The First Day of Cold Weather, Daily Sales Break a Hundred!

A little after six on Saturday morning, Lin Fan woke up shivering. The wind slipping through the window crack had changed overnight.

His first thought as he sat up wasn't about the cold.

It's here.

He wrapped himself in his coat and turned on the computer. During the half minute it took to boot up, he stood by the window and looked downstairs. The old men out for their morning walks had traded their undershirts for jackets, hunching their necks as they hurried along. The steam from the breakfast stalls was twice as thick as yesterday.

He had been waiting for this cold front for over half a month. Today was Saturday, someone else was on duty, and the whole day was his.

He only had one thing to do: swallow up the first wave of traffic clean.

His listing was near the top, the price was wholesale, the stock was piled in the garage downstairs, and he had spent over half a month building up sales and reviews. All he lacked was this cold front. Once it arrived and searches exploded, the first buyers flooding in would see his listing when they opened the page. Daily sales would head toward three digits. After another round of accumulating sales, his ranking would be nailed to the first screen. By the time the big sellers realized what was happening and rushed in, all they could do was pick up scraps behind him.

When the backend refreshed, even he froze for a moment.

Forty-seven orders had come in overnight.

While he slept, the trickle of traffic in the latter half of the night had nearly matched all of yesterday's daytime sales.

Wangwang was covered in dense little red notification dots. He replied to them one by one.

"Dear, I'm here. Order today, and it ships today."

"In stock, in stock. All three colors are available."

Even the buyers' questions had changed. Recently, the most common question had been whether the leggings were thick enough. Today, everyone was asking how soon they could arrive. The temperature had dropped overnight, and people were genuinely cold.

At seven, the courier came by to collect yesterday's shipments. Lin Fan carried fifty-three parcels downstairs and stuffed them into two bulging bags.

"Bro, your business is shooting up every day," the courier said as he sorted the shipping labels. "At this rate, my electric bike won't be able to haul it all."

"Soon."

The courier took it as a joke and left with a cheerful grin.

After seeing him off, Lin Fan opened the search page and typed in the words "leggings."

The keyword that had been slowly climbing the rankings just days ago had shot up onto the first page today.

The results loaded. His listing sat securely on the first screen, and the number in the sales column was visibly ticking upward.

He scanned through the listings behind his one by one. Two stores were still using their old summer prices. One showed out of stock. Several others had only gone live yesterday, their sales completely blank and not a single review to be seen.

That was the advantage of getting in early.

He had entered the market a month ago, with sales and reviews already firmly in hand. When buyers searched today, why would they choose a brand-new listing with zero sales?

At eleven-thirty, the number on the backend passed one hundred.

During the first five days after listing, he had sold only three pairs in total. Those nights, he had crouched alone in his room, revising the title over and over until his eyes ached.

He allowed himself two seconds of reflection. Then he had to raise the stock count, check the bags and tape, and prepare for a hard fight in the afternoon.

Ma Le did not drag himself out of the master bedroom until noon. Wrapped in a blanket, he looked half asleep.

"What kind of weather is this? I got so cold I had to get up in the middle of the night to close the window." He shuffled toward the kitchen in slippers, then stopped halfway and turned around. "Hey, with weather like this, do those leggings of yours have a chance?"

His face was full of smug pride, as though he had discovered some incredible business opportunity.

"See for yourself." Lin Fan moved his chair aside.

Ma Le leaned toward the screen and stared at the number for a long while.

"One hundred sixteen. What's that?"

"Today's orders."

"Today?" Ma Le turned to look at the clock on the wall. "Today's only half over!"

He grabbed the mouse and refreshed the page himself.

One hundred nineteen.

He refreshed again.

One hundred twenty.

"It's still going up?!" Ma Le's voice nearly cracked. "Wasn't it only fifty-something yesterday? I wrapped that tape myself, how could I remember wrong?"

He started counting on his fingers, calculating the money, then stopped halfway and turned to stare at Lin Fan.

"No, no, no way." The blanket slipped from his shoulders, but he didn't even notice. "Last month, under that blazing sun, you hauled a whole garage full of leggings back. It was thirty-seven or thirty-eight degrees then. I said you were crazy, and you didn't say a word. Then this week, you kept studying the weather forecast, saying it'd be these next couple of days, these next couple of days."

Ma Le swallowed.

"You knew in advance the temperature would drop?"

"It's not like I'm the only person who can check the weather forecast." Lin Fan took the mouse back. "It happens every year when the seasons change. I just stocked up early."

"Stocked up early? You stocked winter goods at the end of August?"

"That's why they were only two ninety per pair," Lin Fan said. "No one wanted them while it was hot, so the factory cleared them out as inventory. Once it gets cold, it's all money."

Ma Le stood there with his mouth open for a long time. Finally, he managed to squeeze out a sentence.

"With a brain like yours, it's really a waste for you to work a regular job."

Work.

Lin Fan didn't respond, but Wednesday's scolding surfaced in his mind again.

He had been caught staring at women's clothing listings while at work and publicly chewed out. Zhou Bin had enunciated the words "neglecting your duties" with perfect clarity. Yet these hundred-plus orders today had come from watching that page day after day.

There was nowhere to say that, and no need to say it.

The orders did not stop that afternoon. By four o'clock, they had passed one hundred forty. The two of them started work early, threw open the garage door, and laid the sacks down one by one.

They opened sacks, sorted sizes, packed orders, wrote slips. Ma Le handled the tape. After sealing more than thirty parcels, the tape ran low, so he ran to the convenience store and swept up the last four rolls from the shelf.

"The owner asked what I did for a living, buying four rolls at once." Ma Le tossed the tape over. "I told her I was in big business."

By the time it was fully dark, the packages at the garage entrance had gone from a row to a wall.

At eleven-thirty that night, they finished packing the final order and wrote down the total in the notebook.

One hundred sixty-four orders.

Ma Le collapsed onto a sack, both arms hanging limp.

"My hands don't feel like mine anymore."

His phone chimed in his pocket. He pulled it out, looked at the screen, and immediately sat upright.

"Two thousand six hundred forty came in? Who sent me money for no reason?"

"The store payout. It goes through your card," Lin Fan said. "Transfer it to me tomorrow."

"Oh, right. I'm the boss." Ma Le tucked his phone away, humming happily. "This actually feels pretty good."

Two thousand six hundred yuan. Half a month ago, that had been everything he owned, money he had counted twice before daring to stuff it into the deepest part of his backpack. Today, it was only enough to buy another nine hundred pairs.

Fortunately, this was only the first wave. From today onward, payouts would roll in wave after wave. The more they sold, the faster the money rolled in, and the more confidence they would have to chase more stock.

Before bed, Lin Fan refreshed the backend once more. A new notification lay in his site messages.

The seasonal transition promotion he had applied for had passed review. It was scheduled for next week and would be featured in the event section.

Natural search traffic and event traffic—two streams merging into one channel. Looking back later, today's one hundred sixty-four orders would only be the beginning.

He ran through the garage inventory in his mind. One thousand pairs from the supplier, a little over three hundred left at the wholesale stall. They had sold more than four hundred over the past few days, leaving a little over eight hundred. At today's pace, it would not last five or six days.

"Hey." Ma Le's voice drifted weakly from atop the sack. "There won't be even more tomorrow, right?"

"Only more, not less."

"Won't that work us to death?"

"People aren't afraid of hard work." Lin Fan reached up and pulled the light cord. "What they're afraid of is having no stock to pack."

In the darkened garage, Ma Le let out a miserable wail.

At eight tomorrow morning, call Old He.