Chapter 334: A Good Start

The Crystal Palace Mall is brightly lit after dark, and the mall is open from 8 am to 12 pm.

Such long business hours are rare in New York, but even in the middle of the night, the customer flow in the Crystal Palace Mall is still very impressive.

Thousands of kerosene lamps are like fireflies at night, illuminating the Crystal Palace Mall as bright as day.

From a distance, the Crystal Palace Mall is like a shining pearl in New York City.

When the mall closed, Fan Daze did not go home, but stayed in the office of the Crystal Palace and couldn't wait to count the sales on the opening day overnight. He waited for this day for two whole years.

The success of the Crystal Palace on the opening day finally put his heart at ease.

Facts have proved that his decision to put the assets and resources of the entire family on the line and gamble with Liang Yaohao to open the Crystal Palace Mall together was correct.

After the mall opened, the business that was originally questioned within the Fan Daze family also disappeared on this day, and he became the idol and savior of everyone in the family.

The next morning, Liang Yao had just woken up and was having breakfast when Fan Daze grabbed the account book and ran to Liang Yao's manor on the Hudson River excitedly.

"You haven't had breakfast yet? Since you are here, let's sit down and have breakfast together." Liang Yao wiped his mouth with the napkin on the table and said.

"The direct-operated store of Crystal Palace Mall had a turnover of US dollars yesterday, 71 gold membership cards were sold, 1859 silver membership cards were sold, and 8905 bronze membership cards were sold." Fan Daze said excitedly.

Although he stayed up all night last night to calculate the turnover of each direct-operated store, he is not young anymore, he is 48 years old this year, but he still maintains a very excited mental state.

There are two types of stores in Crystal Palace Mall. One is the direct-operated store of Crystal Palace Mall. Direct-operated stores do not charge any store rent. Crystal Palace Department Store provides free guidance and management, as well as training services for store clerks, and participates in promotional activities held by Crystal Palace.

The qualification requirements for obtaining a direct-operated store in Crystal Palace Mall are quite strict. The current 333 direct-operated stores of Crystal Palace are all high-quality New York stores carefully selected by Fan Daze in the past two years.

However, obtaining the qualification of a direct-operated store also comes at a price, that is, according to the actual situation of the store, 25%~50% of the store shares are transferred to Crystal Palace Department Store.

Another type of store is a third-party store. The requirements for third-party stores to enter Crystal Palace are relatively loose. After passing the review, they only need to pay the store rent and related service fees of the mall on time.

Currently, 187 of the 520 stores in Crystal Palace are third-party stores.

Direct-operated stores and third-party stores are also easy to distinguish. The signs of direct-operated stores have very conspicuous Crystal Palace Department Store and trademarks and the words "direct-operated store", while third-party stores do not.

The turnover of US dollars a day is indeed a very good result. This is only the turnover of direct-operated stores. Counting the turnover of third-party stores, it is very likely that the turnover of Crystal Palace Mall yesterday was about US$50,000 a day.

It is equivalent to an average of 10 cents per New Yorker spent in Crystal Palace yesterday.

As far as Liang Yao knows, the average daily turnover of Stewart's Marble Palace is about US dollars, which is far less than the Crystal Palace Mall that came later.

Of course, such a high turnover is also due to the bonus of the activities on the first day of opening and the bonus of freshness, and the subsequent turnover may fall.

The membership card that Fan Daze mentioned is the membership card of the Crystal Palace Mall, which can be used in all directly-operated stores.

The members of the Crystal Palace Mall are divided into three levels, namely gold, silver and bronze.

Gold members need to pay an annual fee of US$350 per year, mainly for the wealthy class in New York. In addition to enjoying a 30% discount on all goods in the mall, gold members also enjoy a special carriage for the mall, priority reception, and can ask the waiter to accompany them throughout the shopping process, as well as free door-to-door service for any goods anywhere in New York State.

Silver membership cards require an annual fee of US$20 per year, mainly for the middle class in New York. In addition to enjoying a 20% discount on all goods in the mall, silver members also enjoy free door-to-door service in New York City.

Bronze membership cards require an annual fee of $2, and are mainly for the working class in New York, and enjoy a 10% discount on all goods.

In other words, on the first day of the opening of the Crystal Palace Mall, the membership fee alone earned US dollars, which is a good start.

"Good results, congratulations to you, Mr. Van Daze, in a few years, you will replace Stewart and become the retail king of New York." Liang Yao congratulated.

