Anyway, even if fans actually place an order and buy it, they won't be fooled.
To his surprise, bored netizens actually went to this store and placed an order during the Chinese New Year holiday.
Some fans even bought the items and then laughed at him, but not for the outdated tableware he used for Chinese New Year banquets; rather—
"Brother Xiaoman, you're supposed to be a top influencer with millions of followers, can you at least be a little more serious when you're harvesting韭菜 (a term for inexperienced users)? Is this all you've got? Tell me, how many cents do you make on a stainless steel basin set for 18 yuan with free shipping?"
"That's hilarious! I thought this stainless steel basin was expensive. The smallest one is only three yuan and fifty cents? Xiaoman, you might as well go sell garbage bags! The commission for those is higher than this."
"I can't stand it anymore! I'm coming clean, Brother Xiaoman, my family owns a sock factory. If you really want to sell products, why don't you help me sell socks? The commission I give you will definitely be higher than this broken pot!" This fan actually sent a private message to Jiang Xiaoman, earnestly recommending the commission for selling socks.
Just as netizens were furiously criticizing Jiang Xiaoman for probably not even making enough to cover her internet fees by selling this stainless steel basin, the basin seller saw the surge in sales in the backend and went to the comments section of Jiang Xiaoman's video.
I was originally going to thank Xiaoman for helping him promote his products, but when I opened the video, everyone was complaining about how low his commission was...
This is absolutely intolerable!!!
Is it his fault that the commission is too low?
His business is all about low profit margins and high sales volume!
Moreover, although the commission is low, the quality of their pots is excellent!
Unlike other people's basins, which are said to be made of thickened stainless steel, but you can easily deform them if you hold them with a strong hand!
He's not bragging, but if a thief breaks into his house, he can knock them unconscious by smashing the bottom of the basin on their head!
Simmering with anger, the boss angrily closed the comments section, deciding that when he shipped the next batch of pots to Jiang Xiaoman's fans, he would make sure to carefully select the highest quality ones!
He will use his iron will to wash away this shame!
Of course, as it turned out, everyone who bought pots from this online store ended up really liking them.
You know, these young people are often criticized by their parents for being wasteful when they shop online.
But ever since they bought this basin, my mother has praised them several times!
Even when relatives and friends come to visit, they will specially bring out a bowl to hold the food, and subtly hint at how thrifty their children are...
For the sake of saving face, they had no choice but to become loyal customers of this store.
After buying the basin, I bought chopsticks; after buying the mop, I bought a broom...
Poor Jiang Xiaoman!
Despite being full of ambition and wanting to become a skilled beekeeper in the new era, she inadvertently discovered the somewhat silly skill of becoming a "live-streaming host for daily necessities and general merchandise".
Furthermore, due to her outstanding sales performance, she has attracted the attention of many manufacturers specializing in daily necessities, who have sent their products to Jiang Xiaoman, hoping to be noticed by this sales expert...
Jiang Xiaoman never expected that his playful banter with his fans during the Chinese New Year would actually help the store sell tens of thousands of orders!
Hmm, maybe it's because the average order value is too low, and fans want to support him.
It's also possible that this stainless steel basin is really practical.
Anyway, little by little, he actually earned several thousand yuan in commission from selling this stainless steel basin during the entire first month of the lunar year!
This was truly an unexpected bonus.
After entertaining Jiang Yu and his family, they gave each child a New Year's red envelope before leaving. In the next few days, Jiang Xiaoman and his father would also pack New Year's gifts and visit relatives and friends in the neighborhood.
This is where the advantages of being young and unmarried become apparent. Although she was already an adult, Jiang Xiaoman received more than two thousand yuan in red envelopes throughout the first month of the lunar calendar.
Just like when he was a child, Jiang Xiaoman hid the red envelopes under his pillow and saved them up until the Lantern Festival, when he happily handed them to his father. Of course, he knew that the money wouldn't buy much now, but doing it this way made him feel like everything was still the same as when he was a child, and his father would always be his piggy bank.
He would give the money he earned to his father to keep.
His dad would always be like a magic piggy bank, suddenly producing a large sum of money whenever he needed it!
After the Lantern Festival, villagers who work outside the village start packing their bags and preparing to go out to find work.
Jiang Xiaoman also got busy—he and Jiang Youliang carried wood-chopping knives and went to Jiang Baichuan's old house together.
“Your Uncle Baichuan’s family used to be a prominent family here! Later, your great-uncle made a lot of money and the whole family moved to the village down the mountain. No one lived in the old house on the mountain anymore. Actually, his old house was better than ours back then.” Jiang Youliang said as he walked, reminiscing about the past.
However, after walking for a while, Jiang Xiaoman finally understood why Uncle Baichuan's family had moved down the mountain back then.
