Chen Lin originally planned to spend most of his time on the silk counter, looking at the local fabric market in Lingao. He never thought that as soon as he entered this department store, he would be attracted by the bizarre scenes in front of him, and he couldn't help but follow the flow of people.
Hua. I looked at the counter shelves one by one.
He squeezed and came to a round wooden counter. This counter was unusual. Not only did it not sell any goods, it was even taller. It was similar to the counter of a pawn shop - and like a pawn shop, it was equipped with a wooden fence. Could it be that
Is this a pawn shop? It’s just that there is no sound of counting tickets at the counter, but only jingling sounds from time to time.
When I was wondering, there was a sudden sound on my head. When I looked up, I saw a book-protecting object hanging on the wire. With a roar, it whizzed past the wire. Looking along the wire, I saw this round object.
With the shaped counter as the center, dozens of iron wires hang in the air like a spider web and radiate in all directions, connecting the surrounding counters with this place.
Looking more closely, there are two such circular high platforms in the store. These three high platforms are arranged equidistantly along the central axis of the store.
Chen Lin figured it out after thinking about it for a moment: This is where the accounting table is. The most taboo in store management is for the clerk to directly handle the money, and Australians are no exception. Pay attention to the sales in the cabinet. The clerk will issue an account and then check the money received.
Put it into the wallet with the account slip, hang it on the wire, and push it out with force. After a while, the counter returns, the clerk removes the wallet, takes out the account slip and change, and hands it to the customer together with the goods.
His family has been engaged in industry and commerce for generations, and although he is young, he has a lot of experience. He immediately understood the benefits of this "iron wire spider web". The most effective way for large merchants to prevent their associates from "flying goods and making money" is to collect payments centrally and deliver goods against receipt.
He heard from his father that there are several large North-South goods stores in Suzhou that operate in this way. However, a store as large as the Friendship Department Store needs a lot of extra manpower to run orders back and forth. This "iron network" saves time and effort, although it is not necessarily
What a profound place, but very ingenious.
The Australians are indeed capable. Chen Lin thought to himself. In fact, if you think about it carefully, the Australians have many "weird skills", but they have brought more new methods and new ideas. Some of them are not the first of their kind, but they can always be better than the previous ones.
People do things more thoughtfully and wisely.
Macao Studies is truly unfathomable.
I walked around the store and didn't find any place selling fabrics. I asked the clerk and found out: I had to go to the second floor.
Li Mei put a lot of thought into the specific design. Not only does the Friendship Department Store look like a county-level department store that replicates the old time and space, but its layout is also basically arranged in accordance with the traditional Chinese shopping mall model. It’s just the number of products in this time and space.
and consumption capacity are very limited, and can only be considered specific and minute in terms of variety and scale.
The first floor is for high-frequency consumer goods, which are the so-called "fast-moving consumer goods"; the second floor is decorated with clothing, shoes, hats and various textiles. The layout is more sparse than the first floor, and it is spacious and bright for customers to try on and compare. Three
The store sells valuable commodities, such as famous cigarettes and wines, jewelry, watches, leather goods, etc. The number of consumers is small and the flow of people is small, which allows the target customer groups to choose and compare calmly.
This layout started from the modern department stores in the Republic of China in the old time and space, and has continued into the new century. Shopping malls in countless Chinese cities have copied this layout. However, with the increase in scale and the development of the times, more furniture has been added.
, household appliances and other commodities.
Chen Lin climbed up the spacious stairs to the second floor. The clearance height on the second floor is not as high as the first floor, but there are many windows, the shelves and counters are not so dense, and there are many fewer customers. As soon as he goes up, his eyes light up.
The environment is much better than below.
On the second floor of Friendship Department Store, ready-made clothing is the largest sales category, occupying almost half of the second floor. The ready-made clothing manufacturing industry did not originally exist in this time and space. Regardless of whether you are rich or poor, the women at home either make their own clothes or ask a tailor to make them.
There was no mass manufacturing system. Even items that needed to be mass-produced, such as army jackets and official uniforms, were also produced in wholesale packages and piecemeal. After the Senate landed, they established the first one with the equipment they brought.
The garment factory made batches of uniforms and work clothes for soldiers and workers. Later, it began to make clothes for elders. Gradually, the custom of purchasing ready-made clothes was spread among the naturalized people, and then gradually extended to ordinary people. So here
The wardrobe table immediately aroused Chen Lin's keen interest.
He had seen clothing stores in Guangzhou's Big World. He was not very impressed. Because the clothing stores in Big World mainly sold naturalized civilian cadres and their families from the Beishang detachment, as well as newly naturalized people recruited locally.
Civilian workers. The product category highlights "practicality". Except for the special "Australian underwear", all Chen Lin saw in the clothing store were boring "uniforms", which were just different materials and styles.
Almost exactly the same.