"You are the biggest shareholder of the Crystal Palace Department Store." Van Daze smiled.

Crystal Palace Department Store was originally held by Liang Yao and Van Daze family 50% each, but because the land for the construction of the mall was provided by Liang Yao, Van Daze transferred 20% of the shares to Liang Yao.

In the end, the shareholding structure of Crystal Palace Department Store was 70% for Liang Yao and 30% for Van Daze family.

Although the Van Daze family only holds 30%, the family assets have increased a lot compared to before, so there are no complaints.

"We sold 182 sewing machines and liters of kerosene yesterday. The Butterfly Sewing Machine Factory said they only have 500 sewing machines in stock now, and we won't be able to sell 500 sewing machines in a few days. As for kerosene, we only sold liters of kerosene yesterday because we only provided liters of kerosene yesterday." said Fan Daze.

"The sales of ready-made clothes are very good, but most of them come from clothing factories in California and need to be shipped from California. Are you also considering setting up a clothing factory in New York? In this way, you can save a transportation link and reduce the cost of ready-made clothes."

Sewing machines and kerosene were the best-selling products on the opening day. These two products alone contributed to the turnover of US dollars.

"I will increase the supply of sewing machines and kerosene in the future." Liang Yao rinsed his mouth and said.

He has been working hard to increase the production of sewing machines and kerosene, but increasing production is not something that can be done overnight.

As for clothing factories, he does not consider opening new clothing factories in New York.

The number of immigrants in California is growing rapidly, and Liang Yao must provide enough jobs for these immigrants to stabilize the social order in California.

It is foolish to transfer valuable local employment opportunities in California to New York for a little profit at this time.

"Mr. Buckhouse said that as long as we are willing to build shopping malls like the Crystal Palace in New York in Boston and Philadelphia, he can give us a piece of land in the downtown area for free. These two cities are also markets worth developing." Fan Daze's eyes flashed with a burning light.

Businessmen of this era are very aggressive. Once they succeed in a certain business field, they will quickly seek expansion and want to monopolize the entire field. According to high emotional intelligence, they are full of adventurous spirit.

"As long as we can raise enough funds and do not affect the operation of the Crystal Palace in New York, I don't oppose expansion." Liang Yao said, "If Mr. Buckhouse is really enthusiastic and insists on giving us land, we can't refuse his kindness, so just accept it."

This is Liang Yao's attitude. His focus is on California and Pacific Railway. His own energy and funds are limited. Let Fan Daze do it himself in the eastern retail sector.

As long as the Crystal Palace is well managed, its service scope can not only radiate New York City and New York State, but even radiate to neighboring states and counties.

Liang Yao is not in a hurry to expand to Philadelphia and Boston.

In the next few days, Liang Yao just read newspapers, books, and paid attention to the progress of the presidential campaign.

The good news is that Fillmore is in good shape, and of course, the situation is also very good.

As a politician, Pierce, who has little political experience and has relied on backers and luck to get to where he is now, is obviously not smooth enough. When facing the key issue of how to view black slaves, Pierce not only plays Tai Chi poorly, but also clearly shows a tendency to sympathize with the southern slave states.

This behavior is no different from later politicians shouting "Black Lives Matter" in front of right-wing white male voters.

Pierce's inappropriate words and deeds have caused Pierce's support rate in the northern free states to decline.

The pitiful support rate gained in the southern states is far from making up for Pierce's losses in the north.

Liang Yao is not very clear about the situation in other states. At least in New York, Fillmore's 35 electoral votes are stable.

As long as he gets 35 electoral votes in New York, even if Pierce loses 15 electoral votes in Virginia, the largest slave state, it is not a very bad result.

"How about it? Want to have a drink together?"

Vanderbilt came to visit with a bottle of brandy.

"I am very pleased. Are you here to talk to me about the transfer of Sobies Wharf and Stanford Wharf in New York?"

Liang Yao, who was clipping newspapers, temporarily put down his work.

Liang Yao guessed that Vanderbilt came to visit today to discuss the transfer of Sobies Wharf and Stanford Wharf.

He was gradually taking over the shipping empire that Vanderbilt had created. The assets of Vanderbilt's shipping empire included not only ships, but also a large number of docks and shipping line operating rights, which was a considerable asset.

"No, we are not talking about business today."

Vanderbilt was not at all shy. He took out two clean wine glasses from the kitchen cabinet as if he was at home, and then poured brandy into the two empty wine glasses.