The film and television city starts from the courtyard

The departure of Abao and Lingzi did not have much impact on Zhao Shucheng. After all, they were just passersby in his life, and his career had to continue.

He knew very well that in the future, his IKEA supermarkets would not only face competition from local supermarket brands, but also, in the not-too-distant future, from major foreign supermarket brands.

What Zhao Shucheng needs to do now is to take advantage of the fact that the competition is not yet fierce, expand his scale as soon as possible in first- and second-tier cities, and strive to have his own supermarket in every first- and second-tier city, and buy the stores, so that he will have a great advantage in the competition.

Of course, Zhao Shucheng is not only busy opening new stores, but more importantly, he is working on improving the supermarket's business philosophy and supply system. Ideally, he wants to achieve a strong scale effect, build a complete logistics system, and create an integrated information system so that he can remain invincible in future competition.

Zhao Shucheng not only needs to cultivate his internal strength, but also guard against external forces using their power to intimidate others. After all, once those major foreign supermarket brands enter the Chinese market, they will also build their own supply chains.

Initially, with their large domestic and international sales volumes, they would definitely demand that local businesses lower prices to facilitate large-scale purchases. However, Zhao Shucheng's supermarkets are only located domestically, so their sales volume cannot match theirs in the short term, naturally requiring them to take precautions early.

To this end, Zhao Shucheng specifically signed a contract with the previous cooperating manufacturers, stipulating the supply period, price increases, and other issues.

Of course, the most crucial point is that if the other party cannot meet the supply requirements, Zhao Shucheng can have his factory produce the products under his brand, ensuring quality while paying only a few cents in patent fees for each product.

Many domestic brands lack sufficient understanding of patents and branding. Given that Zhao Shucheng's terms were indeed attractive, they signed such licensing agreements one after another.

At this moment, they have no idea that this contract will be the key to the continuation of their brand, and also the thing that the foreign companies they acquired hate the most.

Zhao Shucheng's goal was not simply to meet supply requirements, but also to create his own brand. After all, a supermarket without its own brand of products cannot go far in the future.

As you can see, Walmart has its own private label brands. In order to win this order, Wang Mingzhu cut her costs again and again, and almost had to produce the product at a loss.

However, Walmart doesn't own its own factories. Instead, it uses a bidding process to produce products at the lowest price, puts its own label on them, and then ships them overseas to the shelves of foreign supermarkets.

The profit margin that businesses can get may only be three percent, but supermarkets can attract consumers with the lowest prices, and their own profit margin can be as high as ten percent or higher.

Zhao Shucheng would naturally not adopt the same strategy as them. Moreover, Zhao Shucheng's own brand must ensure quality and quantity, so building his own production matrix is ​​an urgent matter.

Wang Mingzhu only learned by chance that Zhao Shucheng's supermarket not only sold products from foreign trade companies, but was even planning to open its own factory to produce products.

At first, Wang Mingzhu didn't quite understand Zhao Shucheng's choice, but after Zhao Shucheng cited Walmart as an example, she understood.

"But even if you want to create your own brand, you can simply find contract manufacturers like Walmart does. There's no need to build your own factory, right? That would require a lot of investment and yield little output, which doesn't align with business principles at all."

Zhao Shucheng smiled and said, "In the short term, this is somewhat thankless work for me; I'm essentially keeping a factory that I don't use, just to produce a few insignificant products. But in the long run, I'm controlling product quality from the source. Because my products are manufactured in my own factory, I have strict quality control, and I can even trace the responsibility back to the specific person in charge. Therefore, my products are always trustworthy for consumers."

“When facing competition, price is a crucial factor, but it is not the only option. Attracting customers solely through low prices may diminish the perceived value of the product and the brand image. Therefore, in real market competition, it is essential not only to implement price competition strategies but also to ensure product and service quality in order to win customer trust and loyalty.”

Zhao Shucheng wasn't just talking; he had prepared a whole set of strategies to deal with potential external competition.

Amidst this busy period, it was October 94, and the Oriental Pearl Tower officially opened, attracting many people to the Huangpu River.