Because his old house was too far from the village.
The only advantage is that he is the only family on this mountain, so his family's mountain area is almost twice that of an average family!
Jiang Xiaoman stood on the mountaintop and estimated that it was more than twice as many.
It was probably cleared out by my uncles and aunts in the early years.
After all, back when his father was young, a family's wealth in the countryside was judged by the area of their land. Uncle Baichuan's father probably deliberately chose such a remote hilltop because he planned to secretly cultivate more land here since it was sparsely populated.
Unfortunately, these mountainous areas have been uncultivated for many years and are probably long abandoned. Even Jiang Youliang, who has farmed all his life, couldn't help but shake his head when he saw them: "It will probably take a lot of effort to grow crops on this land."
“I’m not going to grow grains here. I told Uncle Shirakawa that I’m going to use this land to grow chrysanthemums.”
"What?!"
Upon hearing that his son was going to ruin the land again, Jiang Youliang felt as if he had swallowed two ounces of bitter herbs, and his old face scrunched up in a frown.
Sigh! I guess I'll just plant chrysanthemums then. They're not food, but they're at least a medicinal herb!
Chapter 141
Jiang Baichuan's land was carved out along the mountainside. His old house was located on the mountainside, and the area above the mountainside was covered with dense forest.
It seems that his great-uncle was indeed quite shrewd, knowing that since the house was built halfway up the mountain, the forest above the mountainside could not be disturbed.
Otherwise, with constant soil erosion, if a landslide were to occur, their family would be in serious trouble!
The old house has been uninhabited for many years, and it looks rather eerie from a distance.
Jiang Youliang put down his basket and took out the yellow paper, paper money, incense, and candles he had brought. He first folded the yellow paper and piled it up in stacks. Then he inserted candles on both sides of the yellow paper, lit them, and took out two bundles of incense to light as well, giving one bundle to Jiang Xiaoman.
"Come on! Let's kowtow to your great-uncle and ask him to bless you with good fortune this year!"
As he spoke, Jiang Youliang held the incense sticks and bowed three times before lighting the yellow paper on the ground.
The old house, which was originally a bit gloomy, instantly became warm and cozy.
Whether it was psychological or not, after offering incense, Jiang Xiaoman felt that the old house wasn't as scary as it had been before.
The father and son spent half a day hastily cleaning up the dusty old house, blocking up the Great Immortal Cave, and looking at the kitchen, they found that the stove had collapsed in some places and needed to be repaired. They also bought two iron pots to install.
“Dad, transportation on the mountain road is inconvenient. I talked to Uncle Shirakawa and we plan to buy a drying machine. In the future, we can dry the chrysanthemums we pick here, make them directly into chrysanthemum tea, and then carry them down the mountain. This will save a lot of transportation costs.”
Jiang Xiaoman didn't plan to live in this house. He had just taken a look at the layout and already had some plans in mind.
We'll leave the kitchen area as is for now, but we can move all the clutter out so the stove can be used to cook for the workers. We can also put some tables and chairs in this area so they can sit and eat.
The largest room on the first floor was converted into a tea-making workshop. Drying machines were set up, and the finished flower tea was moved upstairs for temporary storage. Once enough was collected, people would be hired to carry it down the mountain.
The tool shed on the east side will remain untouched. It will be cleaned up, as it will be used to store farm tools when people come to pick tea flowers.
There are three rooms upstairs. One is kept as a storage room, and the remaining two, one for men and one for women, are just right for the hired tea pickers to stay temporarily.
He has been cramming on knowledge about chrysanthemum cultivation and has watched many news programs. He knows that chrysanthemum harvesting is a highly seasonal activity. Generally, seedlings are transplanted in early spring, and the harvest is at its peak in early November, accounting for about 50% of the yield per mu. At this time, a large number of tea pickers need to be hired to go up the mountain to harvest. Otherwise, if the time is delayed, the flowers will be fully open, and the dried flowers will not have a good shape and will not fetch a good price.
Next, you can harvest once a week to pick the flowers that open later. Since the yield is not high at this time, you can hire fewer workers to pick them.
After these three harvests, there are basically only a few scattered buds left that haven't opened yet. This small amount won't yield much dried tea, so Jiang Xiaoman plans to offer it to her relatives, friends, and neighbors. Anyone who wants some can come to the field, pick it, dry it at home, and it will be enough for the whole family to drink for a year.
Starting a business back in your hometown is like this: you can't just focus on making money for yourself. At the right time, you should also let your relatives and friends around you benefit a little. Otherwise, over time, some people will get jealous and, seeing that you don't have many friends in the village, they will try to make a big move.
