Chapter 282: Strange Phenomenon Caused by Price Difference

Chapter 282: Strange Phenomenon Caused by Price Difference

Chapter 282: Strange Phenomenon Caused by Price Difference

Magic City.

As the Spring Festival passed.

The temperature along the Huangpu River has begun to rise.

The number of foreign tourists is also increasing.

Especially for Japanese and Korean people who like to come to Shanghai, after the Spring Festival, many people take advantage of the 72-hour visa-free policy and fly directly to Shanghai for tourism.

Of course, whether they are here for real travel or just pretending to travel is unknown.

Because in recent years, there have been quite a few middlemen moving around in the flights between Seris, Japan and South Korea.

For example, rice and the like were actually transported to Japan and South Korea in suitcases.

The main reason is that America's economy has become increasingly difficult in recent years, so it has naturally been more intensively harvesting from Japan and South Korea, causing the economies of these two places to suffer.

Another reason, of course, is that Seris's industry is developing faster and faster, posing a strong impact on Japan and South Korea in all walks of life.

Amid internal and external difficulties, the lives of ordinary civilians were inevitably affected, with various rice, vegetable and oil shortages occurring.

After all, in these two places where people used to live a good life, the prices of vegetables, fruits and many agricultural products are notoriously "expensive". The local agricultural cooperatives are not allowed to import large-scale cheap agricultural products from abroad. In the past few years, the Japanese agricultural cooperatives suffered huge investment losses and could only raise the price of rice to make up for their losses in the financial market, which further increased the price of rice.

There is a saying that goes, life will find a way out.

Since local agricultural products are expensive, we might as well buy cheaper agricultural products from abroad.

If you choose to take Spring Airlines, the round-trip ticket between Osaka, Japan and Shanghai, China is only about 700 yuan.

Japanese customs will exempt passengers from tax on items brought into the country as long as the value does not exceed 20 yen. The value of the items is not calculated based on local prices in Japan, but based on prices at the place of origin.

The regulations in South Korea are similar.

Therefore, many people fly over to buy some agricultural products and food that they can take back, among which rice, dried kelp, kimchi, compressed dried vegetables and compressed dried fruits are the main items carried back.

Of course, the place that benefits the most in this regard is not Shanghai, but Qindao in Qilu Province. Because there are direct flights between the local area and South Korea, the minimum round-trip fare is only more than 400 yuan, so many Koreans come here to play for two days on weekends, and then buy a lot of things and fly back.

Hailufeng Company’s warehouse supermarket in Shanghai.

A dozen Koreans walked in, saying "Smecta" all the time.

"Hello, what can I do for you?" The waiter came forward with simultaneous translation headphones and microphone.

"Hello, Simida, I want to buy some fruit..." said a Korean girl who could speak Mandarin haltingly.

After pressing the start button of the simultaneous interpretation equipment, this set of equipment ordered from iFLYTEK started running immediately. It would be better to order this kind of simultaneous interpretation equipment than to specially recruit waiters who can speak foreign languages.

In order to cater to foreign tourists, the Physical Business Division has equipped all business outlets in port cities with such simultaneous interpretation equipment, especially in international metropolises like Shanghai. This warehouse supermarket alone is equipped with ten sets of simultaneous interpretation equipment.

When the waiter heard a loud noise coming from the door, he knew that these people were Koreans, so he asked a colleague who was wearing a simultaneous interpretation device to go up and guide them.

"Hello, you want to buy some fruit?"

The Korean language spoken through the translation equipment was transmitted to these Koreans clearly and accurately. The new equipment that introduced AI technology has a very high level of accuracy.

A middle-aged Korean man said with an exaggerated expression: "Oh? Is this a translator? That's amazing."

"What do you need, sir? Just tell me directly." The waiter led them to the fruit area.

The voices of these Koreans were very loud, like a thousand ducks buzzing in her ears. The waitress just laughed dryly, cursing these Koreans for being rude in her heart. If she hadn't seen that they came here to consume, she would not have wanted to serve them.

