Chapter 26: Making Money is Easy?
Several days have pa.s.sed, and during the afternoon approximately one hour after we began our swordsmanship lessons, Hegard and the others came back home. I would have thought that when Hegard came back home, he would have sold all of the goods within the carriage. However, there was still some luggage within the wagon, and it seemed that perhaps he didn’t sell very many goods? I was becoming worried and so I stopped my sword practice and ran up towards Hegard.
「Father, you didn’t sell very many goods? 」
I asked Hegard this question and he was riding on horseback, he had a grim look on his face. Including Hegard even the people within the carriage; Sharl and Bogusu looked towards me with a consoling gaze, and they didn’t say much and just smiled.
Oh man~ Did they fail? My face might have appeared really disappointed and realizing this fact I tensed up my face to cover my emotions, I continued my questions in order to clarify what happened, I was already thinking of ways in which I could improve the rubber products.
「Could you please tell me where it went wrong? I will make improvements at once」
As I approached the wagon, Shawn who was acting as a guard for the carriage lifts me up and pa.s.ses me on to Hegard. Hegard receives me with a smile on his face.
「We sold everything, we even got orders to make additional items. Moreover, I bought something that I thought you would be happy with. Now then, once we take down our luggage, I will do a debriefing session. From here on out, we are about to be really busy!」
However, my worries was unfounded, it seems they did it, it seems that everything was sold out. The luggage that remained within the carriage was not the unsold stock, but in fact it was actually other goods that they bought. I heaved a sigh of relief. It seems that today’s agenda will be about gathering the retainers of the family and doing a briefing session about the rubber sale.
「Everyone has a.s.sembled here, right? I’ll get straight to the point; in today’s meeting I would like to inform everyone of how the sale of rubber went down. In addition, I also have a policy for the future of the village that I want enacted and I want you guys to listen」
When all of the retainers were gathered around the garden, he began his speech and looked around all the members. Everyone gathered here today were either, retainers or part of our family, also all the heirs from the retainer’s side who had already grown up also attended this meeting. Myun was also here for a change. Everyone was sitting down on the ground, and they were giving their attention to Hegard who was standing ahead. The people standing behind Hegard included: Sharl, Bogusu, Shawn and Jim. They were the party members that travelled out on this particular business trip.
「The first thing I want to start off by saying is that all of the goods we prepared this time were completely sold out. By the way, I only sold two pairs of sandals and a rubber-coated cloth of about 1 meter in length to Doritto town. More precisely, I should say that chose sell only that much」
After hearing the good news of being able to sell all the stock, everyone’s faces brightened with a smile, because the amount sold in Doritto was so miniscule I wanted to raise a voice of doubt. However, Hegard specifically mentioned that it’s not that he wasn’t able to sell but that “he purposefully sold only that much”. What does this actually mean?
「When we arrived at Doritto, the first thing we did was visit the “Sagret Company”. That’s because we wanted to sell our special products from the village in an open-air stand. After that, we met with Viscount Kindo who was the feudal lord of Doritto and he gave permission for us to trade and do business. He probably thought that it was some sort of speciality agricultural products, and he easily gave us permission and he even exempted us from tax. Therefore, we parked our carriage in the middle of the town and started to sell immediately. Because we were just getting started, as per planned we wanted to test the waters by putting up a price of 10,000 Zeni per pair of sandals」
The group of people standing behind Hegard starts to smirk as if something interesting was being said.
「By the time we arrived to Doritto it was already in the evening, so after obtaining permission to do trade, we only planned on selling goods for a little while before going to the inn. Thus, I entrusted the shop to the others and I went to make a booking for our lodging. After that I quickly returned to our selling location, but it was as expected… n.o.body really looked at our goods」
Saying this Hegard face broke into a broad smirk.
「Because it couldn’t be helped, after that we closed our shop……but well, all we really did was transfer the carriage to the inn. We took a rest on that day. And then on the very next day, we opened shop in the morning in the same place. Sharl even prepared a board writing the price tag on it…」
Shawn was the one who continued the story.
「What did the sign say again? Ahh it was “Super high-quality Sandals, Bargain Price, 10,000 Z” wasn’t it?」
Everyone was listening absentmindedly as they didn’t really understand what was so interesting. I didn’t really understand why they were grinning so much either and so I was also pretty dumbfounded.
「We didn’t sell until noon. It was around the time when we were getting demotivated at the fact that we weren’t selling anything and everyone was leaning on the wagon as we slid to the ground. It was at this point in time that Viscount Kindo pa.s.sed by our shop. Perhaps the pa.s.sing Viscount took pity on us who were trying our best to sell the speciality products from our village, and so thought he’d buy some products」
This time Bogusu continued the story.
