A middle-aged couple walked into the mall and were immediately greeted by a salesman at the door.

"Two customers, let's draw a prize!" the salesman said with a smile on his face.

"What's the prize?" the husband said impatiently.

As soon as the salesman saw this posture, he knew that this was a real couple. Generally, a husband would look impatient when accompanying his wife when shopping. If it was an affair, the man would not be so impatient.

So the salesman continued: "Our mall is holding an event. Customers who enter the store today will have a chance to draw a lottery."

"I don't have time, so I won't smoke!" The husband shook his head.

The salesman continued: "The lottery is free, no money is required, and if you win, you will earn money for nothing!"

When the wife next to her heard that it was a free lottery, she quickly poked her husband and said, "It's a free lottery anyway, let's try it!"

The husband had no choice but to nod his head, while the wife asked the salesman excitedly: "How to draw this prize?"

The salesman took out a "scratch-off" ticket, handed it to the couple, pointed to the scratch-off area on it, and said, "Just scratch this off."

The wife quickly scratched open the prize area with her nails, and the word "one" came into her eyes.

"It's the first prize!" the wife exclaimed.

When he heard that it was the first prize, the husband, who was originally impatient, also raised his head.

"It's really the first prize! What is the first prize?" the husband asked.

The wife continued to scratch off the rest of the prize area and saw a row of small letters that read "500 Yuan Voucher for Puppy Microwave Oven".

"Vouchers? What are they for?" the wife asked in confusion.

The salesman next to him quickly introduced: "You speak so nicely, and you won our first prize right away! This voucher is worth 500 yuan! Take this voucher to buy a Puppy brand microwave oven."

, can be used for 500 yuan!”

The wife was overjoyed. 500 yuan was enough to cover her two months' salary. She made 500 yuan all of a sudden. It was like pie in the sky.

"Which floor is this puppy microwave oven on?" the wife asked immediately.

"It's on the first floor. Turn right in front and you'll find the home appliances section." The salesman said.

The wife nodded, took her husband's hand, and walked towards the home appliance area.

The husband was obviously much calmer than his wife. As he walked away, he said: "How can there be such a thing as pie in the sky? Even if there is, it can't hit you! Let me tell you, this is all a scam by merchants.

routine."

"Routine? What routine?" the wife asked.

The husband replied: "It must have increased the price of each microwave oven by 500 yuan first, and then held a lottery to give you a 500 yuan coupon. In fact, it was still the original price, and the merchant did not pay a penny for it."

No loss."

"If this is the case, this puppy electrical appliance is too unauthentic! But puppy electrical appliance is also a well-known brand, so it shouldn't do this!" the wife said.

The husband snorted coldly and said, "No matter how big a brand is, doesn't it have to make money? I don't believe that Puppy Electric will be a loss-making business. If you don't believe it, let's go over and take a look. The price of Puppy Electric's microwave ovens must have increased!"

The wife nodded: "I have taken a fancy to a microwave oven that sells for 2,500 yuan. Let's go and see if the price of that microwave oven has increased!"

While the couple was chatting, they arrived at the home appliance section. They found the counter of the microwave oven, and the wife immediately found the microwave oven she had seen before.

"This is it. Salesman, how much does this microwave oven cost?" the wife asked.

"This microwave oven is from the Puppy brand, which is also a big brand in China. The price is 2498." The salesperson replied.

"There's no price increase!" The wife had a surprised expression on her face.

The husband next to him was a little surprised. He asked his wife in a low voice: "Did you make a mistake? Is this the one you were looking at before?"

"That's the one." The wife nodded without hesitation, and then continued: "This is already a relatively cheap one. Look at the others, they are all 2,788, and the imported ones cost more than 3,000.

Just buy one!"

The husband still didn't believe it. He took out the voucher and asked, "This voucher is said to be worth 500 yuan. Is it true?"

The salesperson took the voucher, looked down at it, and then replied: "It can be used for 500 yuan, but it can only be used for a puppy microwave oven. If you buy a puppy microwave oven, give me this voucher and you can directly use it."

Save 500 yuan.”

"Then this 2498 microwave oven costs 1998 yuan with this voucher?" The husband confirmed again.

"Yes." The salesperson nodded.

"It's really 500 yuan cheaper! It seems like this pie-in-the-sky thing can really happen to us." The husband finally believed it.

The salesperson reminded: "This voucher has a time limit. Look at the date above. After this date, it will be useless, so if you want to use it, use it quickly!"

The couple looked at the date on the voucher and saw that there were still two weeks left.

"Only two weeks!" the husband said with a frown.

"It's 500 yuan cheaper all of a sudden. A microwave oven is less than 2,000 yuan. Let's just buy one! Otherwise, there won't be this store after passing this village." The wife advised.

In 1994, the discount of 500 yuan was still very huge.

