Journey 1995:Non-Stop

Chapter 337 Discussing the Order

Being able to come out directly with Yan Hui was undoubtedly an encouragement to Yao Xin. After listening to Yan Hui's words, he nodded repeatedly.

He always felt that Yan Hui had a special kind of temperament, a temperament that many people might not be able to see, but he could. That's why he followed Yan Hui without hesitation, even though his salary for the first two months was less than what he earned from selling the house.

At this point, the outstanding salespeople who come along are basically ambitious and have high expectations; none of them want to remain mediocre in their original fields.

Yan Hui's recruitment standards are quite high. Candidates must either have extensive experience or a college degree or higher; they need to excel in at least one of these areas. The entry requirements for a chemical industry sales representative are quite demanding. It's not enough to just be literate; one must at least be able to understand simple chemical equations to have a foundation for further learning.

The two men nodded repeatedly after listening to what Yan Hui had to say.

At this moment, the car that was supposed to pick up the three of them arrived. The driver made a phone call to Yan Hui, and the three of them quickly got into the car.

The driver was just a driver, and Yan Hui didn't talk about work on the way. He mainly talked about the local customs and culture and got a basic understanding of the place.

During this period, Yan Hui's products still had not obtained patent authorization, so he could not bring the patent authorization certificate when he went out to discuss projects. It was very difficult to talk to some leading companies, and he could not even get past the first hurdle.

The reason for this trip to Suining is that this car factory is not very big. Its annual output value should be around 10 billion yuan. This is Yan Hui's estimate. He is not sure of the exact figure.

The production of a typical passenger car requires approximately 2-3 kilograms of polyurethane, while a large bus requires 5-20 kilograms. (Future electric vehicles, especially those with numerous small batteries, may require up to 20 kilograms of polyurethane per unit.)
As the car drove along, it left the city and arrived at an industrial town. There were more and more cars on the road, and Yan Hui saw the products of the car factory. There were many medium-sized buses parked on the road, which looked to be about 19 seats.

It was a car factory, after all, and the factory area was quite large. There were some large trucks carrying steel parked at the gate. Yan Hui's car was inconspicuous at all. Soon they arrived inside the factory and parked in front of the office building.

"This must be President Yan, right? Welcome, welcome!" Two people came out to greet Yan Hui.

"This must be Manager Wang, whom we contacted yesterday. Hello, hello, thank you so much for sending someone to pick us up." Yan Hui quickly went over to shake hands.

"It's nothing, it's the least we can do! Our boss said that since you've come all this way, we have to treat you well, whether the business deal goes through or not!" Manager Wang said, and then invited everyone into the office building.

After entering the office and exchanging a few polite words, the conversation quickly turned to polyurethane.

“We’ve tested and tried the samples you sent us before, and the results are acceptable. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have asked you to come all this way today. Our boss has two questions for me. The first, of course, is the price, and the second is something like the product certificate of conformity,” Manager Wang said.

“We’ve brought all the relevant certificates and qualifications,” Yan Hui said, taking out photocopies of various certificates and then placing five products on the table.

Manager Wang glanced at the qualifications briefly, didn't ask about patent licensing, and nodded: "Is this price fixed, or is it more flexible?"

“We mainly have three pricing ranges, calculated based on monthly usage: over 1000 units, over 1 units, and over 10 units. These are three different price tiers, which you should understand.” Although Yan Hui doesn’t have a production capacity of 10 units, he’s not worried about it right now. “On our side,” Manager Wang pondered for a moment, “to be honest, our monthly polyurethane consumption is about 3000 units.”

"I just looked at the scale of your factory, and I feel the monthly demand should be around 10,000 units, right?" Yan Hui wasn't without experience; he had conducted in-depth market research multiple times over the years. He had visited many large automobile factories before and knew the approximate demand. Before coming here, he also roughly estimated the usage here to be 10,000 units per month.

The factory he visited today, after a quick glance at its size, was no longer considered a small car factory; it appeared to produce about 1 medium-sized buses annually.

"Mr. Yan, you seem to know quite a bit about our automotive industry?" Manager Wang was slightly taken aback. "To be honest, if we were to use polyurethane exclusively, we would indeed need 10,000 tubes a month. But polyurethane is just too expensive."

“I understand,” Yan Hui nodded. “We must have used quite a bit of silicone sealant, right?”

"Yes, yes, you're an expert, that's right," Manager Wang said truthfully.

Upon hearing this, Yan Hui immediately understood. In this day and age, the term "environmental protection" is still relatively academic. For most companies, environmental protection is not the top priority, and it doesn't even rank second or third.

The government certainly pursues environmental protection, but the penalties and regulations are far from perfect.

For example, in the automotive industry, before 2010, a large number of cars used silicone sealant during the production process. Silicone sealant technology is very mature and the price is low, making it the first choice for many low-end cars.

Unlike urea-formaldehyde resin, silicone sealant itself does not contain formaldehyde. However, due to manufacturing processes, many additives and raw materials inevitably contain formaldehyde, and it releases a strong, pungent odor during curing, primarily composed of acetic acid. The most critical issue is that it may decompose in light, so even when used in automobiles, it can only be applied to shaded areas. Therefore, even to save costs, car manufacturers must use some polyurethane.

"You can probably imagine what it smells like in our workshop," Yan Hui sighed. "Winter is just around the corner, and ventilation will be difficult in the workshop, hence the smell."

"That's a bit big, but our workers have this special subsidy," Manager Wang said with a smile.

It's as if there's some kind of subsidy, and long-term inhalation of acetic acid into the respiratory tract will be fine.

“Well, let’s calculate the cost then,” Yan Hui said. “This is how our company calculates it externally. For your demand, the selling price for a single 700ml bottle is 75 yuan. If you use 1 bottles per month, then the price per bottle is 68 yuan.”

"Huh? Such a big difference? 7 yuan! That's a 10% difference!" Manager Wang exclaimed in surprise.

He had briefly discussed prices on the phone before and knew that Yan Hui's polyurethane had a significant price advantage, but he didn't expect the difference to be so large! Moreover, the price difference could be as much as 10% depending on whether the monthly output exceeded 10,000 units!

“Yes, this is a price that we shareholders have agreed upon,” Yan Hui explained. “This price will absolutely not be changed unless the monthly sales reach 10 units. Companies that sell more than 10 units can negotiate the price separately. Or we can be more flexible. If the monthly sales exceed 5 units, we can also negotiate the price.”

(End of this chapter)