「Ahh, the Viscount had a really sympathetic expression. I really thought that Kindo-sama was a really kind person」
「That’s totally so. However, we were truly having a tough time, he looked at us with a pitiful gaze and said “Super High-Quality Sandals……… 10,000 Zeni……… Fumu, please continue to persevere and do your best to sell…….” saying that he placed a silver coin in the grasp on my hand. The feelings I had at the time…. Couldn’t really be described in words」
Sharl was covering her mouth as she started to talk.
「However, after that, wasn’t it really amazing?」
「Ahh, that was certainly incredible. Woops we wandered off from the main story. In any case, for the first time at around noon, Viscount Kindo bought a pair of Sandals from us. After that, just like in the morning we didn’t sell anything after that. While there was some people who actually went by our shop, after they saw our price tag, they would have shocked faces and quickly pa.s.s through our shop. Even we started to think that the price was a little too high. However, after a little while, Viscount Kindo came once again this time while riding a horse. He quickly got off the horse in a panic and quickly said “Please allow me to buy the remaining sandals!”」
Hearing these words, all of us were talking excitedly in a buzz. Even I was a little surprised. He actually said, he wanted “all” of the left over products?
「Hearing his words, both Sharl and I instinctively tensed up. As expected selling rubber was going to work, we thought. However, the other party was a feudal lord who gave us permission to do business and made us exempt from tax. We were trying to find an excuse of how to refuse him politely when Sharl said “Kindo-sama, we decided to sell our Sandal products mostly in the city of Keel. We are just about to close shop here. I am very sorry. However, as an apology, if you wish to purchase another pair of sandals, I will be happy to provide you with a rubber-coated cloth of 1 meter in length free of charge”」
Hegard was speaking in a jovial tone as he tried to imitate Sharl’s att.i.tude towards the Viscount in a teasing manner.
「It couldn’t be helped right? I mean as expected after experiencing the product first hand, even Viscount Kindo realized how valuable the product could be dawa. In order to slip out of that place, there wasn’t much else that we could do. Moreover, I think that the Viscount also saw various uses for the rubber-coated cloth」
「That’s true, it’s just as you say. If I was to just refuse him at that time, things would have probably gotten stormy, using the rubber coated cloth was a pretty good idea to settle things……Anyways, after selling another pair of sandals we also included the rubber-coated cloth free of charge. Well, when we think about the fact that we were exempt from tax it was already a pretty good deal, and we could always come back to Doritto on our way back home. Therefore, we folded up shop immediately and left our inn and aimed our sights on the City of Keel」
Everyone asked Hegard 「Wasn’t there at least 100 Sandals, why didn’t you just sell them all?」or they asked him 「If you were to sell everything…….(People counting with their fingers)……..I-isn’t that one million Zeni?!!」everyone one was kicking up a fuss. On the contrary as for me, I had an even better opinion of my parents. I believe that they discarded their chance to just sell all the products in one go and decided to wager a chance to perform business on an even bigger sale with bigger profits. Not many people would be able to resist the temptation of early profits. Especially because my parents seemed to be country side feudal lords who I thought were probably ignorant about business, but it seems that I was wrong. I was proudly giving them a pretty high evaluation, but after all, I had a mental age that exceeded 50 years of age, and 20 years of my life were spent on a food trading company, and I had a middle-ranked managerial position. If I were to be honest with myself, I really did underestimate my parents too much. I need to re-evaluate them.
「After that, we didn’t do any business on the towns we pa.s.sed by and just headed straight for Keel. Meanwhile, we started have a discussion amongst each other. We were discussing about methods to sell the goods more expensively and more continuously 」
Hmm, it seems that I need to re-evaluate them more and more. If we are talking about just going to a different place to do business anyone could think that up, however they mentioned the concepts of “how to improve the price” and how they were going to distribute the products for a more “continuous” flow of selling the products, and this was a splendid line of thought. It means that they at least understand the fundamentals of doing business. Sooner or later, there may be a time in the future, where I will have to teach them accounting concepts of closing accounts and creating balance sheets. It’s pretty troublesome that I have to do profitability a.n.a.lysis even after transmigrating isn’t it?
