America's No. 1 financial conglomerate

Chapter 324 The event is a huge success

Mountain View, Google.

Ernst was sitting leisurely on the large sofa, playing with a small toy in his hand. Whenever he applied a little pressure with his fingers, Bill Gates' little stick would bulge and pop, as if it were putting on a comical performance.

"You mean, this thing is now being sold for $50 each?" Ernst stopped what he was doing, finding it amusing but also incredulous.

In his opinion, the cost of this little gadget is no more than three yuan, but now, people online are willing to pay fifty dollars to buy it, and the number of people looking to buy it is still growing.

"That's right," Hamilton, sitting opposite him, replied, barely suppressing a laugh.

His gaze would occasionally drift to the little toy in Ernst's hand, and every time he saw the little stick protrude, he felt a little worried for Bill Gates.

He really thought this thing was too mean, and he didn't know how Craig came up with it, that he could think of making such a thing to mock Bill Gates.

The key point is that this thing became incredibly popular, appearing on numerous television programs and in newspapers. I wonder if Bill Gates will be so angry that he ends up in the hospital.

"Craig did a good job this time," Hamilton changed the subject. "The clothes he bought for free are all of very good quality, just as good as those clothes in the supermarket that cost eight or ten dollars. Now many of the customers who received the clothes have given positive reviews online, and some have even posted photos of themselves wearing the clothes we gave away."

"And now these freebies of ours have become a fashion trend." Hamilton's tone was filled with undisguised joy. "You can see people wearing our free clothes everywhere on the street, whether they are young or middle-aged, they are happy to wear them, the exposure is simply amazing."

He gestured to Ernst's hand, "Especially this little toy. Because of its scarcity, it has an inherent rarity. In addition, everyone finds it novel and wants to experience the fun of teasing Bill Gates, so the price has naturally been driven up higher and higher."

Hamilton was extremely satisfied with Craig's procurement efforts, showering him with praise.

However, Ernst just pursed his lips, knowing that Craig's success this time was purely accidental.

Craig had mentioned it to him over the phone, but he was in Australia and his mind was on Katie, so he didn't pay attention.

He happened to see a similar toy in a small workshop, thought it was interesting, and on a whim asked the manufacturer to change the model to look like Bill Gates. Only two thousand were produced. Who would have thought that this little toy would become a hot commodity?

"Oh, right, there's one more thing. We need to restock as soon as possible." Hamilton's tone became more serious.

"Restock?" Ernst's eyes widened when he heard those two words. Google Talk has been activated nearly ten million times. If each activation earns a T-shirt as a reward, that's only ten million T-shirts.

He remembered that Craig had purchased 20 million T-shirts, which should have been enough to last for a while, so why would he need to restock?

It's only been three days since the event started, and in many places, the packages haven't even been delivered to the customers yet. Restocking under these circumstances is beyond Ernst's expectations.

Hamilton smiled, picked up his coffee, took a sip, and then deliberately kept everyone in suspense. "You probably won't believe how amazing our customer appreciation event is this time, and how many new members we've gained."

"Especially since the quality of the clothes we gave away far exceeded everyone's expectations, word of mouth spread and we heard that many people who don't even use the internet actually asked people around them who know the internet to help them register for memberships just to spend five dollars to buy this piece of clothing because they thought the clothes were of good quality and cost-effective."

"In just three days, the number of Google Connect premium membership activations has increased by 330 million, and this number is still skyrocketing at a very rapid pace, showing no signs of slowing down."

Is it that popular?

This was something Ernst had never expected.

He knew this reward event would bring a lot of membership growth, but he didn't expect it to be this popular.

"Do you know how many annual memberships we have now?" Hamilton asked again, a smug smile on his face as he looked at Ernst's shocked expression.

Ernst shook his head, but judging from Hamilton's smug expression, he could guess that the number must be quite large.

"We already have 2700 users who have signed up for our full range of annual memberships," Hamilton announced the number, his voice filled with even greater pride.

"2700?" Ernst's expression darkened further upon hearing this number. "I remember when I asked you a month ago, there were only less than a thousand users who had activated the full annual membership service, right? This growth rate is simply outrageous."

