Extraordinary Genius

Membership cards and shopping cards? These two cards haveenormous potential? All the top management staffs were confused. How come theydid not know about the potential of these two types of cards?

The supermarkets in Hong Kong also had membership cards andshopping cards. The sales of these cards were only so-so. It was not asprofitable as what Feng Yu claims.

Membership cards were only used to identify members.Supermarket membership cards only give the members some benefits and nothingelse.

Shopping cards were gift cards. Shoppers could use it to payfor their purchases.

“Seems like everyone here does not believe me. All of youare more experience than me in the supermarket industry. But all of you do notunderstand China’s culture! All of you are worried when I wanted to set up moresupermarkets at the start. You all think that the risk is too high if we openup more supermarkets. But now, all of you are more eager than me to open upmore branches.”

Feng Yu looked at Fu Guangzheng and the rest, and continued:“Did all of you realized that China already has private clubs in Guangzhou,Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and a lot more cities? To enter these clubs, youneed a membership card.”

“To all of you, a membership card is only a card for membersto acc.u.mulate points or a discount card. But all of you forget the word‘member’. It is a form of ident.i.ty and status.”

Fu Guangzheng and the rest were still confused. Members area form of ident.i.ty and status? Membership cards are so important? Wasn’t it toattract customers and increase the rate of them returning?

Feng Yu sighed as he looked at everyone’s puzzledexpression. All of them did not know that the Chinese in this era likes tocompare with others. At the supermarket, when the shopper is a member, and hesees someone who wasn’t, the member will have a sense of superiority.

“Our supermarkets have parking lots, and we charge themparking fees. But all of you should know that there are not many cars in Chinanow. Some cars are not willing to pay the parking charges and would rather parkalong the road and walk a few more steps. This is why not many people parktheir cars in our parking lots. But what if the shoppers have our membershipcards and could acc.u.mulate points and free parking? If every month, we have amembers’ day to let them enjoy member discounts? Or the members will getpriority queues at the cashier?”

Anyway, there were not many cars in the parking lots. In thefirst place, they did not intend to make any money from the parking. But withthese member benefits, many people with cars will want to be a member. It willbe more convenient for them. They will not need to carry their purchases andwalk a distance to their cars.

Not all members will be free on the Members’ day. But itwill stimulate sales. This was a bandwagon effect. Chinese love to be incrowded places. When they see many people shopping at Tai Hua Supermarkets,they will be curious and want to join in.

The priority queue for members will solve the issue ofpeople not willing to queue. They can even set up a cashier just for themembers. This will let the members have a sense of superiority over the non-members.

Fu Guangzheng and Li Zekai looked at each other. They feelwhat Feng Yu said made sense. These do not sound anything special, but if theywere able to market it well, they should be able to sell lots of membershipcards.

“How do the shoppers apply to be a member? In Hong Kong, weusually give out membership cards when the shopper purchase above a certainamount on a single receipt. Also, the members will be given points for theamount they spent, and they can use the points to get rebates.” Fu Guangweisaid.

“Give out free? Of course not. Our membership cards must bepurchased! There will be two types of membership. The ordinary membership cardswill be called VIP cards. The higher tier membership cards will be called SVIPcards. The ordinary VIP card will be sold at 30 RMB, and the SVIP card will besold at 200 RMB.”

“200 RMB for a card? In Hong Kong, this price is not a lot.But this is China. Will people buy it? This price is almost half of an averageperson monthly salary. Will they spend this amount just to get a membershipcard?” Li Zekai frowned. Actually, he wanted to tell Feng Yu that even in HongKong, no one will buy a membership card at this price.

Feng Yu shook his finger. “Average workers will just buyordinary membership cards, and the benefits they enjoy will not be that many.For example, free parking will not be offered to ordinary members, as most ofthem will not afford to own a car. The SVIP cards are for those wealthy peopleor people with some social status. 200 RMB to them is nothing. I even feel that200 RMB is too low.”

“How many membership cards do you think we can sell?” FuGuangzheng asked.

Feng Yu showed one finger.

“1,000?”

“10,000 SVIP cards…… per branch.”

“10,000? Per the supermarket? You are saying that we canearn 40 million RMB from just the SVIP cards alone? Don’t you think you are toooptimistic?” Fu Guangzheng asked.

“I’m not. I can even tell you that 10,000 might not even beenough. Our supermarkets will announce to the shoppers that we have only 3,000SVIP membership cards per branch. The rest of the people can only get ordinarymemberships cars.”

“Hunger marketing?” Fu Guangzheng knew what Feng Yu wasthinking. But hunger marketing could not be easily implemented. Many companiestried but failed.

“That’s right. You all do not understand what the Chineseare thinking. The lesser things that are available, the more people will wantto get it. The more people who want it, the more they are willing to buy.” FengYu confidently replied.

“Then what are the total profits we can get from thesemembership cards?”

“At least 100 million RMB! Even though the members will begetting discounts, but we will still have profits. We can also clear our remainingstocks on members’ day.”

“Ok. Even if this is a success like you said, but 100million RMB is only enough for us to set up two Hypermarkets.”

Feng Yu calmly replied. “That’s what I am going to say next.The shopping cars. Although our supermarkets had introduced shopping cards, wedo not hire anyone to promote these cards. These cards are just placed at thecashiers. The prices of these cards are not low, and there should not be many inquiries,right?”

Fu Guangwei nodded. “That’s right. We tried to promote thesecards, but many shoppers were turned off by the price tags. We are stilldiscussing whether if we should introduce smaller denominations shopping cardsso that people can buy them back as the company’s benefits for their staffs.”

Feng Yu rolled his eyes at Fu Guangwei. They had positionedthese shopping cards wrongly. These shopping cards might be given out bycompanies as benefits for their staffs. But in China, how many companies arewilling to give out such benefits?

What"re the advantages of shopping cards? No names and nopins are required to use these cards. No one needs to worry even if theyaccepted these cards as there were no names. I can claim that I had picked upthis card on the streets and was about to hand it over to the police.

To use these Shopping cards is also very convenient. Thereare all sorts of products in Tai Hua Supermarkets. This shopping card isequivalent to an ATM card, except it can only be used in certain places.

The shopping cards are like shopping vouchers. But thedifference is that the cards are not easily damaged and more convenient tobring it around. The biggest denomination of vouchers available in China is 100RMB. If someone is going to give 10,000 RMB worth of vouchers, that will be onethick stack of vouchers.

“You all still have not to find the right use of theseshopping cards. The real purpose of these shopping cards is…… gifts!”

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