Love Affairs in Melbourne-Chapter 54 - 52 Plans After Graduation

Waiwai:

Reply=>

Before answering what I did for the New Year, I feel like I should first talk about the whole breaking the rules thing.

Why do I have this feeling of "the a guilty party filing the suit first"?

You should look back at the letter you wrote to me before asking me two questions.

Your last sentence in the reply "So you shouldn’t have to work overtime like an Investment Manager or be constantly flying somewhere, right?"

You ended it with a period, as if that could change the fact that it’s a question.

I was just following your example.

Does it mean that if we don’t use a question mark, we can ask many different questions at once?

Waiwai is still the same as before, always full of twisted logic.

I’m thinking, maybe in the future I should use a period instead of a question mark as well.

What else can you do in Wenzhou during New Year? (See, how easy it is to write a period.)

You eat the New Year’s Eve dinner and then the New Year’s dinner, from your own home to someone else’s—basically, you just go out to eat every day.

In Wenzhou during New Year’s, the main theme of life has boiled down to one word: eat.

I guess this should be the kind of life you like the most, too bad you didn’t come back this year.

At this point, should I say, whatever you want to eat, I’ll eat more for you?

But if I say that, I’ll definitely see your frustrated face again.

So I won’t say it. (a serious face)

This morning, I’ve received a "lined-up welcome" in the class group chat.

When my classmates took turns asking me whether I was being held captive by you, I didn’t "betray" you once.

Don’t worry, regarding that question, my position is neither to confirm nor deny, and I chose not to answer.

As for the question that classmates are more concerned about, whether the two of us are still together, I responded affirmatively.

After responding, Jin Jin from your family said that they will settle accounts with you when you come back to the country.

Apart from that, other classmates didn’t make any specific plans for future actions.

Question=>

You said you don’t have an understanding of the finance industry I am about to enter, and I am even less knowledgeable about the fashion industry you’re going to "dig deep" into. Do you want to fill me in on it?

.........

Once at the hotel, after checking in,

Yan Yan’s dad didn’t wait for her mom to finish freshening up before he started discussing future plans with his daughter.

The first question Yan Dabang asked his daughter was, "Do you plan on returning to China after graduation?"

"I plan to travel around for a year after graduation before deciding," replied Yan Yan.

"Then do you have any plans to return to Yanlu Machinery?" Yan Dabang was surprised by his daughter’s answer.

"My personal thought is, unless you really insist I go back to the company to continue with machinery, I’d rather do something else that’s more interesting," Yan Yan directly expressed her view.

"Like what, for example? What else? What do you find interesting?" Yan Dabang felt his daughter should be more specific.

"Dad, when you started your business, did you have any ideals? Did you achieve them?" Instead of directly answering her dad’s question, Yan Yan suddenly changed the subject.

"When we started businesses in our era, there wasn’t much talk about having entrepreneurial ideals.

Whether it’s ideals or dreams, that’s something only people who’ve never had to hustle for a living talk about.

Back then, we just looked at what we knew, what others lacked, and did that.

At that time, your uncle’s shoe factory wanted to import a shoe-making machine; there weren’t many factories importing shoe equipment then."

"They found your uncle’s shoe factory too small, with the import volume too low, and acted with an air of superiority, like they could take it or leave it," he said.

"At that time, I went to check out other shoe factories’ imported machines and felt it wasn’t impossible to make our own, so your mom and I decided to give it a try and make shoe machinery ourselves."

When we first started the business, I already had it in mind to eventually sell our machines to those places that acted as if no one else was worthy of their consideration.

If that’s considered a dream, then I guess you could say my entrepreneurial dream has come true.

"After you went to Melbourne for your studies, Yanlu Machinery established a European sales subsidiary in Italy," Yan Dabang answered Yan Yan earnestly, responding to her question about dreams.

"Your uncle’s shoe factory mainly makes shoes on an OEM basis; our family sells machinery to shoe factories, putting us even further down the industrial chain." (note 1)

Recently, I was chatting with your cousin, and we both had the idea of trying to move up the industrial chain." Yan Yan intended to steer the conversation back to her own post-graduation plans.

"Your cousin went to the United States for middle school and didn’t return even after graduating with an MBA from Wharton Business School.

Does he still talk to you about the family shoe factory?

Wasn’t he the one who had no plans of coming back to help out at all?" Yan Dabang was somewhat displeased with his nephew.

Yan Dabang rarely contacts his nephew in the United States; they meet maybe a few times a year, mostly just during the New Year.

"He has to come back, your uncle isn’t as approachable as you guys.

Your uncle threatened to disown him if he doesn’t return –

Aunt will surely drag him back if he doesn’t.

It’s not that your cousin dislikes the shoe factory; it’s just that he disagrees with your uncle.

Your cousin has always felt that your uncle’s company shouldn’t even take ODM orders, and should focus solely on developing a brand." (note 2)

But not only did your uncle accept ODM orders, but he even took on OEM, which has low profits despite the large volume.

Your cousin strongly opposed this; he wanted to build a brand," Yan Yan explained on behalf of her cousin.

"A shoe brand?

Not all of your uncle’s shoes are made for private labels; they already have a brand. They even had a few stores in the early days, just not very famous.

Creating a brand is not as easy as you think. To establish a brand with even a slight level of recognition requires astronomical amounts to be spent on advertising.

Investing real money into advertising, and the results are still uncertain.

Besides advertising expenditures, you also need to find agents, secure storefronts, and manage sales channels.

Even if a pair of shoes sells for a few hundred yuan, the actual profit isn’t much.

There were a lot of factories that, in pursuit of branding, insisted on setting up flagship stores on the busiest pedestrian streets everywhere.

Revenue couldn’t keep up with the rent; they were essentially losing money to make noise.

OEM is much more straightforward and profitable. Although the profit margin is thinner, you don’t have to worry about much," Yan Dabang felt that developing a brand was not a good idea.

Everyone knows that having a brand means having intangible assets.

With the added value of a brand, the selling price of a product is no longer determined solely by cost.

But a brand isn’t something you can succeed in just because you want to or try to.

...

Note 1:

OEM: Original Equipment Manufacturer. One type of contracting where the brand, design, and marketing are entirely in the hands of the client. The product manufactured by the OEM is bought at a low price and then directly labeled with the client’s trademark.

Other than manufacturing, the contract manufacturer has no connection with other aspects of the product. Perhaps the most well-known OEM products today are Apple’s iPhones.

(note 2)

ODM: Original Design Manufacturer, another type of contracting. The contractor has design and technical capabilities and manufactures based on the contract terms with the client.

The ODM manufacturer owns independent intellectual property rights, and if the client wishes to prevent the ODM’s product from appearing elsewhere, they must purchase the design outright.

Simply put, ODM has slightly higher technical content than OEM.