Restart life

Chapter 442 0432 [HarmonyOS Phones Go on Sale]

Qin Shanshan had an argument with her parents on the phone and then stayed in Beijing to visit the HarmonyOS offline experience store.

If your only goal is to sell goods, opening a store in Dinghao Electronics City is the best option.

But Chen Guiliang wasn't doing this to sell products; he opened his Beijing experience store in Sanlitun.

On her first day at work, Qin Shanshan spent her time getting to know her colleagues and memorizing various documents, including information about HarmonyOS phones, the HarmonyOS R&D team, and the "Employee Service Manual."

Before she started work, Chen Guiliang told her, "Take this time to adjust. Based on your performance, I will reassign you to a different job in six months."

Although Qin Shanshan didn't understand what Chen Guiliang was going to do, she already knew that she would be training here for half a year.

The store manager is 40 years old and used to sell mobile phones.

The other employees are all very young.

All of her colleagues were only high school or junior high school graduates, except for Qin Shanshan, who had a university degree. To be honest, she looked down on her colleagues a little, but fortunately, she didn't show it.

Qin Shanshan was particularly fast when memorizing information, but one colleague just couldn't remember it.

"Manager, I've been here for almost two weeks now, and I'm just waiting like this?" Qin Shanshan asked.

The store manager is named Pang Yonghua. He used to be an employee of a state-owned enterprise. When he was young, he lived in a large courtyard in Beijing, where his family of seven squeezed into a 16-square-meter room.

He was later laid off and even set up a street stall until the neighborhood was demolished, at which point he recovered.

“Just wait, I don’t know when the store will officially open,” Pang Yonghua clapped his hands and said to the shop assistants, “Come over here and get some training. Chunmei, you play the sarcastic and mean customer, make things as difficult as possible for the shop assistants. Xiaohong, you go and serve this customer.”

Similar scenario simulations happen every day.

In the first few days, there were even arguments – they got angry because the people pretending to be customers were "making things difficult" for them.

During her first simulation exercise, Qin Shanshan almost got so angry that she slammed the table and stormed off.

She felt that Chen Guiliang was a devil because many of the "difficult" things he did were examples from the "Employee Service Manual".

For example, a customer brings a child in and scratches the glass of a display case with their key. Not only does the company refuse to compensate, but they also claim that the child could easily scratch it, and what if the poor-quality glass breaks and cuts the child?
Its main characteristic is being unreasonable and argumentative.

Even though I knew everyone was acting, I still got really angry while acting it out.

During rehearsals, Pang Yonghua's phone rang.

"Hello, this is Pang Yonghua... Tonight? Okay, okay, I'll be waiting..."

After hanging up the phone, Pang Yonghua announced with a smile, "The store will officially open in three days. The goods will be delivered tonight!"

The shop assistants immediately cheered.

Although the commission from selling mobile phones isn't high, there is still a commission. Moreover, the salary is higher during the store's operation period, and service performance is also calculated at the end of the year.

……

"How much has been pre-ordered on the online store?" Zhou Guangping picked up the phone and asked the person in charge of the official HarmonyOS mobile phone online store.

The other party replied: "1886 units from JD.com, 425 units from Taobao, and a total of 211 units from other online stores."

Zhou Guangping exclaimed in surprise, "JD.com's pre-sale volume is higher than all other companies combined?"

The other party replied, "People are used to buying electronic products on JD.com."

Zhou Guangping muttered, "Over 2000 units have been pre-sold online in total, hmm... that's not bad."

The following night, Zhou Guangping received a phone call.

"Mr. Zhou, the total pre-orders have exceeded 4000 units! Many customers placed orders tonight!"

4000 units?

"Yes, it's almost at 4100!"

Zhou Guangping was startled and immediately arranged for BYD to expedite production. He then called Chen Guiliang to report the situation.

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "Now you don't have to worry, right? It's even more popular than we expected."

Zhou Guangping asked, "Is buying mobile phones online this popular now?"

