Supermarket Grand Opening

Ferdinand exhausted his eloquence to finally see Princess Clémentine off. To be frank, Ferdinand still felt a bit of fear toward Princess Clémentine; after all, he was a cuckoo in another's nest, and his conscience always felt a twinge of guilt.

Ferdinand resumed working on his supermarket business plan. The most critical task at the moment was personnel training, which was also the most difficult part of the supermarket project.

Ferdinand planned to recruit one hundred people initially, requiring at least a middle school education for preliminary training. As for training the instructors, he would have to step up and do it himself for now!

Right, he could also bring in the old butler to help out; the man managed the hundreds of people inside and outside the castle with absolute order, so his management skills were quite excellent.

Vienna in 1881 was, after all, different from the future; copying it entirely would not work. After all, this was still a world of nobility, and the staff had to receive basic training in aristocratic etiquette.

Commoners and nobles would certainly have to shop separately; otherwise, if the noble lords saw a crowd of aunties rushing in to grab groceries, they would likely never set foot in the store again!

The second step was the venue, which was the easiest to solve. In a city as large as Vienna, there were at least a hundred or so places that met the criteria; renting or buying them and doing some simple renovations would suffice.

In any case, he couldn't afford to open a multi-story supermarket right now, nor could he gather enough stock. Many of the diverse snacks and numerous brands of daily necessities from the future didn't even exist yet.

It seemed he had discovered another path to wealth; developing low-tech snacks also appeared to have good prospects. Never mind, let's focus on opening the supermarket first, Ferdinand thought.

The third step was procurement, which would be more troublesome in the early stages. Never mind, he could start by getting goods from wholesale markets, and once the supermarket scale grew, he could deal directly with manufacturers.

The fourth step was handling the relevant paperwork, which was absolutely no problem. He was, after all, a high-ranking noble, and he still had that much face.

Finally, there was the money. Personnel training costs, venue fees, procurement, and other miscellaneous expenses added together—Ferdinand made a rough estimate that a 500-square-meter supermarket would cost about 1,000 pounds.

(Note: The currency of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1881 was the Gulden, changed to the Krone after 1893. Because of the currency fluctuations at the time, there were multiple results; for convenience, I have directly used the British Pound. 1 Pound = 7.32238 grams of pure gold.)

Combining his actual situation, Ferdinand decided to open five department supermarkets in Vienna first, two of which would be exclusively for nobles; non-nobles were not allowed to enter!

Therefore, the training of this portion of service staff was particularly important; otherwise, if trouble arose, Ferdinand would be the one left to clean up the mess!

The reason Ferdinand only opened five at once was not due to funding issues; in fact, a mere few thousand pounds meant nothing to him!

The problem was that personnel training couldn't keep up, especially for the two supermarkets targeting nobles. To ensure no mistakes were made after opening, Ferdinand even sent the servants from his own household to help out for a period of time!

Aside from personnel training, the other tasks held no difficulty for Ferdinand.

From market research to training staff, selecting venues, and handling renovations and procurement, it took a total of over three months to prepare his department supermarkets.

Having transmigrated for over half a year, looking at the supermarket he had built with his own hands, a sense of pride welled up; this place carried the dreams he once held!

If he were in his previous life, such a small supermarket in Vienna might be something he couldn't possess even after a lifetime of struggle, yet now it felt so insignificant!

June 18, 1881, was the auspicious day Ferdinand had chosen, and his first department supermarket opened its doors. The name was a direct rip-off of Volvo.

Of course, this one was clearly a commoner supermarket; after all, the supermarket catering to the noble lords couldn't be renovated so quickly!

As a transmigrator, he naturally wouldn't forget about publicity. Two days earlier, he had sent out all his employees to hoist banners and walk the streets of Vienna to promote the opening of Volvo.

1881 was a year worth remembering, both in the East and the West. On February 24, Zeng Jize signed the "Treaty of Saint Petersburg" and the "Land Trade Regulations" with the Russian Empire.

Tsarist Russia returned Ili but carved away a large territory west of the Khorgos River and north of the Ili River, while China paid Russia nine million rubles in military expenses.

The Manchu nobility were still living in a drunken stupor while the country was sliding into the abyss.

To prevent an alliance between Russia and France that would leave him facing enemies on two fronts, Bismarck sought to align Russia with Germany to counter Britain in the Near East and the two straits.

On June 18, 1881, Bismarck signed the Three Emperors' Alliance with the ambassadors of Russia and Austria in Berlin for a term of three years.

On the same day, the world's first supermarket, Volvo, was born. Ferdinand firmly believed June 18 was an auspicious day and would never admit he chose it just to ride the coattails of the news.

However, it was an undeniable fact that whenever the citizens of Vienna mentioned the Three Emperors' Alliance, they would also think of Volvo.

Volvo did not disappoint Ferdinand's expectations. On the opening day, two long queues formed on the street, and because there were too many people, they had to limit entry.

Like the Chinese, many foreigners also loved to watch the excitement. Some were there purely for shopping, wanting to buy cheap goods; others were simply curious. People are herd-like; seeing others buying bags full of items, they couldn't help but follow suit. (Those born in the 80s might recall the panic-buying craze when supermarkets opened in county towns in the early 90s.)

The scene lasted until evening, with stock being replenished three times along the way. The explosive scene shocked Vienna, and he believed tomorrow's newspapers would surely report on it.

The profit of the department supermarket did not disappoint Ferdinand; it even exceeded expectations. In just one day of business, the turnover reached 1,500 pounds, with a gross margin as high as 30 percent.

However, thinking about it, this was normal. The department supermarket was appearing for the first time, and on the opening day, many people walked in out of curiosity and ended up buying a pile of things in a daze.

Such good fortune would not last long; it would gradually return to normal, and the turnover would certainly shrink significantly.

The profit in the retail industry had always been high. Even in the fiercely competitive 21st century, many small supermarkets in good locations lived very comfortably.

Striking while the iron was hot, in the following month, the other four department supermarkets opened one after another. Business remained explosive, and the store managers were all outstanding talents selected from the trained staff.

In fact, such small supermarkets did not require high-level management skills; as long as they could follow the systems formulated by Li Mu in advance, they would be fine.

Competitors had not yet appeared, likely still watching and learning, but that would soon change. It was estimated that in a few months, department supermarkets would swarm into Vienna.

The urgent task now was to recruit troops and horses to seize the market. No matter how fierce the future competition might be, gaining the upper hand now would be an advantage later.

With the success behind him, Ferdinand became aggressive, planning to add thirty chain supermarkets within half a year, five of which would be noble supermarkets. This again involved a large amount of personnel recruitment.

Each supermarket needed to be equipped with at least ten to twenty employees, plus logistics and administration, meaning the staff would be no fewer than one thousand people.

For Ferdinand, this was also a huge challenge. Even Butler Karl was now being pressed into service, busy from dawn till dusk, with no time to manage the castle.

This made Princess Clémentine very dissatisfied, and Ferdinand was caught the moment he returned home.

"Ferdinand, what are you running for? I'm not going to eat you!" Princess Clémentine said with great dissatisfaction.

"Oh, my dear mother, what do you need from me?" Ferdinand said with a cheeky grin.

"Are you really that busy? It's just a small department store, is it worth it! Don't you know how to find someone to help? If you were left to manage the Kohary family, you'd be worked to death!" Princess Clémentine said with great dissatisfaction.