Hong Kong Island's New Rich Era

Chapter 7 Doll Machine

The research and development of claw machines at the Orange Factory has entered the fast lane, and I believe Huo Haiqing will be able to produce a prototype within half a month.

Liu Zhicheng thought about the publicity work again. Speaking of publicity work, it must be advertising in print media, that is, advertising in newspapers.

Due to its special geographical location, Hong Kong has developed into one of the world's economic centers. The demand for information is huge, so hundreds of newspapers of all sizes have been created.

According to statistics from previous lives, in 1957, there were 70 newspapers in Hong Kong (Chinese and English, daytime, afternoon and evening). This number increased to in .

In terms of sales, in 64, there were only about 90 copies, which increased to 89 copies in and soared to million copies in . With a population of million in Hong Kong at the time, on average every three people consumed one newspaper per day.

By the 70s, there were about newspapers with sales of millions of copies. Moreover, Hong Kong was about to enter one of the fastest growing economies in the world. At that time, the Hong Kong stock market was booming and the public had a great demand for information.

This shows the huge influence and development potential of newspapers in Hong Kong. If you can own a leading newspaper, you can greatly increase your influence in Hong Kong.

The three newspapers with the highest sales today are Oriental Daily, Sing Tao Daily and Ming Pao.

The Oriental Daily was established the latest but developed rapidly. With a large team of news editors and reporters, it published horse racing and dog racing news. In less than five years, its sales had risen to second place and it continued to take the lead in Hong Kong.

Ming Pao was founded by the martial arts master Jin Yong. It became the most profitable newspaper because it serialized his martial arts novels and provided neutral and fair reporting, gaining favor among Hong Kong literati.

Sing Tao Daily is the oldest of the three newspapers and is sold in North America and Southeast Asia, making it a great influence.

It can be said that Oriental Daily is the most successful newspaper run by businessmen, winning by being “vulgar”. If Liu Zhicheng enters the traditional media industry in the future, he will have to learn from Oriental Daily.

In fact, after the Hong Kong stock market crash, it is a good time to enter the traditional media industry. However, Liu Zhicheng currently has no capital. He will definitely enter, but he has to wait for the right time.

Of course, this is all later. Liu Zhicheng plans to promote the claw machine in a way that breaks the traditional model.

………………

Time quickly entered October, and good news came from the orange factory.

Under the leadership of Huo Haiqing, a group of engineers used the gambling machines purchased from RB as a reference and produced several prototypes in just twelve days, a few days ahead of schedule.

After the machine came out, Liu Zhicheng arranged for personnel to conduct a large number of tests to test various probabilities and playability. Liu Zhicheng himself also personally took part in the test to try out the first product produced by his factory.

Therefore, all employees were arranged to try out the system, and then put forward suggestions for adaptation, which were then improved by Huo Haiqing and his team.

The "claw machine" had actually been invented a long time ago. Liu Zhicheng simply changed its purpose and turned it into a new concept product. There is no patent at all. All he could do was seize the initiative.

Each opportunity is a chance to capture as much market share as possible. It won’t be long before countless pirated copies are launched on the market, turning the market into a red ocean.

In order to keep it confidential and to seize the initiative, the production work cannot be outsourced for the time being and can only be done by ourselves.

Fortunately, as Liu Zhicheng had originally envisioned, all the materials needed for the claw machine could be purchased from outside, and it was definitely an assembly company.

At this moment, Hong Kong has begun to enter the era of the "Four Asian Tigers". It is a large-scale production base for light industry and electronic products. All kinds of accessories can be bought. Some products that need to be customized for the production of claw machines, such as shells, tracks, etc., can also be customized by corresponding manufacturers.

Liu Zhicheng only asked about the purchase of these parts. Although he was the boss of the factory, he was not involved in any details.

However, Liu Zhicheng will not interfere too much in some overly detailed matters. He only needs to grasp the general direction of the factory, and the specific details will be carried out by the management.

During this period, Liu Zhicheng gave all his instructions at the factory to Huo Haiqing, asking him to coordinate, arrange and execute them.

Naturally, Huo Haiqing also became the person in charge of the factory except for finance. This was also Liu Zhicheng's intention. Isn't it nice to be a hands-off boss?

Although the prototype of the claw machine at the Orange Factory has been produced for internal testing, Liu Zhicheng plans to customize a batch of dolls in advance and send them to customers.

Therefore, he had to find a toy factory to cooperate with. Although the production of dolls was profitable, Liu Zhicheng looked down on the products that were "popular in the streets" in Hong Kong, and the profit was definitely very thin.

……

After nearly half a month of full-staff testing, Huo Haiqing and his team have completely finalized the claw machine, and its performance and playability have reached their best at the moment.

Huo Haiqing said to Liu Zhicheng: "Mr. Liu, we are currently using a traditional relay control system. If we want to produce high-quality claw machine products, we must use components imported from Japan and Germany."

"Well, but from the perspective of cost saving, can we buy directly from these manufacturers?"

"All the major electronics companies in the world have general agents in Hong Kong. If you want to bypass them, unless you purchase in large quantities, the electronics manufacturers will not easily destroy their own distribution systems." Huo Haiqing continued to raise his questions.

"Then let's buy in bulk? This will help us make more profit."

"Mr. Liu, we don't have any orders right now. Should we just produce in large quantities? If we can't sell them, we'll incur a huge loss."

Huo Haiqing is not from the future after all, so he is not so optimistic about the sales of claw machines. But Liu Zhicheng is different, he knows some future product sales data and the hot scenes.

"Don't worry, I'm not afraid, so why should you be afraid? If there is a loss, I won't blame you."

Liu Zhicheng had to use his boss's power again, but he also had to take into account the feelings of his generals. He paused and continued:
"You should know that this thing has low technical content and is easy to be imitated. If sales are good within a month after we launch it, there will definitely be many counterfeit claw machines on the market, competing with us for price and market share. Therefore, this thing will not sell for long, and we must be prepared for this."

"Our goal is to make a quick buck. If we want to make quick bucks, we have to sell a lot of products before others react, so 10,000 units is still a small amount."

"First, go calculate the cost with Manager Li who is in charge of purchasing, and then we can determine the sales price of the claw machine."

"Okay, Mr. Liu."

Huo Haiqing was excited and worried after listening to Liu Zhicheng's analysis. However, he still followed Liu Zhicheng's instructions without hesitation. This was also why Liu Zhicheng valued him.

After all, when it comes to business planning, who has better vision than Liu Zhicheng?
　Please recommend! Please collect!
　　

(End of this chapter)