1850 American Gold Tycoon

After dark, the Crystal Palace shopping mall is brightly lit, and the shopping mall's business hours are from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Such long business hours are rare in New York, but even late at night, the number of customers in the Crystal Palace Mall is still considerable.

Thousands of kerosene lamps are like fireflies at night, illuminating the Crystal Palace shopping mall as bright as day.

From a distance, the Crystal Palace Mall looks like a shining pearl in New York City.

When the mall closed, Van Daze did not go home. Instead, he stayed in the Crystal Palace office and couldn't wait to count the sales on the opening day overnight. He had been waiting for this day for two full years.

The success of the Crystal Palace on its opening day finally put his worries at ease.

Facts have proved that his decision to invest the entire family's assets and resources and make a bet with Liang Yaohao to open the Crystal Palace Shopping Mall was correct.

After the mall opened, the original doubts about the business within the Van Daze family disappeared on this day, and he became the idol and savior of everyone in the family.

Early the next morning, Liang Yao had just woken up and while he was having breakfast, Van Daze grabbed his account book and ran excitedly to Liang Yao's manor on the Hudson River.

"You haven't had breakfast yet? Since you're here, let's sit down and have breakfast together." Liang Yao wiped his mouth with the napkin on the table and said.

"The sales of the direct-operated stores in Crystal Palace Mall reached US$1.00 yesterday. 71 gold membership cards were sold, 1,859 silver membership cards were sold, and 8,905 bronze membership cards were sold." Van Daze said excitedly.

Although he stayed up all night last night to count the turnover of each directly operated store, and he is not young anymore, he is 48 years old this year, but he still maintains a very excited mental state.

There are two types of stores in the Crystal Palace Mall. One is the directly-operated store of the Crystal Palace Mall. The directly-operated stores do not charge any store rent. The Crystal Palace Department Store provides free guidance and operation, as well as training of store staff and other services, and uniformly participates in the promotional activities organized by the Crystal Palace.

The qualification requirements for obtaining a direct-operated store in Crystal Palace Mall are relatively demanding. The current 333 directly-operated stores in Crystal Palace are all high-quality New York stores carefully selected by Van Daze in the past two years.

However, there is a price for obtaining the qualification of a direct-operated store, which is to transfer 25% to 50% of the store shares to Crystal Palace Department Store based on the actual situation of the store.

The other kind of store is a third-party store. Third-party stores that settle in Crystal Palace have relatively loose requirements. After passing the review, they only need to pay the store rent and related service fees of the mall on time.

Currently, 187 of the 520 stores in Crystal Palace are third-party stores.

Direct-operated stores and third-party stores are also easy to distinguish. Direct-operated stores have very conspicuous Crystal Palace Department Store and trademarks as well as the words direct-operated stores on their signboards, while third-party stores do not.

The daily turnover of US$1 is indeed a very good result. This is only the turnover of directly operated stores. Counting the turnover of third-party stores, it is very likely that the daily turnover of Crystal Palace Mall yesterday was about US$50,000.

The equivalent of the average New Yorker spending 10 cents at the Crystal Palace yesterday.

As far as Liang Yao knows, the average daily turnover of Stewart's Marble Palace is about US dollars, which is far inferior to that of Crystal Palace Mall, which caught up from behind.

Of course, such a high turnover also comes with an activity bonus on the first day of opening and a freshness bonus, and subsequent turnover may fall back.

The membership card that Van Daze is talking about is the membership card of Crystal Palace Mall. The membership card can be used in all directly operated stores.

Members of Crystal Palace Mall are divided into three levels: gold, silver and bronze.

Gold members need to pay an annual fee of US$350 each year and are mainly targeted at the wealthy class in New York. In addition to enjoying a 30% discount on all products, gold members also enjoy special carriage transportation in the mall, priority reception, and can ask for a waiter to accompany them during the entire shopping process. And free door-to-door delivery of any goods anywhere in New York State.

The Silver Membership Card requires an annual fee of US$20 and is mainly aimed at the middle class in New York. In addition to enjoying a 20% discount on all products, Silver Members also enjoy free door-to-door delivery services in New York City.

The Bronze Membership Card requires an annual fee of US$2. It is mainly aimed at working-class people in New York and enjoys a 10% discount on all products.

In other words, on the first day the Crystal Palace mall opened, it made US dollars from membership fees alone, which is a good start.

"Not bad results. Congratulations to Mr. Van Daze. In a few years, you will replace Stewart and become the retail king of New York." Liang Yao congratulated you.