They hadn't heard of that before, but Jiang Xiaoman had seen a news story about a man who saw his neighbor make a lot of money from growing watermelons and wanted to ask him for a couple. The neighbor said that the remaining watermelons had all been reserved. The man thought his neighbor was stingy and deliberately made up an excuse to brush him off. In the middle of the night, when no one was looking, he took a pair of scissors, sneaked into the watermelon shed, and cut down all of his neighbor's watermelon vines!
Jiang Xiaoman had been studying away from home for a long time and didn't really know the character of the villagers. He didn't dare to take the risk, so he simply treated himself as a generous person and paid to avoid trouble.
Moreover, he had read in many articles on field management of chrysanthemums that this plant is a perennial and that the flower branches should be cut off promptly after the first year's flowers are harvested.
In addition, to ensure more buds sprout next year, after cutting off the old branches, loosen the soil around the chrysanthemum roots slightly, apply a layer of fermented farm manure, and preferably cover it with a thick layer of rice husks or straw to help the chrysanthemum roots overwinter and keep them warm.
In this way, the chrysanthemum roots hidden underground will grow strong and healthy, and the new shoots that grow next year will be plentiful and robust.
So, since the flower branches are going to be cut and thrown away after harvesting anyway, it doesn't really matter if the villagers picking chrysanthemums break the branches.
Listening to his son's eloquent explanation, Jiang Youliang nodded, feeling somewhat proud. He thought to himself, "He's truly my son. Although growing flowers and growing grains seem like two different things, they both involve tending to the land!"
Look at his son, he's so good at growing flowers!
Because it was far from home, the father and son quickly cleaned the house, and Jiang Xiaoman used her phone's memo app to write down the daily necessities they needed to buy. Then the two of them hurried down the mountain.
As he turned the corner, he saw that the tea trees on both sides of the mountain road had grown very tall. Jiang Youliang really wanted to grab a big pair of scissors and give them a buzz cut right away!
What beautiful tea trees! How could they have been left to grow so neglected?
"By the way, Dad, aren't I making small tea cakes this year? Anyway, I see there are quite a few tea trees on this mountain, and even the houses are ready-made. Why don't you invite a few people from our village to come here and pick some tea leaves?"
Jiang Youliang silently did the math in his mind: the tea trees were abandoned and unwanted, so they were practically free.
Hiring 3-5 helpers from the village, each paying 100 yuan a day, and those who are quick and efficient can pick about 500-600 yuan worth of tea leaves a day, after deducting the cost of three meals, seems like a real way to make a profit.
“Okay! Anyway, we don’t have much tea leaves. After we finish picking ours, I’ll find a few people to come and pick some here.” Jiang Youliang didn’t want to put all the burden of life on his son’s shoulders. He was happy to work a little harder so that he could earn more money for the family.
After the start of spring, the reservoirs and ponds in the Langshan area began to be closed to fish farming. Spring is the season for many fish to spawn and reproduce, and fishing during this season is tantamount to killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Lang Ying was somewhat anxious because she could no longer sell smoked fish before the Lunar New Year, which cut off her source of income.
However, Jiang Xiaoman soon brought her some good news.
"Sister Yingzi! Didn't you get a few acres of mountain land? Would you like to plant chrysanthemums with me?"
"What chrysanthemum?" Lang Ying looked at him, completely bewildered.
"This is it! Let me search for it for you!" Jiang Xiaoman opened her mobile shopping app and found a top-selling Chrysanthemum Gold flagship store.
Lang Ying is now used to buying things online, and when she opened her shopping cart, she was immediately astonished.
"Goodness! Why is this golden chrysanthemum so expensive? Usually, people sell it by weight, but they're selling it by the flower? 80 large flowers cost 68 yuan?"
"Yes, this kind of golden chrysanthemum is very beautiful when it is brewed. Each flower looks like a flower blooming in the water. Moreover, it is sold according to grade and specifications. The higher the grade, the higher the price! I searched online and found that even the lowest grade can sell for sixty or seventy yuan per kilogram."
"So expensive? They must be hard to take care of, right? Can we afford to feed them?" Lang Ying was somewhat tempted.
She originally planned to follow Jiang Xiaoman's example and plant honeysuckle on the edge of the few acres of mountain land she was allocated. She would then place a few beehives there, stop picking tea flowers, and just let the honeysuckle bloom so the bees could collect the nectar. This way, it wouldn't take much effort, and the honey could be collected by Shan Yan and the others.
The remaining good land will be planted with potatoes, either for our own consumption or to be sold for some pocket money.
However, if it were chrysanthemums instead... even if she didn't grow them well and all the ones she picked were substandard, even if they could only sell for forty yuan a pound, it would still be much more profitable than growing potatoes!