After arriving at the fruit area, the shouting of "Smecta" became more intense, like a chain reaction caused by a nuclear explosion.

"Zhehai, Durian, look..."

"Smecta, so many durians, how much are these durians?"

"Let me see... 15 yuan for 500 grams?"

"15 Won? 3000 Won?" an old lady muttered to herself, "It seems that 500 grams in China costs 1 Won."

"Really?" Her husband Jin Dawen widened his eyes.

The auntie said with certainty: "Of course, I go to the market often to buy things. Recently, domestic durian has become cheaper. Before, 500 grams cost 1.25 won."

Jin Dawen showed a skeptical expression: "Why are durians in Seris so cheap? They shouldn't be from the original place of origin, right? Is the quality different?"

Upon hearing this, the waiter quickly explained: "This customer does not need to worry about the quality. We are the company that pays the most attention to food safety in the world. Our company is also the world's largest durian producer, producing about 1400 million tons of durian every year."

"1400 million tons?" Another young man's eyes widened. His brain froze for a moment. It was obvious that he could no longer imagine how huge this production scale was.

The waiter smiled and made a comparison: "Based on the population of South Korea, each person consumes 275 kilograms of durian per year."

"so much?"

"Smecta!"

"It's amazing, no wonder it's so cheap."

These people were shocked.

Judging from the shocked expressions of these people, it is obvious that the South Korean media deliberately does not report such things in order to avoid causing unrest among the people.

However, the fact that South Korean media does not report it does not mean that the influx of this information can be prevented. After all, this is the Internet age, coupled with non-governmental exchanges between countries.

After part of the Internet was opened up in China, coupled with the 72-hour visa-free entry policy, inbound express tours have become very popular, especially in Northeast Asia, which is separated by a body of water. The number of foreign tourists visiting the region has been increasing steadily in recent years.

This caused a lot of domestic information to spread rapidly around the world as these foreign tourists returned.

Especially the South Koreans who used to have a high-handed mentality and overflowing self-confidence, after many of them came here to travel, they were either greatly shocked, their temperaments changed drastically, or they became fanatical.

After all, both within their own country and in the Western media, Serbia has always been portrayed as backward and poor.

However, at this moment, when they really came to this land, they found that their previous cognition was wrong, and it was a mistake that went in the opposite direction.

That huge sense of gap instantly shattered their artificial self-confidence, and then exposed their inferiority complex.

In the rest area on the second floor of the warehouse supermarket.

The Koreans, who had bought a lot of fruits, were now sitting around several tables, chatting animatedly and eating the fruits in a hurry.

They bought a box of durian and asked the clerk to split it directly, otherwise it would be impossible to open it at all. After all, these tree-ripened durians are difficult to open and need to be split directly to open the shell.

"Burp... I'm so full!"

“The taste is completely different from the durian in China.”

A girl ate a kiwi and said sarcastically, "Haha, Shengkai made it sound like you've eaten durian in China."

"Lina, how do you know I haven't eaten it?" The young man holding the durian pulp looked angry.

"Then when have you ever eaten it?" Jin Lina sneered and took a bite of the soft-fleshed kiwi fruit.

"Haha, of course I have. It was Yuanliang's birthday. There was durian at his birthday party." He swallowed the durian flesh whole, took off his disposable gloves, and then found the photos of that birthday party in his mobile phone album: "Look..."

Jin Lina stretched her neck, took a few glances, and pouted: "Haha, Han Yuanliang? That rich classmate of yours? This birthday gift is just average!"

“Uh…” Although Jin Shengkai wanted to refute, he looked at the fruits on the table and suddenly felt speechless.

"Nothing to say, right?" Jin Lina picked up the cut honeydew melon and ate it in big mouthfuls: "Woo... So juicy... Mom, eat this honeydew melon, it's delicious."

"This banana is also very delicious, why doesn't China import it?"

"Haha, how could those bastards allow imports? If they allow imports, what will they earn?"

"Smecta!" "Damn it, why is it so delicious and so cheap? Woohoo, I won't be used to it when I go back."

