CHAPTER 136: CHAPTER 136: FOUR FOR THE PRICE OF THREE

On market day, Lin Xiang used her usual technique. After setting up her booth, she started looking for old acquaintances.

But today she didn’t see Aunt Ge; instead, she spotted another stall selling spicy noodles.

Not only did Lin Xiang notice, but Mrs. Lin and Chunya also saw it.

"Girl, that family seems to be selling spicy noodles too. I noticed their setup is quite similar to ours," Mrs. Lin asked worriedly, "Do you think this will affect our business?"

"The market is only so big, and there aren’t many types of food to sell. It’s normal for someone to notice our spicy noodle business is doing well and jump on the opportunity to sell spicy noodles too. There might be some impact, but that’s unavoidable with business. We can’t just allow only us to sell, right?"

Lin Xiang had a very relaxed attitude, but Mrs. Lin couldn’t take it so lightly.

She kept staring at the stall selling spicy noodles, watching them mimic their previous methods to attract customers. Mrs. Lin yelled louder than them.

Soon enough, customers came over.

"How much are your spicy noodles per bowl?"

Lin Xiang was about to respond when Mrs. Lin jumped in, "Eighty cents per bowl, and we include free seaweed. You know seaweed, right? It’s something that only comes from the sea, really tasty. And today we’ve got a new flavor as well. Besides spicy noodles, we’ve got bone soup and three-flavored potato noodles. Would you like to try it?"

"Alright, give me a bowl of that potato noodles."

"Okay! There are chairs over there; you can sit and wait for a bit. The potato noodles will be ready soon."

Mrs. Lin nudged Lin Xiang, "What are you standing there for? Hurry up and cook the noodles!"

"Mom, didn’t we agree on the price before leaving this morning?"

Mrs. Lin whispered, "The price you mentioned earlier included a bowl of porridge. Besides, now we have competitors. To do good business, we must sacrifice a bit of profit. No more talking, go cook the noodles quickly."

Lin Xiang had no choice but to follow Mrs. Lin’s instructions and cooked a bowl of potato noodles.

Mrs. Lin continued shouting, even stepping a bit into their rival’s territory to steal customers.

Mrs. Lin craned her neck and saw that the other stall only had spicy broth, which gave her confidence.

"Eating something this spicy first thing in the morning can be hard on the stomach. Plus, they don’t include porridge. What if it’s too spicy? Besides spicy noodles, we offer bone soup, three-flavored potato noodles made with fresh bone broth. It’s delicious! Have a hot bowl of potato noodles in the morning, with some three-flavor soup. It’s so comforting!"

"Hey, you woman, aren’t you sticking to your stall? Coming to my stall to snatch business?"

"How is this snatching business? I’m just speaking the truth! If you don’t believe me, go to my stall and smell the fragrant bone broth yourself. Plus, we only charge eight cents a bowl!"

The appeal of eight cents a bowl surpassed the allure of bone-flavored three-flavored potato noodles, and many customers headed to the Lin Family stall after Mrs. Lin’s antics.

"Hey, how can you do this! My noodles are already cooking!" shouted the opposing stall’s owner, trying to halt the departing customers, to no avail.

She could only glare furiously at Mrs. Lin, but just as she was about to curse, Mrs. Lin swaggered back to her stall.

After Lin Xiang cooked over a dozen bowls, she served the last customer.

Mrs. Lin sat on a bench mumbling, "It’s odd, usually at this time we’ve sold at least twenty-five bowls. Today, it’s almost half less."

She glanced across the way and saw her stall with no business, while four or five people sat at the rival stall slurping noodles.

"Girl, I’m going over to see what’s up!"

Mrs. Lin hurried over and learned that the rival had lowered their spicy noodle price to seven cents, returning in defeat.

"Girl, should we lower our price too?" Mrs. Lin was uncertain, "The other side’s business is clearly better than ours, if we don’t lower our price, we can’t compete."

Because business had been so good before, Mrs. Lin was confident today and brought a third more sweet potato noodles than usual, along with double the usual amount of potato noodles.

Now, she’s only sold a dozen bowls, so it’s impossible for Mrs. Lin not to feel anxious.

"Lowering the price is impossible unless we quit this business."

Lin Xiang spoke with a calm voice, "Randomly lowering the price just disrupts the market. Mom, Aunt Ge’s pancakes are selling at eight cents each. If our noodles sell at seven or six cents, it really wouldn’t make sense. Besides, I told you before, selling at a higher price yields only two cents profit. Now, we’re selling at eight cents with already low profits."

"If we lower the price further, wouldn’t it be a loss-making proposition?"

Mrs. Lin didn’t understand market economics, but she did know the cost of spicy noodles wasn’t cheap.

"Then how can the other side sell at such a low price?"

"Our costs are high because I use real ingredients, add minced meat to the broth, and each bowl is generous enough to fill an adult man, while women and the elderly need effort to finish it."

"The other side might have lowered their price, but their portion size would be smaller, plus their broth uses fewer spices than ours, so their costs are naturally lower."

Mrs. Lin thought for a while, "So we should lower the price too and appropriately reduce portion size, wouldn’t that work?"

Lin Xiang didn’t speak but silently watched Mrs. Lin.

Mrs. Lin felt unnerved by her gaze, "What’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?"

"The cost of sweet potato noodles is very low. Reducing the portion may save a little cost but would damage our reputation, unacceptable."

"Then what should we do? Just watch our business get taken away?"

Lin Xiang didn’t reply, she just took out a prepared cardboard and pen, and wrote a few big characters.

Lin Family Spicy Noodles, eight cents a bowl, buy four get one free, today only.

"Buy four get one free? Girl, what’s this about?"

"As it implies, buy four bowls and get one for free."

Mrs. Lin did the math, one bowl of spicy noodles is eight cents, four bowls are thirty-two cents, but now one bowl money is free, equating four bowls at twenty-four cents, averaging six cents per bowl.

The rival’s spicy noodles sell at seven cents, but Lin Xiang’s method, she didn’t agree right away!

"Originally, I wanted to sell at ten cents a bowl, buy four get one free, which would be around seven cents each. But you insisted on eight cents, so now we can’t raise the price, we have to sell this way for now."

Mrs. Lin was somewhat frustrated, "You had thought of it earlier; why didn’t you tell me? Playing coy and now look, how much are we losing today! If I had known earlier about your marketing strategy, I wouldn’t have said eight cents!"