smarter than those in Biyue City; they weren't foolish enough to engage in pointless internal strife nearby.
The other party opened their shop on the other side of the city, where ordinary people wouldn't usually travel a long way to eat skewers at Ye Xu's place, making it a very promising location. Ye Xu was minimally affected; he paid attention for a short while and then ignored it.
Five more peaceful days passed before the second family to follow suit emerged. This time, they weren't as lucky as before; both sides simply divided the area and that was it. Although their family tried their best to choose a location far away, they still covered part of Ye Xu's area.
This one is in the south of the city, Ye Xu's is in the east, and the second one is in the west. The one in the south is bound to steal customers from the medium and long distances; after all, with the weather so cold, who wouldn't be happy to walk less?
From that day on, the store's points accumulation gradually decreased.
This was just the beginning; a skewers restaurant soon opened in the north of the city. With four restaurants basically covering the entire area, it would be difficult for new ones to avoid each other; the city was still a bit too small.
That evening, Ye Xu checked his accumulated points and found they were already over 900 million, just a little short of 1 billion. He breathed a slight sigh of relief. It didn't matter; a slight decrease in profits would only require him to operate for another ten days at most, which wasn't a big problem.
"I bet the next person to follow suit will start using the tactic of price reductions," Ye Xu analyzed.
Price wars are a timeless classic, unavoidable everywhere. Ye Xu reflected deeply, realizing that he had actually taken the wrong path from the very beginning.