Chen Guiliang said, "It started becoming popular last year, with a lot of grey market and refurbished phones being sold online. It's just that major brand manufacturers haven't paid attention to it yet. We're among the first to dare to put our main sales channel online."

Zhou Guangping thought for a moment and said in agreement, "You are more professional in advertising and sales. I will focus on research and development and production from now on."

……

On the day the store opened, Qin Shanshan arrived at work early.

To be honest, she was already regretting quitting. She didn't have anything in common with her colleagues, and the work was quite boring all day.

It would be better to stay at the tobacco bureau.

But Chen Guiliang promised to transfer her to a different job within six months, so Qin Shanshan could only wait it out for now.

"I go!"

Before she even reached the store entrance, Qin Shanshan saw a queue of at least three or four hundred people.

The morning crowds in Sanlitun are not large; the hurried passersby are more like pedestrians than customers. They carry their bags and head straight to the shops or nearby office buildings, rarely shopping or lingering.

Residents of nearby upscale communities also come out in the morning to walk their dogs, buy coffee, and have breakfast.

A middle-aged man, holding a coffee in his right hand and leading a golden retriever on his left, curiously passed by the crowd in line and glanced at the sign for the mobile phone experience store.

"Is the HarmonyOS phone about to be released?" asked a middle-aged man who had achieved financial freedom.

One person at the end of the line said, "They're selling today. I left home around 5 a.m. and I'm already at the very back. I don't even know if I'll be able to buy anything."

The middle-aged man took a few steps back and roughly counted: "There are only a few hundred people, surely they can buy some?"

“It’s hard to say,” said the person in line. “I wanted to buy a Meizu phone half a year ago, but it was sold out the next day. It’s been out of stock ever since, and phone shipments are like constipation. Now Meizu phones are easier to buy, but I’m too lazy to go buy one. I want to try a HarmonyOS phone instead.”

The middle-aged man was using an iPhone 3GS (Hong Kong version). He wasn't particularly interested in domestic Chinese mobile phones, but he had heard of Meizu and HarmonyOS.

Especially the HarmonyOS phone, the whole open source incident caused a huge uproar, I don't know how much money Chen Guiliang spent on publicity.

Instead of directly promoting the phone brand, they promoted the HarmonyOS system, the HarmonyOS camp, and third-party applications.

The middle-aged man reminded him, "In another two weeks, Apple will officially be sold in mainland China. You can wait a bit and buy an Apple to try it out. It works quite well." "Too expensive," said one of the people in line.

The middle-aged man didn't say anything more and left with his golden retriever.

苹果3G和3GS的销售商是联通，根据型号和存储容量不同，定价分别是4999元、5880元、6999元。

Many people rush to buy it, only to find out upon receiving it that it's a stripped-down version.

No Wi-Fi functionality!

As a result, anyone with a little bit of connections would rush to buy Hong Kong versions of parallel imports, because the Hong Kong versions didn't have the Wi-Fi feature removed.

This situation is not China Unicom's fault, but rather stems from Apple's arrogance.

China launched its own WAPI standard as early as 2003, aiming to compete with the international Wi-Fi standard. For a mobile phone to be accepted by the network in mainland China, it either needs to support both WAPI and Wi-Fi, or it needs neither.

Apple refused to integrate WAPI into the iPhone, so when it was sold in mainland China, Wi-Fi had to be removed according to regulations.

"We're open! We're open!"

Before the door was even opened, the store manager simply took out the key, and people swarmed in.

Pang Yonghua quickly stopped and shouted, "Please don't worry, everyone, we'll definitely be able to buy some today..."

All hell breaks loose.

What "Employee Service Manual"? Get lost!
The first batch of customers had already familiarized themselves with the specifications and prices online. The reason they came to the physical store was simply because they were worried that the product wouldn't be as good as advertised, and they wanted to experience it in person before buying.

They came in demanding to experience the game firsthand, played for a few minutes, then started paying, inserted their SIM cards, took photos, and posted them on Weibo to show off.