"If you're not used to it, you can come and travel!"

“But plane tickets cost money!”

"Idiot, why don't you just buy a ticket to Qindao? A round-trip ticket there only costs more than 8 Chinese yuan, which is about Korean won."

"8... I earn about 370 million won a month." The man estimated and his eyes lit up: "That's really good!"

Another companion who was eating melons laughed and said: "We bought round-trip tickets, plus two days of accommodation and meals, which cost about 40 won, and we didn't come here just for tourism."

Jin Shengkai asked in a low voice: "By the way, Brother Fengshen, how do you do what you said before about making money?"

Huang Fengshen winked and smiled and said, "Don't worry, after everyone has finished eating, we will go directly to the third floor, and you will know then."

"Mysterious..."

After eating for more than an hour, a dozen people finished a box of durian and a bunch of other fruits. Looking at the remaining fruit peels, cores, paper towels and the like on the table, they had no intention of cleaning up. Instead, they walked leisurely to the third floor with bulging stomachs.

When the cleaning lady saw the mess on the floor, she secretly cursed these Koreans for their lack of manners.

But she didn't curse at anyone. After all, the company paid her well, so she cleaned up the things quickly.

The group of Koreans came to the third floor.

Looking at the clothes and home textile products on the shelves.

"Brother Fengshen? Is this the way you call making money?" Jin Shengkai looked puzzled.

"Haha, do you know how much this piece of clothing of mine costs?" Huang Fengshen did not answer Jin Shengkai's question first, but asked back while pinching his shirt.

"This..." Jin Shengkai subconsciously touched the other person's shirt, and then asked uncertainly: "Is this silk?"

"That's right. To be precise, this is artificial silk." Huang Fengshen brought Jin Shengkai and Jin Lina to a shelf and said, "Let's take a look at the price!"

Jin Shengkai glanced at the label on the shelf: "576 Huayuan? 12 pieces? That's about 9600 won per piece?"

"Smecta! So cheap..." Jin Lina's eyes suddenly lit up. She had bought a set of silk pajamas before, which was from an ordinary fast-selling brand, and the price was four times that of these pajamas in front of her.

"Sister, how much do silk clothes cost in China?" Jin Shengkai really had no idea about this.

“The domestic level is four times this.”

"Really?"

"What are you lying to?"

Suddenly Jin Shengkai frowned, and then asked in a low voice: "After we buy it here, can we take it back? Will we be checked?"

"Don't worry! As long as the total value does not exceed 600 US dollars, which is about 86 Korean won, there will be no problem. So after buying things, keep the invoices and throw away all the old clothes we brought from China. In this way, we can bring a lot of clothes back."

Huang Fengshen, who is obviously a veteran, is very skilled in this operation.

As long as they tear off the labels on their clothes and wear them or stuff them in a suitcase, customs will be unable to do anything to them.

After returning, they have formed an industrial chain, rewashing, ironing and sorting the clothes, then putting new labels on them, and then selling them directly to those in need through online channels at two to three times the price of the original piece.

If everything goes well, a person can earn five or six hundred dollars per trip.

The profits brought by this price difference will naturally attract the attention of middlemen.

But there is no other way. The minimum retail price of silk clothing entering South Korea through formal channels is about 150 yuan, and the quality is relatively poor.

The low-end products of cheap and high-quality artificial silk clothing in Seris generally cost between 40 and 60 yuan per piece.

The price and quality difference between the two is enough to make people take risks.

What's more, this kind of clothing purchasing behavior is difficult to investigate and deal with.

Because many Koreans who come to Seris for tourism basically have more than a dozen silk clothes each. Unless flights between the two sides are completely banned or the prices of flights between the two sides are increased several times, this smuggling behavior that is as slow as ants moving can be curbed.

However, banning flights between both parties is basically impossible.

It is also difficult to raise airfares because airlines see that every flight is full and they don't care about the clothes passengers bring.