At this moment, Wang Mingzhu and Zhao Shucheng stood together on the company building, looking in the direction of the Oriental Pearl Tower, watching the grand opening.

Since the previous Walmart order, Wang Mingzhu moved the company to its current location, partly to be closer to Bund 27, and partly so that Mingzhu Foreign Trade can operate independently and no longer need to rely on the IKEA name to negotiate business.

However, Wang Mingzhu was unaware that at that very moment, A Bao had also arrived in the crowd along the Huangpu River. As he looked at the dazzling fireworks in the sky, he thought of the promise he made with Wang Mingzhu years ago to watch the opening of the Oriental Pearl Tower together from the Foreign Trade Building, but now everything had changed.

Time flies, and two years have passed.

People in Shanghai have gotten used to occasionally shopping at IKEA, since the products there are really complete and of good quality at reasonable prices.

Many people have forgotten Zhao Shucheng, the former stock market guru, and only remember him as the supermarket tycoon. After all, Zhao Shucheng now owns IKEA supermarkets not only in Shanghai, but also in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and even every provincial capital. He has four or five stores in some cities, and one in others, making it one of the largest supermarket chains in the country.

Many people are actually looking forward to the day when IKEA goes public. They believe that IKEA's stock will be even better than that of Shanghai United Department Store, and that buying it will be a sure win.

Unfortunately, this is all wishful thinking on their part. Zhao Shucheng is not short of funds at present, and he will face a lot of competition in the future. Naturally, he cannot allow his company, which he fully controls, to be taken over by someone. Therefore, he will not go public in the short term.

However, Zhao Shucheng's life in the past two years has not been entirely smooth sailing. Since 1995, Zhao Shucheng has faced challenges from foreign supermarkets one after another.

As if they had planned it together, they didn't all flock to the same big city. Carrefour chose to land in Beijing first, followed by Walmart in Shenzhen, Japanese-made Yokado in Chengdu, and Metro also entered Shanghai this year.

For the average person, this might seem like a normal choice for supermarkets to avoid competition. But only this time did they realize that their seemingly coincidental choice was actually premeditated.

After all, Zhao Shucheng's office always had a national map hanging on it, so it was clear that these supermarkets were employing a strategy of attacking from all sides, attempting to develop independently in the four cardinal directions first. Once they had achieved a certain scale, they would then penetrate lower-tier markets, squeezing out the growth space for local brands. It's important to understand that those large international supermarket brands have advanced management concepts, their own supply chain systems, and even economies of scale in logistics. Faced with their aggressive expansion, local brands simply had little ability to resist.

Moreover, they have a three-pronged approach: a marketing company, sales channels, and even financial support. Local brands, on the other hand, only have promotional posters advertising price reductions, which are no match for foreign supermarkets that advertise on TV every day.

Not to mention, the arrival of those supermarkets wasn't just about making money; it was also about facilitating the acquisition of local brands by international consumer goods companies. Supermarkets are responsible for retail sales, and in their daily operations, they naturally know which brands sell well and will become their competitors.

Once they have this data, international consumer goods companies can make targeted acquisitions, or initially take a stake and then gradually take over. International advertising agencies will then be responsible for packaging the consumer goods and marketing them to the public, supermarkets will handle the sales floor and deliver the giants' products to consumers, and financial institutions will provide financial support.

Supermarkets can only do so much; they also suppress competition. By placing local brands' products in inconspicuous locations and then removing them from the shelves, they give consumers the impression that these brands are no longer viable, causing their sales to decline and ultimately providing foreign companies with an excuse to shelve them.

Faced with such a comprehensive encirclement, local brands have no ability to resist at all, and they don't even know how they died.

Zhao Shucheng naturally couldn't stand by and watch them gang up on him like this, so when those companies gained a foothold and prepared to challenge his IKEA supermarket, Zhao Shucheng decided to give them a shock from the East.

When it comes to business philosophies, foreign ones may be advanced, but they are not necessarily much better than domestic ones, and sometimes they are even inferior.