Qin Shanshan's mind was buzzing. She had forgotten everything she had memorized and practiced, and even got the machines that several customers wanted to buy wrong (the storage capacity was different, and the price was different).

The shop assistants she had previously looked down on performed much better than her because they had prior sales experience.

Qin Shanshan panicked and forgot all about smiling and serving customers. She shouted anxiously at Pang Yonghua, "Manager, bring a few more 8G phones! Most customers want to buy the 8G!"

When the Meizu M8 was first released, the 8GB version was priced at 2380 yuan, and the 16GB version at 2880 yuan. It was snapped up at the time, and many people wanted to buy it but couldn't.

Now that sales are finally open, consumers have become more rational. In order to promote sales, Meizu has actually lowered prices: the 8GB version is now 1999 yuan, and the 16GB version is now 2499 yuan.

This action infuriated early adopters.

In just six months, the price was reduced by 500 yuan. Isn't this a betrayal of long-time customers?

The HarmonyOS phone is priced slightly higher than Meizu's, with the 8GB version costing 2499 yuan and the 16GB version costing 2999 yuan.

Because the store was too crowded, those who bought phones didn't linger and rushed outside to play with them.

The middle-aged man returned from walking his dog and saw several people playing with their newly bought phones by the roadside. Curious, he went over and asked, "How does it feel?"

"That's awesome!"

"Just like the advertisements online."

"Holy crap, this fruit-cutting game is so awesome!"

"HarmonyOS comes pre-installed with ByteDance Weibo, haha, I just posted a status update."

"..."

The middle-aged man looked at it for a while, then sensed something was wrong and quickly took out his apple.

He suddenly realized that his Apple 3GS had a screen resolution that was visibly lower than HarmonyOS.
The resolution of the HarmonyOS phone is the same as that of the Meizu M8, which is much higher than that of the Apple 3GS.

Just looking at the screen, this financially independent middle-aged man suddenly felt that his Apple phone had become outdated.

He was very unhappy.

My own Apple phone costs twice as much as HarmonyOS.

He took the golden retriever directly into the store, and because of the chaotic situation inside, no staff member came to stop him.

This middle-aged man also bought one.

He has money, so he'll just buy it for fun.

The newspaper reporter that Chen Guiliang invited took photos of the crowd like crazy, and then went to do interviews.

After managing to keep all the customers occupied, the shop finally became quiet.

Qin Shanshan slumped behind the counter and said to the store manager, "It's so tiring. Luckily, it's not like this every day. My head was spinning just now, and I can't remember any of the usual training."

Only Pang Yonghua knew that Qin Shanshan was personally arranged by President Chen, and he immediately smiled and said, "Now you know why President Chen wants to train you, right?"

"I don't want to talk," Qin Shanshan said, leaning on the counter.

Just then, two more customers came in, and she quickly stood up and greeted them with a smile.

……

On the first day of sales, all 5200 HarmonyOS phones sold out online. More than 3000 units were pre-ordered and will take a few days to ship.

The offline experience store sold a total of more than 1900 units, and it is estimated that they will be out of stock in another two or three days.

When the first batch of users who bought the phone posted photos online to show off, the reputation of HarmonyOS phones spread rapidly.

Online sales continue to climb, but orders are only available through pre-orders and customers have to wait in line for their orders.

Fortunately, Chen Guiliang was well-prepared, unlike Meizu which had a constipated production schedule, so he could replenish stock within two or three days of a shortage.

Many Chinese mobile phone manufacturers and IT companies are eyeing the sales volume of HarmonyOS.

On the morning of the third day, the HarmonyOS official website announced that the first batch of 10000 phones had sold out within two days. Over 4000 pre-ordered phones from online stores have not yet been shipped. Interested buyers are asked to wait two or three days.

They no longer have time for things like monkey shows.

Chen Guiliang instructed BYD to work overtime to produce the second batch of 30000 units.

Upon hearing the news, Rong Xiuli, the CEO of Tianyu, immediately placed an online order, wanting to personally experience the advantages of the HarmonyOS phone.

She and Chen Guiliang still have a bet.

(End of this chapter)