Wood processing or furniture processing, Chen Zhiwen is not interested in this kind of industry, and will not spend money on investment, at most there will be opportunities in the future to support domestic processing factories in this area with foreign exchange, and then a little more radical into individual stocks.

Bernie decided to think about it for a few days, so he stayed in Hong Kong, Chen Zhiwen as the host, naturally entertained in place, all the people who came stayed at the Hilton Hotel, and also transferred a few professional simultaneous interpreters to accompany them in Hong Kong.

Seven days later, Bernie negotiated with Chen Zhiwen again behind closed doors, and finally reached an agreement, Chen Zhiwen invested $300 alone to obtain 35% of the shares, of which 5% of the voting rights were transferred to Bernie, and Chen Zhiwen obtained the condition that the right to reinvest first in the future, that is, the next time a strategic investor is introduced, Chen Zhiwen can invest with him, but only to ensure that the shares will not be diluted, and 35% is the maximum number of shares obtained before listing.

At the same time, Galaxy Trading will use its own resources to find suitable suppliers for the joint venture company in Asia, including hardware tools, plates and other semi-finished household products for future needs.

"Have you figured out the name of your company?" The agreement was verbally finalized, and the contract needed to be signed, but Bernie had clearly not figured out the name of the company yet.

"I thought of a name, called home depot, home storage, but this name is too ordinary, and it is a normal English word, I am afraid that it will have a certain impact." Bernie said.

"It's probably not a good idea to use existing English words for your name." Pierce said with a frown.

"There are disadvantages in general companies, but home furnishing sales companies are not fast-moving consumer goods that people talk about, so they should have little impact." Chen Zhiwen said.

Home depot, is the English name of the later family Depot, obviously Bernie has already thought of the name, but it has not yet been determined, there will be a certain risk of using commonly used English words as the company name, because in this way, other people can use the name legally, such as the opponent can insinuate in the advertisement, etc., as long as the operation is good, it will not be illegal at all, this is very embarrassing, the future generation of Brother Gu, with the monopoly in the field of search, people are used to saying Brother Gu instead of the word search, At that time, the U.S. cultural department intended to add Gu Ge to the dictionary, but Gu Ge was strongly opposed by the company, and finally had to give up.

Apple, for example, chose a generic name, but in this way, if Samsung says "Apple can't do it" in an advertisement, theoretically speaking, it has not infringed on Apple, of course, in fact, American dads may teach their sons how to behave.

How to choose, it depends on the founder and the team.

"I think it's a name that makes it easier for customers to know what we do." Bernie said with a smile.

"Let's develop it first, as long as you become big and the legal team is strong enough, you don't have to care about these problems." Chen Zhiwen said.

"That's it, let's call it Home depot, I will register the company as soon as I go back to the United States, and then I will go back to Hong Kong to sign a contract with Mr. Chen." Bernie said.

"Okay, set up the company as soon as possible." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said, "If you have a problem with renting a property, you can also come to me, I can buy some properties and rent them to you at a low price." ”

"Thank you, Mr. Chen." Bernie is happy, the rent of the supermarket, but the problem that has always plagued him, if he can get some help in this regard, then the operation itself can save a lot of costs in the future.

"No thanks, you have done a good job in the company, which is the greatest thank you to me." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said.

"With Mr. Chen's funds and resources, I have more confidence." Bernie said with a smile.

"Haha, Bernie, I'll just say, as long as you have the ability, Eric will definitely invest in you." Pierce said with a smile.

"Thank you, Pierce." Bernie said very sincerely, he is referring to Costco's operating model, before he came up with the future business logic of Home Depot, this ultimate cost-saving method, but also refer to Costco's procurement model, but he optimized the mode of home furnishing, allowing users to assemble it by themselves, in order to save the highest transportation and labor costs in the middle, and it is necessary to remove the membership system, which is only suitable for high-frequency consumption such as life supermarkets.

After discussing some details of the Home Depot's operations, Bernie left because he knew Pierce had other things to talk to about Chen.

"Eric, some time ago, Hong Kong sent several potato chips to Costco, the sales are not bad, the taste is also very good, if the production capacity in Hong Kong is enough, you can consider entering other supermarkets." Pierce said with a smile.

