Flowers in full bloom

Chapter 212 Waste Utilization

Even though it is just a replacement of bamboo handles with wooden ones, the production is much more difficult. To split a tree trunk thicker than an adult's waist into toothbrush handles as thick as a little finger is a test of the carpenter's skills. Then, to shave the toothbrush head into thin slices and drill holes is really not easy. Many toothbrush handles are scrapped during the drilling step.

Nowadays, unlike in the past, there are not as many mechanical equipment such as electric saws and electric planers that can easily split wood and cut wood to the length, thickness and thickness you need. Instead, everything needs to be split carefully step by step by hand with knives and axes, so the progress of making toothbrushes is much slower.

Hualei looked at the toothbrush with a wooden handle that she had finally finished, and tried it out. Well, it was indeed much more stable than the bamboo handle, and its service life should be much longer than the toothbrush with a bamboo handle. However, the difficulty of making it increased countless times, and it was a bit labor-intensive to make a toothbrush like this.

Hualei is a pragmatic person. She felt that it was not cost-effective to make toothbrushes in this way. She decided to make both wooden and bamboo handles. Then they could set the prices separately. So, the bamboo handle toothbrush was put back into production. Hualei divided the staff into two groups, one group specialized in making bamboo handle toothbrushes and the other group specialized in making wooden handle toothbrushes. Among the members specialized in making wooden handle toothbrushes, a few were specially selected to do the drilling process to reduce the scrap rate.

Unexpectedly, as a result, practice makes perfect, and the success rate of people in each process has increased a lot, and it has also been much faster. Soon, Huaji toothbrushes were also put on the shelves of Huaqianbian Shop.

A toothbrush with a wooden handle costs 260 wen, and a toothbrush with a bamboo handle costs 160 wen. The customers are middle- and low-level officials who cannot afford ox bone and horsetail bristle toothbrushes, and look down on willow twig toothbrushes.

Similarly, Hualei imitated the business model of soap and launched two family packages that customers can’t stop eating.

The first is the Good Things Come in Pairs series package: a set of two toothbrushes with wooden handles costs 510 wen, a set of two toothbrushes with bamboo handles costs 310 wen, and a set of one toothbrush with wooden handles and one toothbrush with bamboo handles costs 410 wen.

The second type is the Four Seasons Peace Series Package. A set of four toothbrushes with wooden handles costs one tael of silver, a set of four toothbrushes with bamboo handles costs six hundred wen of silver, and two toothbrushes with wooden handles and two toothbrushes with bamboo handles cost eight hundred wen of silver in total.

Each toothbrush handle in the package is engraved with a simple pattern, so that family members can distinguish which one is theirs and which one is someone else's. It can be said that the customer is very thoughtful, but the pricing is so tricky.

I originally just wanted to buy one toothbrush to try, but when I saw that buying two toothbrushes would save me ten cents, I thought that my wife at home really needed one, otherwise her breath was too bad, and it was very unbearable to hear her nagging me every time.

When he was about to pay for a pack of two, he saw that a pack of four toothbrushes was twenty cents cheaper. He thought that the twenty cents saved could buy a pound of pork. He hadn't bought pork for half a month, so he might as well buy a pack of four and use the money saved to buy another pound of pork. Anyway, his two concubines also needed to brush their teeth, and they would enjoy fresh breath, and he would also enjoy it.

Four toothbrushes cost one tael of silver, so I bought four toothbrushes with bamboo handles. They cost six hundred coins, which was nearly half the price of one tael of silver. So I wanted to buy four toothbrushes with bamboo handles, but then I thought about putting myself and my wife in the same position as a concubine, which made me feel uncomfortable. My wife would make a fuss, so I bought two toothbrushes with wooden handles and two with bamboo handles.

Two wooden handle toothbrushes for myself and my wife, and two bamboo handle toothbrushes for my two concubines. Well, good, perfect. So I happily paid for it. If there are many concubines in the family, you can add four bamboo handle toothbrushes. Well, good, perfect.

By the way, the kids at home also need to brush their teeth, so I should buy four brushes with bamboo handles. Oh, no, I have to distinguish between the legitimate and illegitimate children, otherwise the legitimate children will be unhappy, so I should also buy a mixed set of wooden and bamboo handles. So I paid for it happily.

For a while, the mixed packs of toothbrushes with wooden and bamboo handles were selling like hot cakes. To be honest, Hualei had never thought of this when it launched the mixed packs of family packages. It just wanted to give customers more choices and sell more toothbrushes. Hualei never expected such a good thing.

But it doesn't matter. You just need to exchange two of the four toothbrushes with wooden handles and four toothbrushes with bamboo handles. It's something that can be done by the two daughters of Brother Kong in Zhuangzi. It's not a big deal.

What Hua Lei didn't expect was that the sales of toothbrushes with bamboo handles were much better than those with wooden handles. It was estimated that many of these small-level official families had one wife and multiple concubines, so this result occurred. However, this just happened to be what Hua Lei wanted.

Although the wooden handle toothbrush is 100 wen more expensive, it is really too troublesome to make, and the labor cost far exceeds the price difference of 100 wen. Moreover, the bamboo handle toothbrush breaks quickly, and if it breaks, you have to buy a new toothbrush. Doesn't this increase the sales of Hualei in a roundabout way?

Hualei has some characteristics of a profiteer, but this cannot be blamed on Hualei. This is the choice of the market, this is the demand of customers. Respecting the choice of the market and catering to the needs of customers is what makes an excellent businessman, isn't it? Hualei counted the silver happily.

Chickens, ducks, geese and pigs are slaughtered every day in Yuanying Manor, and pig bristle toothbrushes are made every day in Baihua Manor. There are more and more goose feathers, because there are many hard wing feathers on the wings of geese, which are not suitable for making goose down quilts. Last time when the goose feathers were cleaned and disinfected, these hard wing feathers were selected and stored separately.

Even the flower buds from the feces and urine of chickens, ducks, geese and pigs were not spared. These hard wing feathers that could be made into quill pens and goose feather fans would certainly not be thrown away. Seeing that the production of pig bristle toothbrushes was already on track and the flower buds did not need to worry about it anymore, it was time to start making quill pens and goose feather fans.

The production of these two items did not give Hua Lei much trouble. The most commonly used brushes in the Dasheng Dynasty were writing brushes. Hua Lei did not plan to replace writing brushes with her goose feather pens. She did not have such ambitions. She just wanted to earn money quietly.

After telling Uncle Zhao the general method of making quill pens, ten quill pens were delivered to Hua Lei's desk soon. Goose feather pens still need to be dipped in ink to use, similar to the ink-free fountain pens in the previous life, but they are not as easy to use as fountain pens and are not convenient to carry. They just write faster than the current brushes, so they are suitable for use in the accounting office.

After the goose feather pens came out, Hua Lei sent some to the printing shop of Gui Jijiu in Beicheng District, and also sent some to the owners and accountants of several restaurants that supplied them.