Ekrem came out of the Istanbul City Hall, turned around and spat viciously on the steps. When the guard wasn't paying attention, he quickly ran into a car on the street and drove away.
The officials in the city hall are like deaf people, nodding their heads at everything, and then waiting with expressionless faces for the people who come to do things to give them some money for tea. The local bureaucrats are just that kind of virtuous, and they will smile when they have a few dozen dollars.
Ecorem came here several times to buy second-hand clothes. He paid money and found favors, but to no avail. He came out cursing again today, feeling very angry.
At present, many second-hand clothes on the market are simply smuggled goods, and even the customs duties have not been paid. However, no matter how loudly the owners of the textile industry protest, the upper-class local chickens are still slow to do so.
Who knows when they will react?
When he returned home, Ekrem was so angry that he wanted to throw things. But his son came over and provided a message, "Father, why don't we also do smuggling business?"
"No." Ekrem flatly refused, "I am a sworn enemy of those smugglers, and I will never collude."
The words are upright and inviolable.
"But the factory has very few orders left this month, and production will definitely stop next month." The son shook his head, "If there is no new input, we will lose all profits."
Regarding profits, the son is more worried than his father.
Ecorem frowned, but still shook his head in disagreement. His son continued: "My friend said that there is a batch of low-priced leather shoes at the port..."
"I will never do the smuggling business." Ekrem said angrily, "It's those damn smugglers who brought our family's factory to its current situation. I can't reconcile with those villains."
"But those leather shoes are really cheap." The son whispered: "Actually, they can't be considered smuggling. They are confiscated goods by the customs. They are all left-footed shoes."
"What?" Ecorem was a little surprised, "They are all left shoes, who is wearing them?"
The son chuckled and said: "So this batch of confiscated goods is very cheap. If it can be matched with another batch of right-footed shoes, it can be sold normally."
Ekrem has been doing business all year round and knows everything about it. He said in surprise: "So there will be another batch of right-footed shoes that will be confiscated?"
The son nodded and said: "We must first buy about 30,000 left shoes, and then wait for the second batch of customs auctions to buy the right shoes.
You need to spend some money to ask someone to provide information, otherwise it is easy to make mistakes. But I have contacted the exporter and the customs and they will let it go. The key is that these shoes are really cheap, only twenty dollars a pair."
"Second-hand shoes?"
"No, new shoes."
"Is it the product of that 'Holy Light' Group again?"
"The name is a European company, but it's unclear who is behind it."
Ecorem thought deeply about this, and asked his wife to bring him a cup of black tea with sugar. After drinking it in a big gulp, he began to think - since it was goods confiscated and auctioned by the customs, it was naturally not smuggled goods.
It's not smuggled goods, so the burden on my heart is much lighter.
The price of twenty dollars a pair is really impressive, but...
"The quality of these shoes is not bad, right?" Ekrem asked.
The son immediately took out more than a dozen pairs of shoes from home and handed them to his father one by one. "They are all leather uppers and hard rubber soles. Although we hate 'Holy Light', the quality of this company's products is still guaranteed."
The shoes are indeed very good. The materials are solid, the workmanship is exquisite, and the glue and threads used are very good. They are impeccable. Ekrem tore the shoes destructively and found no major problems.
"When did Chinese-made shoes become so good? The quality is no worse than Italian ones. They only cost twenty dollars a pair, which is too cheap."
Ecorem was a little excited. Judging from his decades of business experience, this kind of shoes costs forty or fifty in wholesale and one hundred in retail. For a pair of twenty dollars, you can make a profit.
The son whispered beside him, "I recently heard a rumor that the Holy Light seems to be deliberately attacking our manufacturing industry and using various methods to dump on us, even if it does not make any money or even lose money.
Therefore, the prices of light industrial supplies around the Black Sea, and even in North Africa and Europe have been significantly reduced recently. For example, home appliances are discounted by more than 50%, second-hand clothing is everywhere, and toys, bags, shoes and socks are very cheap."
"It's so hateful."
Ecorem slammed the table so hard that everyone in the family was startled.
Blocking someone's way of making money is like killing one's parents.
So Ecorem looked down at the leather shoe sample in his hand again, and suddenly realized a key question, "Wait a minute, who is the original buyer of this batch of goods?"
The son suddenly became embarrassed and lowered his voice and said: "There is no original buyer, so it is an auction item confiscated by customs."
How could there be no original buyer? Otherwise, a fool would buy these left-footed shoes? Unless the original buyer is...
Ecorem stared at his son, who could only lower his head and said: "I and a few good friends pooled money to do this business.
But we have a relationship with the customs, and they all know it. As long as it goes through the auction process, everything is legal. It will never be investigated."
Yes, except for your own family, who would buy 30,000 pairs of shoes that are only for the left foot?
This really has to do with the customs. Otherwise, the confiscated items will not be auctioned but burned instead. Wouldn’t it be a waste of time and empty-handed?
"Your good friend is from the customs, right?" Ecorem stared at his son, "How much does he charge?"
Hearing his father relent, his son nodded excitedly, "The management fee of two dollars for a pair of shoes guarantees that we can get what we want, and we will never go wrong."
The price is quite reasonable and the profit margin is still sufficient.
And...it's very legal.
I patted my left foot and then my right foot. It came out through a formal process. The procedures were complete and I couldn't find any faults.
"Since it is a legal and legitimate business, I can do it."
Ecorem nodded, and after a little calculation in his mind, he realized that the profits of this 'legitimate business' were actually quite high. A pair of shoes could earn at least ten dollars, and thirty thousand pairs would be three hundred thousand dollars.
You can't earn so much by processing and producing 30,000 shirts.
The family owns a garment factory, and although they have not been involved in the leather shoe business, they can still draw parallels. The sales channels are ready. As long as the price is competitive, there is no problem in selling these shoes.
Without further ado, Ekrem decided to take action himself. He first called a textile supplier he knew and inquired about the current market situation of leather shoes. He also brought samples to visit store customers in person to finalize purchase intentions.
Then it was time to go to the customs building at the port to handle the auction matters.
When I walked outside the building, I saw that there were a lot of people coming to handle the auction business. There were people auctioning shoes and hats, auto parts, household appliances, and inevitably textiles and clothing.
The quantity of this auction can be much larger than that of transshipment by fishing boats in small coastal ports.
Small fishing boats cannot transport dozens of tons, usually only a dozen tons. However, large cargo ships arrive at the port with tens of thousands of tons, and overwhelming cargo pours in.
Ecorem looked at the crowd of auctioneers and thought to himself that there was more than one factory that was going to die. The garment factory was going to be destroyed, and the shoe factory was going to be destroyed too.