If in the early days, Pierce would have thought that Chen Zhiwen invested in Costco for the retail market in the United States, but as time went on, after Galaxy Trading gained a foothold with Costco, he began to conquer other retail supermarket chains, so that he also knew that his boss had another purpose.

"Okay, I heard that you tried hundreds of flavors and picked out 7 of them, and thank you to the Costco team for their cooperation." Chen Zhiwen nodded with a smile and said.

This is the advantage of having your own supermarket, you can impatiently test, otherwise, even if you are a shareholder of Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart's management may not agree to such a request, and many tests, a large number of shipments, and then get user feedback, especially Costco's user volume itself is very large, and they are all repeat customers, and finally a few potato chips can be rolled out within Costco, and there will be a lot of competitiveness in the outside world, and the cost control in Hong Kong is also very low, as long as you take out foreign exchange, It's too easy to buy potatoes from the mainland, and the shipping cost is low.

"Yes, if you're interested, you can also make some other snacks, such as cookies." Pierce said with a smile.

"Forget it for the time being, there are too many such goods, let's maintain the previous procurement model." Chen Zhiwen shook his head and said.

Even if there are professional managers, but the company's human resources are limited, especially in the process of management transmission will also have losses, so 1000 people can do a good job, but 1000 people, can do a good job of 5 businesses is good, if they are all businesses with huge potential, then Chen Zhiwen will use the prophet's golden finger to set the direction to avoid the huge losses caused by disorderly expansion, but if they are a bunch of businesses with little business potential, he cannot participate in them, these businesses, there is no big advantage at all, Instead, it will bloated the company.

According to his plan, such commodities, light textiles, clothing, and daily necessities will be transferred to the mainland for production in the future, so that the domestic local light industry can obtain a large number of orders.

Tens of thousands of enterprises, whether state-owned enterprises or famous enterprises, are basically elites, and it is most appropriate to invest in them and let the elites work for themselves.

"Well, it's not a big deal either." Pierce didn't care, and said: "Eric, do you remember the last time you went to Costco in New York, I told you that Walmart invested in a store called Sam's Club, imitating the Costco model, they have been open for more than a month, and it is very successful." ”

"So, you think, it's going to be our competitor?" Chen Zhiwen asked, although he is the majority shareholder of Wal-Mart, he made a verbal agreement with Sam Walton that he would not participate in the management of Wal-Mart in exchange for Galaxy Trade entering Wal-Mart's supply chain.

Over the past few years, the two sides have been cooperating very well, Chen Zhiwen is too lazy to ask Wal-Mart about it, and Galaxy Trade has also become one of Wal-Mart's largest suppliers by virtue of this relationship plus very cost-effective goods, each taking what he needs, for a long time, every other quarter, Chen Zhiwen, who is thousands of miles away in Hong Kong, will receive the financial report sent by Wal-Mart headquarters, which is actually similar to the listed financial report, which is only the most basic revenue and profit data internally, and naturally does not include the situation of Sam's Club. Unless the number of Sam's Club increases, the business will be independent and produce its own financial report.

"Not only Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart's success has made many other supermarkets in the United States also try to be member warehouse supermarkets, and Celtic is also preparing to build similar warehouse supermarkets in six cities at one time. That's what we're more worried about. Pierce said.

"In fact, this is normal, we open more and more stores, and the influence is getting bigger and bigger, especially when we open a place, the sales of supermarkets in the vicinity are directly affected, and it is inevitable to be concerned by large retail groups, not too worried." Chen Zhiwen said very calmly.

But any profitable business, as long as it becomes bigger, it will inevitably attract attention, especially this kind of civilian terminal industry, when a large supermarket has opened about 50 branches in major cities in the United States in a few years, and the area of each store is still very large, and the business is still very good, then Celtic, Sears and other retail giants can hear some wind and grass even if they are blind.

Costco's business model, as long as you take some time to study it, you will understand, if you want to copy it, it is naturally simple.

"You're not worried?" Pierce asked.