It's just that our country is still in the development stage and lags behind foreign countries which have been developing for many years, so there seems to be a gap in many aspects.

However, the Donglai model will absolutely shock those foreign supermarkets, leaving them unable to face such competition. Because their management models preclude them from achieving this level, and they may not even be able to learn from it.

Zhao Shucheng's side naturally couldn't just use the Donglai model; he also needed to establish a complete integrated information system for his IKEA supermarket.

Zhao Shucheng's goal was to follow Walmart's path and leave Walmart with nowhere to go. After all, Walmart had already achieved global data networking in the early 1980s. If Zhao Shucheng wanted to compete with them, he naturally had to achieve data networking as well, thereby reducing his operating costs to a level comparable to Walmart's.

Thanks to Zhao Shucheng's experiences in many worlds, he had long ago developed his own operating system, which could be directly applied to the supermarket. With slight modifications, it would become an independent supermarket information system, and it would also eliminate the possibility of others hacking the IKEA system.

Of course, Zhao Shucheng didn't just use such methods. Ever since he learned that foreign supermarkets such as Walmart had entered the domestic market, he had Wang Mingzhu use her connections from her time working at the China Foreign Trade Corporation to investigate the OEM factories of these supermarkets' own brands.

Big brands are indeed good, but China's development is still in its early stages, and people don't value brands as much; they value quality more. Therefore, what Zhao Shucheng needs to do is poach customers from those brands, find their OEM manufacturers, and produce affordable alternatives with similar quality, thus making IKEA a more attractive choice for consumers.

Faced with Zhao Shucheng's combination of tactics, foreign supermarkets not only failed to eliminate IKEA, but also suffered losses due to competition with Zhao Shucheng.

In order to make a profit, they have intensified their exploitation of local brands, demanding further reductions in supply prices. This has actually made local companies more willing to cooperate with Zhao Shucheng.

When those companies realized that they couldn't defeat IKEA through direct competition, they proposed a truce and normal business operations.

Upon hearing this, Zhao Shucheng scoffed. However, before he could press his advantage, he received instructions from his superiors and had no choice but to let the supermarkets go.

After Zhao Shucheng's victory, he was completely at ease letting IKEA develop on its own, and he simply stepped back from the limelight to enjoy life.

During this time, Zhao Shucheng and Vivian had a child. It was also during this period that Wang Mingzhu accidentally slept with Zhao Shucheng and officially moved into the old house.

Time flew by and it was 1997.

This year was a year of profound impact for China, especially July 1st, which was the most crucial day.

Ah Bao came to Hong Kong to witness the grand occasion of the 1997 handover. That night, the five-star red flag, symbolizing sovereignty, was raised on time, and Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong's largest night market, was packed with people who celebrated this exciting moment all night long.

The entire nation was in an uproar; countless people witnessed history that night.

At this moment, A Bao was not alone; standing beside him was Xue Zhi, with whom he had a ten-year promise.

Since Abao left the stock market last time, he seemed to understand what was most important. So, after persistent pursuit, the two people who had been in love for nearly twenty years finally got together.

Liza Wang came to Hong Kong with Zhao Shucheng and Vivian Chow to witness history, but she never expected to see Ah Bao and Xue Zhi together. For a moment, it felt like yesterday.

However, she turned her head and saw Zhao Shucheng holding the child, and Vivian beside him. She looked at her own belly and showed a relieved smile.

Compared to Abao, with whom she had made a promise, everything seemed meaningless after their reunion. She was no longer the Miss Wang she once was. Since starting her own foreign trade company, she had secured numerous orders thanks to Zhao Shucheng's connections, even surpassing Abao's previous success. Now, she was even working with Zhao Shucheng on their own brand's foreign trade.

Vivian, unaware of Wang Mingzhu's complex thoughts, simply looked happily at her daughter. She had never imagined she would one day give birth to a child of her own blood, nor had she ever imagined sharing a man with another woman. Yet, she still felt very happy, after all, this man was her own choice. (End of Chapter)