After all, clothes are not contraband, they are passengers' personal daily necessities. You can't ask passengers not to wear silk clothes on the plane, right? This would probably make the whole world laugh.

Therefore, a large amount of artificial silk clothes have recently flowed into South Korea and Japan from Seris. Each economy class passenger has more than 20 pieces of artificial silk clothes. Moreover, they operate in groups to distribute the clothes to everyone, so there will not be a situation where one person buys more than ten pieces of the same clothes.

For example, the family tour group with Huang Fengshen as the core, more than a dozen of them divided the work and distributed a dozen clothes to all members. In the same way, they bought more than twenty dozen silk clothes.

After the purchase, they kept the invoices and calculated the value of all the items to avoid the value of the items exceeding the upper limit of US$600 when entering the country.

Even though each of them had more than twenty pieces of clothing, they were actually only worth about two hundred US dollars, so they could still buy other things.

Therefore, they purchased various compressed vegetables and fruits.

These things are also new products launched by Hailufeng Company after the New Year.

Compressed vegetables are completely sterilized and dehydrated vegetables, compressed into blocks, and can be used to cook vegetable soup.

For example, compressed tomato cubes, compressed carrot cubes, compressed onion cubes, compressed cabbage cubes, compressed kelp cubes, etc.

These things have been added with ingredients such as salt and MSG. A small piece can cook a large bowl of soup, and the nutrients are retained to a very high degree, which is basically no different from fresh vegetables.

Especially when used as a seasoning, since it has been completely dehydrated and compressed, it will quickly fall apart once cooked.

Among them, tomatoes and onions are the most popular.

Add a small piece of compressed tomato and an egg and you will have a big bowl of tomato and egg soup, which has a richer flavor than tomato paste.

After all, tomato paste still contains water, and after pre-processing, some of the tomato flavor is lost. The tomato planting base of Hailufeng Company in Gansu Province does not use traditional tomato varieties, but instead uses varieties with very high tomato flavor concentration and are not resistant to transportation. In the end, they will be dehydrated and compressed anyway, so whether they are resistant to transportation is no longer important.

Not only Koreans like this product, but many busy office workers in China also like this product very much.

Especially small packages of tomato cubes, onion cubes, mushroom cubes, etc., which are easy to store and use, while retaining almost 99% of the nutrients and a certain amount of fiber. This is the new generation of healthy food.

When making instant noodles, you can just throw away the powder packet and use this vegetable cube instead, there is no problem.

The Koreans are the experts in consuming instant noodles. After buying these vegetable pieces, they directly add them to instant noodles or make lo mein.

Of course, this kind of business will not last long. After all, the South Korean and Japanese officials are not fools and will definitely take measures to suppress this smuggling behavior.

In addition to the middlemen, there are actually a lot of people who come here for real tourism. Although these people will bring things back, the amount they carry is generally not large.

In short, it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish between tourists and middlemen, especially in the context of huge price differences between the two places. This abnormal smuggling will definitely exist for a long time.

Unless South Korea and Japan announce one day that they will import large quantities of cheap agricultural products and clothing products from Serbia, there will be room for middlemen to survive because of the huge price difference.

In recent years, after domestic prices have plummeted, the price differences across East Asia have become even greater, and a series of strange phenomena have now emerged.

For example, in Qindao, in order to attract tourists from South Korea, low-priced aviation fuel is provided to several domestic airlines flying this route. The aviation fuel mixed with biodiesel costs only 4500 yuan per ton.

By taking advantage of low-cost fuel, flights on this route can maintain a round-trip ticket price of 400 yuan for a long time.

In fact, the price of domestic aviation fuel will continue to decline in the future. After all, the production capacity of biodiesel produced from soybean oil and waste cooking oil is rapidly increasing. It is estimated that within two or three years, the price of domestic biodiesel will fall to around 4500 yuan per ton.

With large-scale raw materials, we can indeed be so willful.

Especially in the northern regions where Senzu soybeans and Senzu soybeans are grown on a large scale, biodiesel production capacity will inevitably increase and prices will fall accordingly.

(End of this chapter)