Bulgarian Empire

Chapter 9: Competitor

Ferdinand, who knew the cause and effect, acted at once. Although he could not see the helping hand of flour capitalists, he still let out some goodwill, and Volvo made a few more flour brands.

He also took the idea to teach Gottfried Department Store a lesson and secure his place in the business.

Ferdinand found something in his deep investigation. Although Gottfried is a giant of the Austro-Hungarian department store business, it is not very good in its financial state. It is still using the classic business model, family-style control, which cannot keep up with the times every day.

The current head of the business is Ruprecht Helder, an Austrian who is not yet 30 years old. Ruprecht has ambition. He dislikes the classical business model of Gottfried Department Store. He is very proud and has a frosty attitude towards the managers of the company.

However, because it is a family business, most of the top managers of Gottfried Department Store are relatives. They include his two uncles and one brother, who also hold a large portion of the shares.

Ruprecht's entry into the supermarket sector was a push to get rid of the limited control of the management. Ferdinand is not sure what role the flour capitalists did play in it.

After he figured out the rival status, Ferdinand gave this task to Franz. Ferdinand frankly can't regard this Ruprecht. Although his ability is good, but it's easy to see how good he is.

With the current shape of Gottfried Department Store, they should not blindly open new business and distract their limited power. The most vital thing is to reform their own system.

If Gottfried were to enter, they should not have chosen this time to enter. Even if they were to enter now, they should not have chosen Vienna. The Vienna retail business is now at its most intense and will consume the limited munition that Gottfried Department Store has now.

Not only is Ruprecht now in the game, but he has also put his focus on Vienna. One of his moves is the launch of ten supermarkets, which are all open with great splendor. Two department stores have been converted to a large and lavishly furnished place, which is the best in Vienna.

As Volvo has come this far, it is time to reap the gains. With other local markets to support, Ferdinand can afford as much as it can wear out. The first to come out will surely be the small capitalists.

With the large move of Gottfried Department Store into the game, the smell of gunpowder is thicker. The first to suffer is instead the large supermarkets.

They have high operating costs. High customer traffic would have been a good thing, and customers mean profit. However, the more they sell now, the more they lose. The retailer with weak financial resources is the first one to leave the place.

In 1884, on May 18, the Katars Department Store could not bear the long losses and declared bankruptcy, which blew the horn of death.

Within the next week, another supermarket named Philipp Department Store declared bankruptcy. All hell then broke loose. After that, it was every three days when a supermarket shut down.

At this time, nobody in Vienna can escape from the crisis alone. All supermarkets are in a state of loss, and it is only a matter of how much they lose.

Volvo is no less. Even with a large network to keep costs down, several stores in Vienna are now in the red. There are five stores in Vienna that lose an average of three hundred pounds per month, which is less than the peers.

Gottfried Department Store, which just came into the game, has suffered a stroke of big bad luck, with big expenses meaning big losses. Combining with the fact that Gottfried is a department store, the stores are lavishly furnished and badly located. It just wastes a lot of space and raises the running costs. They are now badly beaten.

Ferdinand admits that Ruprecht is truly gifted. The lavish design attracts many people, which also includes a large group of middle-class people. It is a high-quality customer who can be said to have a good business.

It is a pity that this is 1884, not the 21st century. The Vienna middle class is limited in number and unable to support a large-scale supermarket.

In order to seize the market, Gottfried also had to follow the price cuts. In other words, he kept his discount from the day he started to open the business, making a bigger loss every day and unable to look at the future.

Franz doesn't just waste time. He first got the employees of Shuanghui Food Group to go shopping at Gottfried Department Store. With thousands of people rushing out, it gave Gottfried a super high reputation at once.

He even buys products that are set in advance and then secretly sends them to other cities around Vienna. He sells them through Volvo stores to earn the profit margin, which makes up for the losses of the Vienna stores.

Ruprecht is now in a bad mood. For a week, the vase in his office has changed three times.

At first, he saw that the prospects of the supermarket were good for the department store. With the support of the Hungarian flour capitalists, he made a hasty move in and then started the road of losses.

The losses are also losses. Anyway, Ruprecht is prepared in advance, as a start to boost the reputation as well. But, they do not expect the business is so good that the losses are also so large.

The ten stores of Gottfried in Vienna had a loss of more than eight hundred pounds last month. The largest store has a record loss of three thousand pounds. Gottfried is indeed a big business. If it's a normal business, they would have quit the price war.

The goods of the supermarkets are now being sold at a 95% discount straight from the factory price. Volvo's idea was to start the first one, and then the big players took it up.

If the cost of running is taken into account, the losses largely reach about ten percent of sales. It is now that the more they sell, the more they lose.

Gottfried Department Store can now claim with pride that it has turned out to be a Viennese department store and supermarket giant. Its market share is number one, far ahead of Volvo, which ranks second.

It is precisely for this reason that the current mood of Gottfried Department Store is quite strange. Even with a majority in the shares, Ruprecht is having a hard time. The Gottfried Department Store has lost up to 15,000 pounds last month, and there are signs of further rises this month.

Even if the department store is still making a profit, it can not fill this endless gap. So far, it is not easy to quit because Gottfried has invested 80,000 pounds in the supermarket business.

Ruprecht refused to sell his shares to the investors, but in this case, he also did not want to lose. It is either to give up the 80,000 pounds put into the early game, and the money will not return. Gottfried Department Store will suffer a great impact. The other choice, he can keep pouring his money into the business, first crush a bunch of business rivals, then the market will return to normal. The money that they lost will return.

The mood is sullen in the board room of Gottfried Department Store. More than ten people who attended the meeting inhaled the cigarette smoke for a while.

"Well, with all of you here, then today's meeting will begin." said Ruprecht, who lost his old style.

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