「Because of this. We started to talk about various matters. We talked so much until our head was boiling and smoke was coming out of it. I mean, even a person like Viscount Kindo was in such a panic when he said that he wanted to purchase all of our goods. We also needed to take into consideration that there was a limit to the number of products we could make. Therefore, we thought it would be wise to sell these limited products at the highest price possible. If we can do this, this will enrich everyone’s lives in the village. Along the road, we had many disagreements and continued to improve our ideas by brainstorming. What we came up with was two options, either we directly sold the products to Marquis Webdosu, or we sold it to the company that the younger brother of Marquis Webdosu manages. Both of these options had their own merits and disadvantages. If we sold the products directly to the Marquis then we probably didn’t need to pay tax. That’s because we could just increase the price to negate the tax if we wanted to. However, we didn’t really know how many we could sell with this method. If it was used by the military, then we might be able to continuously sell the products. On the other hand, if we sold it to the company, then we would need to pay tax. If we just simply raised the prices by too much, then the general public may not be able to afford the products and the demand for the product may drop. However, the positive thing was that if we did this, the products would be distributed to the whole kingdom and not just within the Marquis’s territory. If things went well, then it might even exceed the amount of goods we can continuously sell than if we had just merely sold it to the Marquis directly」
Everyone became silent again and payed attention to Hegard. After confirming everyone’s attention, Hegard started speaking again.
「I was able to milk out those two points. For the time being, we decided to directly sell to the Marquis. Either way, we needed to have an audience with the Marquis. Even if we failed directly selling to the Marquis, we could still sell to the company, so we thought that this was a pretty safe measure to take. When we went Doritto, we merely called it a “speciality product from Bakuddo” and it was possible for the Viscount to see the value in the products. Everyone here already knows that Rubber has various usages. It was not really necessary for us to insist on over exaggerating the usefulness of the product. At the same time, the Marquis has not yet been exposed to the product before, and so we thought that it would be good for us to first visit Sendohel-sama first. In this way, we wouldn’t have to painstakingly advertise our products to the Marquis」
Who is Sendohel?
「As everyone here may already know, Sendohel is the Marquis’s eldest son and he was a.s.signed to be the leader of the knights three years ago. Although he was still relatively young, the Marquis still recognises his ability and skill with the sword and he is fit to be the official heir. Because we had Farne, I first approached him with the topic of Farne. I asked him if Farne could be enrolled to the order of the knights, whilst casually introducing some of the rubber products. As I expected, Sendohel-sama, had keen eyes. He soon took a liking to the rubber products. I’m everyone will be surprised to hear this! but we have been able to secure the Order of the Knights as one of our regular customers!」
Ohh, did such a thing occur? Nevertheless, this is pretty amazing. Everyone here couldn’t conceal their excitement either and was getting really rowdy. Even I could not help but smile as this was really a big event.
「The Sandals were used as part of the equipment for training the knights and was set for a price of around 40,000 Zeni. Boots were given to the knights partic.i.p.ating in actual combat and for those riding horses, and the price was set at 190,000 Zeni. However, it was been requested that the boots shouldn’t just have one layer of pig skin and should have double layers for the next batch. The rubber-coated cloth was sold for 30,000 Zeni for 1 meter squared in length. In regards to this, they wanted to be able to designated the size at the time of ordering our products. The cushion that we brought were sold for 100,000 Zeni, however they said that if we were able to make it thinner and also expand the size to the shape of the horse’s saddle, they will be willing to pay 250,000 Zeni for each cushion. There was also another condition attached, and this was that instead of having rubber as the surface of the cushion, they wanted the surface of the cushion to be covered with the rubber-coated cloth」
Everyone was flabbergasted with their mouths flapped open and they weren’t able to speak. My voice also wouldn’t come out. Isn’t this literally selling it for 5 times the original price!? Normally leather bound sandals were supposed to be around 3000~5000 Zeni, right? And also, wasn’t the original price of the boots set around 15,000 Zeni? Isn’t the price more than 10 times in this scenario? There is a limit to how much you can rip someone off……..no wait, isn’t this actually really good?
「Consequently, from here on out within half a year, we need to supply them with: 300 foot Sandals, 100 Boots, and for the time being all of the rubber-coated cloth should be made with a width of 1 meter and a length of 200m, the cushion should be remodelled to fit a horses saddle and we need to make 30 of these, and lastly, we need 20 pieces of the regular type cushion as well, this is what has been ordered. Everything totals to 46,500,000 Zeni」
…………. Holy c.r.a.p, I think that we can afford those farming horses now….
TL: If you need a little refresher about the price of horses, it’s 6,000,000 Zeni for a normal horse and around 10,000,000 Zeni for a Warhorse. Chapter 25 has more info about certain price of goods and about the economy in general so check it out if you want to.