Of course, there is nothing new in the styles of Ming Dynasty clothes. But at least the patterns, patterns, and colors are more colorful. Compared with the Australians' black, blue, gray and white that dominate the world, there is still a big difference.
However, the clothing department on the second floor of Friendship Department Store overturned Chen Lin's impression of Australian clothing. The many styles of clothing displayed here, the complex colors, and the novel patterns completely surpassed Chen Lin's previous understanding of "clothes" - especially
It’s women’s clothing, “It turns out this clothing can do this!”
Australians attach great importance to "display" when selling clothes. Various clothes are fixed on display boards, hung on hangers, and put on wooden figurines - the latter makes him feel a little uncomfortable every time he sees it. Although
These figurines are completely "freehand", with no hair and no facial features, but the outline of the body is very lifelike.
In Chen Lin's perception, wooden humanoid figurines were either buried artifacts or statues of gods in temples. Putting on clothes and displaying them in a shop in such a grand manner made him feel psychologically uncomfortable.
This can probably be regarded as the "overseas wonder" of Australians.
Chen Lin browsed the counter of the women's clothing department with great interest. Women have always been the main consumers of textiles in any time and space. As a fabric manufacturer, the Chen family has always been very concerned about "fashionable patterns".
Almost all the clerks in the women's clothing department are women, wearing gray open-collar tops and skirt suits, and long name tags on their chests. They all have smiles and greetings attentively. As he passed by, someone came over to greet him.
Chen Lin was not used to being greeted by female waiters and said: "Just looking around, not buying anything."
About half of the entire second floor is dedicated to selling women's clothing. Not only are there a lot of styles, but the colors and styles are much bolder than those in other clothing stores in the world. Chen Lin has heard of the legendary short skirt that exposes the knees many times.
, but I have never seen it with my own eyes. Even the Australian female students I saw on the boat were dressed in shocking clothes, and the skirts were still at the knees. But there are many kinds of skirts displayed on the wooden figurines displayed here.
Some models completely expose their knees.
"I never thought Australians actually have clothes like this! It's so short, and most of the way you move, your thighs will be exposed..."
Just thinking of this made Chen Lin's face heat up. If he thought about going up and down stairs, or running and jumping in a hurry, wouldn't it, wouldn't it... Chen Lin didn't dare to think about it anymore. Somehow,
He thought of the Australian female student he saw on the boat, and felt an inexplicable commotion in his heart.
He quickly stopped his thoughts and silently reminded himself to put his career first. What does the style of women's clothing matter? The key depends on the materials! Yes, the materials!
Chen Lin focused on the materials. He soon discovered that the fabric selection for women's clothing was very complicated. Not only were all the fabrics he knew used, but also a variety of fabrics were often used on the same set of clothes. Various fabrics were used.
A variety of colors, accessories, lace, patterns... Some of the patterns were very new and he had never seen them before - they were probably brought by the Australians. And one seemed to be made of gauze and silk, specially sewn on the edges of the clothes.
The long strips of fabric with unique patterns aroused his interest. After asking the female clerk, he found out that it was called "lace".
This is really a good thing, Chen Lin thought. It looks much better when used to decorate the edge of clothes than simply piping it with strips of material. The piping can only make a fuss about the color and width. The style and texture of this lace can be varied in many ways.
Here comes the pattern. He studied it carefully and roughly knew that it was also woven, but he could not tell the specific craftsmanship at all.
There is also a huge market for this lace. I wonder if it can be introduced into the cotton spinning factory this time. Chen Lin thought to himself, he should ask Chen Xiaobing in the next few days.
He immediately called the female salesperson and wanted to buy a lace shirt.
"I wonder what size Baojuan wears?"
This time it was hard for him: firstly, he did not have a "treasure family", and secondly, although traditional clothes had to be tailor-made, the clothes they made were loose and not strict in size. When he saw the female waiter took out
He was asked to choose from five sizes, and he immediately became dizzy.
"This, it's just casual..."
"Sir, the sizes of these clothes are very different. If you are only one size off, you won't be able to wear them." The female clerk was very considerate, "So, how tall is Baojuan? How much does he weigh?"
Chen Lin thought to himself: How could I know? He had an idea and said: "Her height and figure are similar to those of a girl."
"That's one size fits all." The female clerk nodded, "Wait a moment, I'll issue an invoice for you."
After buying the clothes, he went to the fabric counter to look at the fabrics. There were indeed a wide variety of fabrics here, but compared with Rui Hexiang, the shopkeeper An, there was nothing particularly outstanding. They were just about the same. Chen Lin was a little disappointed.
Seeing that it was getting late outside, he looked at the big clock on the wall and saw that it was already five-twenty. Chen Lin didn't dare to go shopping anymore and hurried back downstairs.
It was still a long way from the Longhao Bay Hotel. Fortunately, he had just noticed that there were rickshaws waiting for passengers at the edge of the square. He could give the driver more money so that he could catch up if he ran faster.