Chapter 96 – Sales Going Well
Translator: Kell | Editor: Ryunakama
Sales Going Well
A few days later. I headed to the guild to learn about the status of our sales.
「I came here for a meeting. Is this the place?」
「Yes. The client is waiting for you in the conference room.」
When I told the staff what I was here for, the receptionist guided me to the conference room. Count Meigis was already there.
「Long time no see. I heard about the things you’ve been doing. Even though I hired you only for guard duty, you’re assisting with a lot of things as well.」Count Meigis said as he stood up.
It seems he knows about the things I did. I only gave advice though. The pharmacists and the people in charge of cultivation did the actual work. I wasn’t really all that busy.
「You must be really busy, Sir.」
He must’ve been a lot busier than me. He looked like he lost weight.
After all, the plan to sell healing medicine was a nationwide project. Managing that and trying to win over the Church is not something a normal human can do. But he had to do it or we would be in trouble.
「Yes, I am. At first I thought the meager output was because you’ve been experimenting, then all of a sudden, huge quantities are being delivered to the office.」
So far the factory had forwarded about 200 bottles of healing medicine. At minimum, the market price was three million gils per bottle. So if we sold it at the cheapest price, we get 600 million. A huge amount for a startup company.
「I guess it’s difficult to sell them all.」
Meigis Company was created only a little over a week ago. It’s not like they had a reputation just yet. Selling 200 bottles right away would not be easy.
「Actually we’re almost sold out. I set aside a few.」
Wow. I didn’t expect that. But even if the demand was high, it’s still a very expensive product. They wouldn’t know how effective it would be by just looking at it. Can 200 bottles really be sold in such a short time?
「Did you sell them cheaper than market price to build confidence first?」
It’s basic marketing strategy to sell a product cheap at first to endorse its quality. The medicine we’re selling isn’t exactly high quality, but they’re still extremely valuable products.
Count Meigis shook his head.
「No. We’re selling them for at least 3 million apiece. Some we sold for even more.」
「I’m surprised they sold out.」
「I thought it was strange so I did a little investigation. Apparently, it’s because of Cardinal Georgis.」
Cardinal Georgis was the reason we sold all our products? He wouldn’t give us an outlet for selling them. That’s for sure. Even if he offered to help, the Count would’ve flat-out rejected him. There’s one reason I can think of why he did this.
「Is he trying to limit the supply?」
Healing medicine being sold out at market price means there’s a lot of demand. If there’s plenty of supply in the market, the ones we made wouldn’t have sold out that quickly. So that means there’s a shortage of supply. There’s only one person who can cause such a phenomenon – Cardinal Georgis, who has the monopoly on healing medicines.
「Probably. Recently the market price had gone up to 10 million gils.」
「That’s three times more than before.」
Just a while ago, the price was 3 million gils. The increase in price must mean that supply is running out.
「Is he trying to raise the prices? It feels too rushed.」
Limiting supply would indeed result in higher prices. Georgis would certainly benefit from it.
But if supply dropped to a critical amount and prices became extremely high, he wouldn’t get income out of it. That would pose a risk to his monopoly. Rather than exhausting supply, he could sell them at 4 or 5 million gils.
The Cardinal doesn’t seem to be after money. Is there a reason to hoard all the healing medicines?
「…A bargaining chip?」