"That's right." Hamilton nodded. "The main thing is the free gifts we've prepared for all annual members, such as seat covers and floor mats. Some users have already posted pictures of them online. The quality of these gifts would cost at least $550 in the market. Some merchants have seen our promotion and have even started attacking us on the internet, saying that what we at Google Connect are doing is making it impossible for them to survive."

At this point, Hamilton couldn't help but laugh. "You know, the more these people criticize, the more they stimulate users' desire to buy, and the greater the backlash. The fact that these businesses are reacting so strongly only proves how valuable our free gifts are."

The key issue is that these car seat covers and floor mats are indeed too expensive in the American market, so expensive that ordinary families either simply cannot afford them, or even if they can afford them, they are unwilling to spend so much money on these accessories.

Now, users can get it for free by signing up for a full year of Google Connect membership. It's like a windfall for users.

"Based on our internal data predictions, the number of annual members across the entire series should easily exceed 20,000."

Hamilton continued, "So we have to stock up immediately. If we can't ship the goods after users place their orders, it will seriously affect the user experience."

He shrugged, a mix of helplessness and glee. "In fact, the 2000 top-tier gift sets we purchased earlier are no longer enough to ship."

"I've decided against sea freight this time. It's too time-consuming, and the long wait times for users could dampen their enthusiasm. So I want Craig to go directly by air, with Google covering the shipping costs."

The overwhelming success of Google's marketing campaign was beyond anyone's expectations.

The manufacturers that were doing OEM manufacturing for Craig Trading Company were also caught off guard.

Chen Hongping is a small private factory owner in Jinjiang. He runs a medium-sized factory with more than 200 employees, specializing in OEM and contract manufacturing for brands.

In Jinjiang, a place with a high concentration of OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) industries, his factory is not large in scale, only of medium size. Most of the orders he receives are small batches, and the profit margin is relatively thin.

When Craig came to Jinjiang for inspection, the entire OEM industry in Jinjiang was in an uproar. Many manufacturers hoped to secure his super order worth thousands of dollars.

Everyone assumed that this large order would definitely go to large factories with advanced equipment and a history of working with well-known brands. Small and medium-sized factories like Chen Hongping's had no chance of competing and were just there to make up the numbers.

After all, large factories seem to have more advantages than small and medium-sized factories in terms of production capacity, quality control, and delivery speed.

But the result was unexpected. Chen Hongping's factory stood out and successfully won this astronomical order, which shocked the entire OEM industry in Jinjiang.

The reason he was able to secure the order was simple: the price.

Assuming the product quality is the same, Chen Hongping's bid was the lowest among all the bidding manufacturers.

Under the same quality and price conditions, he signed an FOB contract, which is a condition that other contract manufacturers cannot offer.

There are generally two cooperation methods for foreign trade orders: EXW and FOB.

In simple terms, an EXW contract means that the manufacturer is only responsible for the production and packaging of the product and can deliver it on-site at the factory. There is no need to handle customs export procedures or be responsible for any transportation. All subsequent procedures are handled by the purchaser.

FOB contracts are completely different. These contracts, also known as onboard transaction prices, are transactions conducted based on offshore transaction prices.

According to the FOB contract, Chen Hongping was not only responsible for completing the production on time, but also for personally handling all customs clearance procedures and ensuring the safe transport of the goods to the ship designated by Craig Trading Company. All customs clearance fees and short-distance transportation costs incurred during this period were to be borne by his factory.

Chen Hongping's original quote was already very low, leaving very little profit margin. With the additional costs and procedures required by the FOB contract, this order was practically unprofitable and might even result in a loss.

It is precisely because of this that many competitors who were originally hesitant withdrew after seeing Chen Hongping's price and cooperation method, feeling that the order was too risky and not worth investing in.

But Chen Hongping didn't think that way. He valued long-term development more than the immediate profits from this order.

Through this huge order, his factory can obtain a large amount of foreign exchange income. The government has certain subsidy policies for enterprises with foreign exchange income, and this subsidy can make up for part of his costs.

More importantly, there's the land. China is developing rapidly, and the urbanization process is accelerating. Land prices will definitely become more and more valuable in the future.

