Chapter 260: Selecting a City

The next day, near noon. Chen Mo was sitting in the living room watching TV when the doorbell suddenly rang.

He glanced at the time, knowing it must be Song Xia. Last night, Song Xia had called him, saying she wanted to report some matters.

Since the company hadn't officially resumed work, he couldn't be bothered to go in, so he told Song Xia to come directly to his residence instead.

"Mr. Chen, I hope I'm not disturbing you." Opening the door, Song Xia said cautiously.

"Not at all. Come in and we can talk." After entering the room, he poured Song Xia a glass of water and asked casually, "Go ahead, what is it you need to report?"

Song Xia took the glass, pondered for a moment, and slowly began, "Mr. Chen, it's regarding Nanhe Coffee."

"What's wrong with Nanhe Coffee?" Chen Mo's expression turned serious. He had inspected it yesterday, and everything seemed normal.

"It's like this, Mr. Chen. With the explosive popularity of our Cat Cafe and Maid Cafe, other coffee shops have started to imitate us. Especially with the Cat Cafe—Teacher Su and I have been investigating over the past few days and found five Cat Cafes currently under renovation. Two of them are nearly finished and will be open for business soon."

"Once these Cat Cafes open, they will inevitably siphon off our customer traffic, leading to a decrease in the Cat Cafe's revenue."

Hmm! What a stroke of luck. Listening to Song Xia, Chen Mo felt a surge of joy. The Cat Cafe and Maid Cafe were originally accidents in his coffee shop money-losing plan; if this caused their revenue to drop, it would be simply perfect.

"Mr. Chen, should we run some promotional events before those Cat Cafes open to retain our customers?" "For instance, we could set up a coupon system where customers can get discounts on their next visit if they bring the coupon. And there are other…" Song Xia said cautiously.

This promotional plan was something she, Teacher Su, and several store managers had come up with overnight. The goal was to retain customers once those other Cat Cafes opened. After all, their Cat Cafe had been open for quite some time, and she believed that if they ran some promotions, most customers would choose to stay.

"Forget about the promotions." Chen Mo rejected Song Xia's proposal without a second thought. Retaining customers with promotions? Don't even think about it.

"But if we don't run any promotions, we'll likely lose a large number of customers," Song Xia said, looking anxious.

"Not necessarily. Even if you ran promotions, you would still lose customers. Besides, are the customers you manage to retain through promotions really staying because of the coffee shop?"

"They're only staying because of the prices during the promotion, but can we run these promotions forever?" Chen Mo looked up at Song Xia.

Song Xia thought about it and shook her head. Of course, they couldn't run promotions forever.

"Exactly. Once the promotions end, those customers who only stayed for the sake of the discounts will still choose to leave." "That's why we shouldn't set up any promotions in the first place. Those who stay are our true customers."

Listening to Mr. Chen, Song Xia nodded subconsciously, feeling that his words made a lot of sense. However, she quickly thought of a second issue.

"But Mr. Chen, if the revenue from the Cat Cafe and Maid Cafe decreases, Nanhe Coffee will be losing even more money!" "Many employees are worried that if Nanhe Coffee keeps operating at a loss, you might give up on it." After speaking, Song Xia looked at Mr. Chen cautiously, wanting to see his reaction.

To her surprise, however, Mr. Chen was actually smiling. She had anticipated many different reactions from him upon hearing her concerns, but she had never imagined he would smile.

"You don't need to worry about that. As long as the Mingri Group doesn't go under, I will definitely stick with this coffee shop." Chen Mo looked at Song Xia with a smile.

He hadn't chosen wrong with this talent who had managed to drive her previous milk tea shop into bankruptcy. Under Song Xia's management, Nanhe Coffee had consistently maintained a loss-making state. Although two atypical coffee shops had emerged, they were minor blemishes in an otherwise perfect picture; overall, things were still heading in the intended direction.

As for giving up on Nanhe Coffee? Impossible. How could he just give up on such a great money-losing business?

If there were any business he'd want to give up, it would be Snowy Sky. Among all his ventures, Snowy Sky was the most rebellious. If the system hadn't forbidden it, he would have written it off long ago.

"Thank you, Mr. Chen. Please rest assured, we will definitely work hard to make Nanhe Coffee profitable." Hearing Mr. Chen's assurance, Song Xia hurriedly stood up and bowed in gratitude.

"Everything in moderation; don't overwork yourself. The profitability of the coffee shop is a long-term issue." "So don't get hung up on the short term, and there's no need to rush. Just take it slow."

Looking at Song Xia's determined expression, Chen Mo felt a twinge of fear—what if she actually made Nanhe Coffee profitable? He would be devastated. He hurriedly tried to backtrack to put her at ease before continuing.

"It's good that you came today; I have some matters regarding Nanhe Coffee to arrange." "Please go ahead, Mr. Chen," Song Xia said, straightening up.

"Nanhe Coffee is currently saturated in Jiang City, but we cannot slow down our expansion." "We need to expand Nanhe Coffee to other cities. To do this, we need to establish regional management and have the regional offices report back to the headquarters in Jiang City." "As for the selection of regional management personnel, you can handle that yourselves," Chen Mo said slowly.

"Mr. Chen, Teacher Su and I have discussed this, but we haven't yet decided which city to choose."

She and Teacher Su had discussed expansion before the new year. They had the overall strategy in place, but they were struggling to decide on which city to target.

If they chose a large, high-consumption city, their specialty coffee would certainly have a larger target audience than in Jiang City. After all, wages in big cities were generally higher, and more people would be willing to pay for a cup of specialty coffee at 50 yuan.

However, the problem with big cities was that costs were too high. Rent alone would likely be two or three times higher than in Jiang City. Moreover, even if there were more consumers for specialty coffee, the competition would be much fiercer, and besides, what kind of reputation did Nanhe Coffee have anyway?

The probability of Nanhe Coffee still losing money after opening in a big city was likely over 90 percent. It was even possible that they would lose more due to the higher overhead costs.

But if they chose a lower-consumption city, like Jiang City or one with even lower consumption, they would face the same problem Nanhe Coffee was currently dealing with: the price of specialty coffee was too high, and there were few people willing to pay for it.

Selecting a city? Chen Mo pondered.