The couple discussed it for a long time, but finally could not resist the temptation of 500 yuan cheaper. They immediately went to the bank to withdraw money, and then bought a microwave oven.

…

The 500 yuan voucher obtained in the lottery is of course the marketing method used by Zhong Yemao. As the top marketing master in the country, Zhong Yemao can still play tricks even in a price war.

If it were another person's choice, it would probably be a direct price reduction, or at most a price reduction promotion.

However, if left to Zhong Yemao, the price reduction becomes a lottery.

All the scratch-off tickets were the first prize, which was also a 500-yuan puppy microwave voucher. Zhong Yemao used this method to carry out the first wave of price cuts, and also launched the first shot of the price war.

This kind of lottery to get vouchers is more effective than direct price reduction.

Winning a lottery is inherently a matter of chance. Normal people's first reaction after winning a lottery is to feel that they have taken advantage of themselves, that a pie in the sky has hit them. Otherwise, they would have suffered a loss.

It is precisely because of this greedy mentality that there will be so many lottery scam calls in later generations, and so many people will be deceived.

If the price of a product is directly reduced, consumers may not have a very urgent desire to buy it. Since the price is there, buying it today and buying it tomorrow or the day after tomorrow is nothing more than using it one day earlier and using it later. Other than that, there is no difference.

However, if consumers are given a voucher or coupon with an expiration date, their desire to consume will be different. Many consumers will use the coupon within the expiration date, otherwise they will not get any benefit.

There is a saying that if you don’t make money, you will lose money; if you don’t pick up something when you go out, it will be lost!

Many APPs in consumer industries in later generations, such as food delivery, taxi hailing, retail, catering and other industries, often play this trick, giving consumers coupons every now and then, and even have a fixed membership day every week, and members have discounts on consumption. This is

Allow consumers to make a purchase before the coupon expires.

For higher tiers, coupons are given out through lottery, which can better capture people’s consumer psychology. The lottery itself has an element of luck. Compared with the coupons given away for free, the coupons obtained through the lottery will make consumers feel more satisfied.

valuable.

The same 10 yuan coupon, if you win it in a lottery, will be more likely to arouse consumers' desire to use it than if it is given away for free on the shelves.

Consumers will feel that if I don’t use the things I drew, wouldn’t it be a loss of 100 million if I round them up!

If your rank is higher, you can also invite friends to send coupons, red envelopes and other activities, but this is a product of the Internet age.

In the 1990s, nine out of ten people who invited friends were involved in pyramid schemes.

And Chung Ye-mao was able to use the routine of winning lottery vouchers in the mid-1990s, and he is worthy of the title of the top marketing master in the country.

…

Before the microwave oven price war in the 1990s, there were about 1,500 companies producing microwave ovens across the country, and most of them did not have formal microwave oven production lines. At best, they only had an assembly production line, which meant purchasing microwave oven parts from other companies.

Assemble your own products.

In particular, the magnetron of a microwave oven, as the core component of a microwave oven, is basically imported. Very few companies can produce magnetrons, but compared with domestic magnetrons and imported magnetrons, the performance gap is still relatively large.

of.

Purchasing parts is definitely more expensive than producing them yourself, especially imported parts. The price is bound to be expensive, which also means an increase in cost. Therefore, at that time, the price of domestic microwave ovens remained high, mainly because the parts were too expensive.

Jufeng Electrical Appliance Factory is one of the many microwave oven assembly factories in China.

Jufeng Electrical Appliance Factory was originally a company that produced electric fans. Later, it also tried to switch to the production of other home appliances. In the past two years, it has focused its business on the assembly of microwave ovens.

A microwave oven can cost more than 2,000 yuan. Although imported parts are relatively expensive, Jufeng Electrical Appliance Factory can still guarantee profits with its high selling price.

Jufeng Electrical Appliance Factory has also considered directly importing a microwave oven production line so that it can produce core components such as magnetrons.

And even a small microwave oven production line costs three to four million US dollars. Even if Jufeng Electrical Appliance Factory can apply for so much foreign exchange, it does not have the courage.

Since you can make money by assembling microwave ovens, why do you need to invest so much in the production and research and development of core technologies?

This is also a common thinking among many Chinese companies. As long as money can buy it, there is no need to invest money in research and development. If you don’t get stuck, you will not know the importance of research and development. In the past forty years of reform and opening up, there have been too many

Many companies are in decline because of lack of core technology.

At this time, Zhang Zhijie, the director of Jufeng Factory, frowned while looking at last month's microwave oven sales report.

"Why have sales dropped so much? Have other brands significantly reduced their prices?" Zhang Zhijie asked the sales manager.

When product sales dropped, Zhang Zhijie's first reaction was that the price was not cheap enough.

The sales manager answered: "Director, I learned that no brand has reduced prices. However, Puppy Electric has held a promotion."

"What promotion?" Zhang Zhijie asked warily.
To be continued...