He plans to use the profits from this order to upgrade and renovate the factory, and at the same time apply to the government for land at a low price to expand the factory's footprint.

When this land appreciates in value in the future, the resulting profits will far exceed the profits from this order.

In addition, there is also the purpose of binding customers.

Unlike large OEM manufacturers that frequently receive orders from top-tier brands, our clients are all powerful and well-known companies.

Small and medium-sized factories like Chen Hongping's have difficulty accessing these high-quality clients. Most of the orders they receive are subcontracted by large OEM factories, and their profits are squeezed at each level, leaving them with only a meager living.

Although Craig Trading Company is a newly established enterprise, judging from the generous nature of its first order, Chen Hongping believes that this is definitely not a one-off deal. As long as this cooperation goes well, there will certainly be more opportunities for cooperation in the future.

If he can establish a long-term and stable cooperative relationship with Craig Trading Company, his factory can break free from its dependence on subcontracting orders from large factories and achieve leapfrog development.

Even though Chen Hongping had expectations for the future, he did not expect that the subsequent business would come so quickly and so fiercely.

It had only been a month since his factory shipped its first batch of goods to the United States. He estimated that the goods should have only arrived in the United States a few days ago. Before he could even receive feedback from Craig Trading Company, an even larger and huge order suddenly landed on his head.

At the factory gate, he warmly shook hands with a young man, his face beaming with smiles. "Xiao Zhang, when you get back you must tell your dad that I'm hosting a banquet for your whole family at Wanghailou tonight. No matter how busy you are, you have to be there. I have something important to discuss with him."

"Don't worry, Uncle Chen, I'll definitely pass on the message and make sure my dad arrives on time." The young man smiled and nodded, then let go of Chen Hongping's hand, turned around, opened the car door, and waved to him. "Uncle Chen, you can go in now. No need to see me off any further. I'm leaving."

Chen Hongping smiled and nodded, helped the young man close the car door, and watched the vehicle slowly drive away from the factory gate until it disappeared from sight before turning around and walking into the factory.

At that moment, his first thought wasn't about speeding up production, but rather that he needed to quickly hire an English-speaking secretary, as it was causing too much delay.

When Craig visited Jinjiang last time, he was accompanied by an official translator, and the communication went smoothly without any problems.

This time, however, Craig made an international call. With Chen Hongping's barely passable English, and Craig only knowing a few Chinese words like "Dongguan" and "fruit platter," their conversation was completely nonsensical.

If I hadn't remembered that Old Ding's eldest son next door was a college student and urgently called him for help, this would have caused such a huge delay.

However, the reason for hosting Lao Ding's family at Wanghailou tonight was not only to thank Xiao Zhang for his help with the translation, but more importantly, Chen Hongping had another plan in mind.

He wanted to discuss with Lao Ding about merging the two factories.

This new order from Craig Trading Company is for 50 million pieces of clothing alone, and the delivery time is extremely tight, requiring production and shipment to be completed within just one month.

Given the current scale and production capacity of Chen Hongping's factory, even if he had more than 24 employees working around the clock, it would be impossible to complete such a large order volume within the stipulated time.

But he couldn't refuse this order. Putting aside the potential profits, just to maintain a long-term cooperative relationship with Craig Trading Company, he had to take it even if it meant losing money and subcontracting it out.

However, Chen Hongping did not want to choose subcontracting because subcontracting would not only result in lower profits, but also make it difficult to control product quality. If quality problems occurred, it would affect the reputation of his factory and might even lead to the loss of Craig Trading Company, an important customer. Therefore, he preferred to expand production scale by merging factories.

The traditional approach of building new factories and recruiting employees is clearly too late. From site selection and construction to recruitment and training employees, it takes at least several months, which is far from meeting the order delivery deadline.

But a merger would be different. Lao Ding’s factory and his factory are about the same size. If the merger is successful, the production equipment of the two factories can be fully utilized, the employees can be uniformly allocated, and the output can be more than doubled instantly.

The most crucial point is that as the industry scales up, it can better accumulate capital.

In Chen Hongping's mind, OEM manufacturing is not a lifelong business. If he wants to stand out, he must transform and move into a more profitable industry.

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