Back to 1958: Creating a Century-Long Family Empire

Chapter 58: Horizontal Business Expansion

Zhao Chenguang and An Yongqiang exchanged a glance before Zhao asked, "What is it? Please go ahead, Mr. Yang."

Yang Wendong said, "Our mousetrap glue boards are now officially on the market. I had someone conduct a bit of market research, and here is the feedback we gathered. Please, take a look."

"Market research?" Zhao looked a little puzzled as he took the document and flipped through it. The report wasn't complicated — just a straightforward summary of customer feedback after purchase.

After reading it, his interest piqued. "Mr. Yang, what made you decide to do this?"

Yang Wendong smiled. "Mainly to help predict future market conditions. The most important data in this report is whether or not customers who've already bought the product would consider buying it again."

Truthfully, from the perspective of doing business in the modern world, proper market research should be conducted before a product hits the shelves. But in this era, that simply wasn't possible. Especially before the factory started shipping, Yang Wendong didn't have the time or funds to carry out such work.

Zhao studied the data again and nodded. "This is useful, for sure. But the numbers aren't looking great. Many people said they wouldn't buy again unless they had another rat problem at home."

Yang Wendong nodded. "That's the nature of the rat-trap industry, especially since our product is so effective — it catches rodents quickly."

Zhao thought for a moment and said, "Although this report doesn't look too optimistic, I still don't think the outlook is all that bad. Even if a customer manages to eliminate all the rats at home using your product, chances are, they'll reappear after some time, won't they?"

An Yongqiang chimed in, "Exactly. I recently spoke with some people at the docks — they also feel like the rat population is on the rise again. And it hasn't even been a full month since Mr. Yang led that mass rat extermination campaign, right?"

"That's right." Yang Wendong smiled. "It's incredibly difficult to eliminate rats entirely. Unless everyone lives in high-quality housing with excellent hygiene and management, they'll keep coming back.

The reason I'm showing you this data today is to explain that when we first launch the mousetraps, they sell very well. Lots of people need them. But after some time, the demand sharply declines."

Zhao nodded. "Makes sense. It's not the kind of product that'll make you rich forever, but it could bring in stable, small profits over time."

An Yongqiang added, "Yeah, my warehouses and cargo ships are a bit more stable, but Mr. Yang's analysis is right. Theoretically, as rats disappear from the docks, they'll vanish from the ships too."

Yang Wendong chuckled. "That's the awkward part about this line of work — the better we do, the more it affects our future sales."

An thought for a moment. "Still, I don't think we'll see a drop too soon. At least for the next few months, we should be doing just fine."

Yang nodded. "Right. Even though the long-term trend doesn't look good, in the short term — maybe the next few months — sales will still be strong."

An then asked, "So, Mr. Yang, now that you've laid this out… do you have any solution in mind?"

Yang paused for a second. "There's no real 'solution.' But we can develop other products and open up new markets."

"Oh?" Zhao's interest was piqued. "You mean you already have a new product ready?"

Yang Wendong nodded and pulled out a glue board from his bag. "Yes. This is called a flypaper board — it's designed specifically for catching flies. You both know that flies are everywhere, even more so than rats.

The concept is—"

He went on to explain the principle behind the flypaper again.

Structurally and mechanically, it was the same as the mousetrap glue board. Over the past few days, he and Lin Haoyu had conducted multiple tests to find the ideal glue-to-peanut-oil ratio. Once they finalized it, they could begin mass production.

Now that it could be produced, sales channels needed to be arranged. Since he didn't have any himself, he'd naturally have to rely once again on Zhao Chenguang's network.

"This is a great product," Zhao said with bright eyes after hearing the explanation. "Mr. Yang, you're really something. This market is even bigger than that for mousetraps!"

An nodded as well. "Yes, much bigger. In Hong Kong, families with decent housing and hygiene probably don't have rats, but they still have flies. And let's not even talk about all the restaurants and street vendors — the flies there are insane. You swat them away, but they just come back. It's not like rats that scurry away at the first sign of a human."

Zhao peeled up a corner of the flypaper and sniffed it. "Adding peanut oil to the glue… such a simple idea when you think about it. I've handled plenty of mousetraps before, but I never once thought about using something like this against flies."

An agreed. "That's how it is with inventions. Once you see it, it feels obvious. But the first person to come up with it — that's the one with true vision. It's like screws — we use them every day, but someone had to invent them first."

"My invention is a long way from being as revolutionary as the screw," Yang Wendong said modestly, laughing.

Zhao grinned. "Mr. Yang, I'm really more and more impressed with you. Come on, I'll drink to that!"

"Haha, just drinking's fine — no need for all the toasting talk," Yang Wendong said, raising his glass.

"I'll drink too," An added with a toast. "Last time I was chatting with Zhao in private, he said he believed Mr. Yang's future achievements could rival Li Ka-shing, the king of plastic flowers. I wasn't so sure back then, but now… I believe it."

"I'll borrow your good wishes," Yang Wendong laughed, taking a sip. "As long as we keep working together, if I make money, you'll both make money."

An waved his hand and said, "Mr. Yang, you'll have to rely mainly on Zhao this time. My docks and cargo ships aren't of much help for this flypaper."

Yang nodded. "That's to be expected. Channel resources are each person's individual advantage. But who knows — one day, I might have a product perfect for ocean shipping. When that happens, you'll be the one with the upper hand."

"Mhm." An nodded, although he still felt a bit disappointed.

His market had already been smaller than Zhao's, but at least with mousetraps, he could still make decent profits. Now with the flypaper, which clearly had a bigger market, his dockside connections wouldn't help much. He couldn't possibly match Zhao's scale.

Zhao, sensing this, offered a half-consolation. "An, you've got a lot of connections with overseas merchants. Maybe you can help Mr. Yang take these products abroad. That would be your advantage."

"It's not that easy," An replied with a laugh. "For developed countries like those in Europe, America, or Japan, you'd need a local company to operate on the ground. Only then would it be possible.

Southeast Asia is a more realistic target, but their purchasing power is very low, and my contacts there aren't that strong."

"Yeah, exports are definitely difficult," Yang Wendong agreed with a nod.

He was ambitious — there was no way he'd be content sticking to just the Hong Kong market.

But the truth was, Hong Kong's export economy at this time revolved around finding products that were already popular abroad and selling them at a lower cost to grab market share.

Li Ka-shing's plastic flowers were a prime example.

The foreign trade companies in Hong Kong didn't have the capability to promote new products in overseas markets — nor did they want to.

If Yang wanted to sell his flypaper abroad, he'd have to do it himself.

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