"You are the one, you are the largest shareholder of Crystal Palace Department Store." Van Daze said with a smile.

Crystal Palace Department Store was originally owned 50% by the Liang Yao and Van Daze families. However, since the land for the construction of the shopping mall was provided by Liang Yao, Van Daze transferred 20% of the shares to Liang Yao.

In the end, the shares of Crystal Palace Department Store were composed of 70% by Liang Yao and 30% by the Van Daze family.

Although the Van Daze family only holds 30% of the shares, the value of the family assets has increased a lot compared to before, so there is no complaint.

"Yesterday, 182 sewing machines were sold, and kerosene was sold by the liter. The butterfly sewing machine manufacturer said that they only have 500 sewing machines in stock now. We can't sell 500 sewing machines for a few days. There is also kerosene. We only sold kerosene yesterday. liters because we only provided liters of kerosene yesterday,” Vandaze said.

"Also, the sales volume of ready-made garments is very good, but most of the ready-made garments come from garment factories in California and need to be shipped from California. Have you also considered setting up a garment factory in New York? In this way, you can save a transportation link and reduce the cost of ready-made garments. the cost of."

Sewing machines and kerosene were the best-selling items on the opening day, and these two items alone contributed to US dollars in sales.

"I will increase the supply of sewing machines and kerosene in the future." Liang Yao rinsed his mouth and said.

He has been working hard to increase sewing machine production and kerosene production, but increasing production cannot be achieved overnight.

As for garment factories, he is not considering opening new ones in New York.

The number of immigrants in California is growing rapidly, and Liang Yao must provide enough jobs for these immigrants to stabilize the social order in California.

It would be foolish to move valuable California jobs to New York for a small profit at this time.

"Mr. Backhouse said that as long as we are willing to build shopping malls like the Crystal Palace in New York in Boston and Philadelphia, he can give us a piece of land in the downtown area for free. These two cities are also markets worth developing." Van Daze's eyes flashed Searing light.

Businessmen in this era were very aggressive. Once they achieved success in a certain business field, they would quickly seek to expand and monopolize the entire field. According to high emotional intelligence, one is full of adventurous spirit.

"As long as enough funds can be raised, I am not opposed to expansion without affecting the operation of the Crystal Palace Mall in New York." Liang Yao said, "If Mr. Backhouse is really enthusiastic and insists on giving us land, we can't refuse. Just accept people’s kindness.”

This was Liang Yao's attitude. His focus was on the California and Pacific Railway, and his own energy and funds were limited. He left it to Van Daze to deal with the eastern retail sector.

As long as Crystal Palace operates well, its service scope can not only radiate to New York City and New York State, but even to neighboring states and counties.

Liang Yao is also not in a hurry to expand to Philadelphia and Boston.

In the next few days, Liang Yao just read newspapers, read books, and followed the progress of the presidential campaign.

The gratifying thing is that Fillmore is in good shape, and of course, the form is also great.

As a politician with little experience in politics, Pierce, who has relied on backstage and luck until now, is obviously not tactful enough. When faced with the key issue of how to treat black slaves, Pierce is not only bad at Tai Chi, but also clearly shows that Sympathy for the southern slave states.

This behavior is no different from later generations of politicians shouting Black Lives Matter in front of right-wing white male voters.

Pierce's inappropriate words and deeds caused Pierce's approval ratings in the Northern Free States to plummet.

The meager support he gained in southern states was far from making up for Pierce's losses in the north.

Liang Yao is not very clear about the situation in other states. At least in New York State, Fillmore's 35 electoral votes are stable.

As long as he gets 35 electoral votes from New York State, even if Pierce loses 15 electoral votes from Virginia, the largest slave state, it is not a very bad result.

"How about it? Do you want to have a drink together?"

Vanderbilt dropped in with a bottle of brandy.

"I'm glad that you came to me today to talk about the transfer of Sobitz Pier and Stamford Pier in New York?"

Liang Yao, who was cutting newspapers, temporarily put down the work at hand.

Liang Yao guessed that Vanderbilt came to visit today to discuss with him the transfer of Sobitz Pier and Stamford Pier.

He is gradually taking over the shipping empire that Vanderbilt once created. The assets of Vanderbilt's shipping empire include not only ships, but also a large number of terminals and the operating rights of routes, which is a considerable asset.

"No, we are not talking about business today."

Vanderbilt didn't notice anything at all, as if he was at home, he grabbed two clean wine glasses from the kitchen cupboard and poured brandy into the two empty wine glasses.