"It's useless to worry?" Chen Zhiwen smiled and said: "No one can monopolize the retail industry, even if it is a market segment in the retail industry, it is impossible, we just need to do our own thing, now we Costco has given priority to occupy 50 large cities in the United States, plus our experience and supply chain, logistics training, this is already a great advantage, especially our SMS (supermarket management system), has been gradually matured, warehouse sinking cost alone can be reduced by 1.5%, you do a supermarket for a lifetime, I also know what the concept of 1.5% is. ”

"The SMS system has indeed achieved more than I imagined, and there is room for improvement, which is indeed a very big advantage." Pierce nodded and said that when he wanted to make an SMS management system, he just thought that it would be convenient for transportation, but he didn't expect that when a large number of commonly used goods could be directly queried through a mainframe computer, it would be of great use and unimaginable.

Although there have been many errors in the middle, Midea's team in Costco is also optimizing the software according to each problem, and the current SMS system is only for hundreds of commonly used goods, and the cost will be lower if a larger or even full range of coverage is completed in the future.

"This is just the beginning, now your efficiency is not high, wait a few years, I will find a way to send a satellite to the space station, covering the entire North American hemisphere, then all Costco stores, warehouses, trucks and other information can be queried clearly in an instant, that is the real efficiency." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

The cost of satellite launch is very high, in the 80s, it takes 2-300 million US dollars, in the original history, Wal-Mart launched one in the early 80s, and was ridiculed as an idiot by other retail companies at the time, but a year later, Wal-Mart's logistics and warehousing costs dropped from 8% of the previous total turnover to 3.5%.

Wal-Mart's profits increased by 4.5% all of a sudden, you know, many retail supermarkets themselves did not reach 4.5 percentage points in net profit, especially in the early 80s when inflation was serious and gas prices skyrocketed, of course, Walton did not share these profits to himself, but further reduced the price in the supermarket, forming a stronger competitive advantage, which made all other supermarkets dumbfounded.

It's just that these companies may also have the ability to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to launch satellites, but how to cooperate with the following in the launch requires very rich experience, which is a generation difference of 3-5 years, if nothing else, once it is late, it will be difficult to catch up.

"Satellites? The cost is too high, so it's better to open branches in various places for me, and now it's time to rush in. Pierce said with a laugh.

"There will be no shortage of funds to open a new store, but it is still the previous principle, first cultivate enough operation team, next year, you can first try to take the company's financial data, find bank financing, Citi or JPMorgan Chase I have a little relationship, it should not be difficult to get funds, but the interest is a bit high." Chen Zhiwen continued.

Before, he did not agree to let Costco go to the bank for loans, firstly, because of secrecy, he could hide from the retail giants for as long as he wanted, and secondly, the rapid expansion at that time, coupled with the fact that many supermarkets had just opened, and the financial reports would not look so good when there were not enough members, and now with the passage of time, neither of these problems will be a problem, so it will naturally allow Costco to develop normally on its own, instead of always relying on his capital injection.

Of course, the fundamental reason is that funds need to prepare for the gold bull market recently, and when the 80-year bull market is over and the funds flow back, Costco can still get enough funds. History has changed, although Costco is developing better than it used to be, but I don't know what the future will be, and I still need to do my best to send Costco to the first place in the member warehouse supermarket, which is more reassuring.

"That's okay, Costco is going to raise funds on its own, so will it consider going public? Costco has now met the basic needs of going public. Pierce asked again.

"If you go public, there's no hurry, let's go public in a few years." Chen Zhiwen thought about it and said, the current Costco only has potential, but it has not yet reached a very large scale, and it has not touched a lot of people's cheese, and when the scale is almost large, it is necessary to introduce some strategic investors, and then go public, such a big cake, one person can not swallow it, as long as he grasps the control of the procurement chain behind it plus about half of the shares, it is almost the same, and the investors introduced will also be in related fields, Costco will have a certain help, and everyone will benefit each other.

"Okay, I'm going to continue to invest in 10 new stores on the East Coast, and this time the funds will be raised by Costco itself." Pierce nodded.

"It's okay to give it a try." Chen Zhiwen said that for so many years, Costco has not been short of funds, in fact, it is also a lack of market tests, it is better to try it yourself, anyway, in a little more than a year, there will be no shortage of funds.

(End of chapter)